HAIKU DIALOGUE – Allusion – Connections to the Past

Many thanks to Guest Editor Lakshmi Iyer for this exploration of mountains & rivers. Next, please welcome Guest Editor Allyson Whipple with an interesting dive into the world of allusion… happy writing! kj

Allusion with Guest Editor Allyson Whipple

Though the writing of haiku is often a solitary act, each individual effort is part of a centuries-old tradition that is bound up in a larger collective impulse. Allusion allows us to be in dialogue with both the past and present, focused within the world of literature or expanding out to broader cultural memory. Using allusion also reminds us that nobody creates in a vacuum; our poetic selves are comprised of all we have written, studied, and experienced. Over the next several weeks, we will focus on writing allusive haiku that foster our sense of a global haiku collective.

prompt: Connections to the Past

I don’t believe that allusion is about showing off the depth of one’s knowledge. Rather, it’s about exploring and strengthening our connections to the poets who came before us. Even if we know them only on the page, we’re part of the same literary continuum.

Not only does allusion help us stay in connection with the literary past, but it allows for a greater emotional and intellectual breadth in such a short poetic form. The inherent challenge in allusive haiku is that you can’t guarantee that every reader will know the referent work. However, that points to the key feature of strong haiku: the poem should work regardless of whether or not the reader knows the allusion. The new haiku is both connected to the past and functions independently in the present.

To keep things manageable, I am providing seed poems for this prompt. This week, I want to practice alluding to the earliest days of haiku. Please use “Haiku Samplers from Japan: From the Beginning to Bashō’s Time” and “Haiku Samplers from Japan: Buson through Issa” (both translated by Jim Kacian) as your inspiration this week. You may pick any of the haiku in these samplers to serve as your allusive focus.

Please include your seed poem and the poet’s name along with your original haiku. That will help me avoid any misunderstandings that might prevent me from fully understanding your work. I’m excited to read your haiku, and I hope this challenge helps you feel a connection to poets of the past.

In the Poem box on the Submission form, please follow this format with the seed poem first followed by your original haiku.

Master poet

the seed poem
by the master poet
is an inspiration

this is
my poem
in response

my name
my place of residence

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday April 19, 2025

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry. (The Submit button will not be available until the Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in.) In the Poem box, with your poem(s), please include any special formatting requirements & your name & residence as you would like it to appear in the column. Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

Join us next week for Allyson’s selection of poems on the topic of Connections to the Past…

Bios:

Guest Editor Allyson Whipple is the author of the haiku chapbook Postcards from Texas (Cuttlefish Books), as well as two free-verse chapbooks. She is the founding editor of Haiku Girl Summer and currently serves as the managing editor of Frogpond, and is at work on her reference work The Culinary Saijiki.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Photo Credit:

Banner photo credit: “Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals”, mid 1700s. Attributed to Tatebayashi Kagei (Japanese, active mid-1700s). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1960.183.

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.