HAIKU DIALOGUE – Allusion – Engaging with Other Forms

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: Engaging with Other Forms

Ekphrasis is a form of allusion in which literature responds to another form of art. While ekphrasis has typically referred to visual art such as painting and sculpture, we can create responses to dance, music, film, or any other art piece. When we create ekphrastic haiku, we are acknowledging the ways in which other forms of art influence our haiku practice. For example, many haiku poets find a spark in Impressionist paintings.

As with the past two prompts, keep in mind that an ekphrastic haiku should still be a quality poem in its own right, regardless of whether or not the reader knows the allusion. In addition, I recommend against using the title of the work as a line in your poem. Instead, explore how you can evoke the work without stating the obvious. (If you’re new to ekphrasis as a concept, I recommend reading Charles Trumbull’s essay “Ekphrastic Haiku,” which was originally published in Frogpond 44.1)

This week, I want you to practice writing haiku that are in conversation with another art form. You are not limited to painting or other visual arts. You can reference a song, a film, or a piece of theatre. As long as I can find it, you can use it!

Please provide an internet link to the work you are alluding to along with your submission. Now that we’re not working with specific source texts, me being able to access the source material is all the more important. If you want to allude to a long-form work like a feature film or a full-length play, a link to an IMDB or Wikipedia page is fine. Thank you for joining me on this exploration of allusion in haiku. I’m excited to see this final round of poems.

In the Poem box on the Submission form, please follow this format with the title of the seed work of art and an internet link to it followed by your original haiku.

Mona Lisa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

this is
my poem
in response

my name
my place of residence

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday May 31, 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 Engaging with Other Forms…

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.