HAIKU DIALOGUE – Avian Adventures – Diversity (1)

This Post Has 39 Comments

1. Thank you Nancy ..Enjoyed the nice collection .
   Sri Lankan haiku is new to the world as we have recently started participating globally. Thank you so much for selecting 2 poems from Sri Lanka .
   These are the nice ones that took my heart.

   awakening…
   the same but different
   robin song

   C.X.Turner
   United Kingdom
   circling hawks-
   alarm symphony
   in action

   Radhika De Silva
   Colombo, Sri Lanka

   never too small
   to make a difference
   winter wren

   Lori Kiefer
   London UK

   Wish you success!
   Lanka Siriwardana

   1. Hi Lanka,

      I wasn’t aware that Sri Lankan haiku is new. I have noticed more poets from Sri Lanka recently; now I know why. I am seeing more haiku from there. The fact that the global community of poets is growing is diversity in and of itself.

      You’ve chosen some wonderful haiku to highlight. Thank you. I am sure the poets are pleased as well.

      Continued success is your poetic journey, Lanka.
      ~nan

2. Hi Nancy,

   Many thanks for your review of so many haiku! I love the selection you printed and I feel humbled that you chose mine when you had so many wonderful haiku before you.

   This one made me smile.

   never too small
   to make a difference
   winter wren

   Lori Kiefer
   London UK

   I interpreted this to mean: Despite all our differences in size, color, religion, beliefs… that even the smallest and most unassuming among us has a voice worth raising and worth being listened to. What a wonderful song sung to us by this winter wren.

   1. Hi Holly,
      You are welcome; I’m glad you are pleased.

      Yes, I, too, liked Lori’s haiku; I like your interpretation of it, too. Whether Lori meant it that way or not, this interpretation is profound. Thanks for expressing this. ~nan

3. Finding my haiku included in your selection means so much to me! Thank you so much.

   1. Al,
      You are welcome. All the birds of different species together chattering, getting along, in one tree…if only humans would.

4. Thank you so much Nancy for selecting my debut haiku to Haiku Dialogue. I really enjoyed myself reading your selection of amazing haiku on our feathered friends. Yes, I learnt a lot from our fellow haiku friends from around the world. I wish you all the best in your haiku journey. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Katherine and Lora for their hard work.

   1. Thanks, Radhika, I’m glad you submitted and that I got the honor of selecting your debut haiku. It feels amazing to see your name in print (or least it did for me). Keep reading and keep writing, and I hope you enjoy reading next week’s commentary on some of the haiku I selected for the short list. Yes, Kathy and Lori do a fantastic job. I am so thankful for their help through this month. Now, to finish that up. All my best.

5. What an interesting way to bring us all together! Thank you for including my poem in your long list. There are so many that stand out to me. Here are three of them.

   mistle thrush
   by the rustic trellis
   a blackbird song

   Mike Gallagher
   Ireland

   ~ These words are lovely to read, both silently and aloud. I looked up the mistle thrush and read that a female blackbird is similar in appearance.

   newborn’s hair
   black and slick…
   young raven

   Ana Growl
   Surrey, UK

   ~ the foreboding appearance of an adult raven and the symbolism that is often attached – here we are reminded that they, too, were once babies.

   preschool –
   coloring a blue jay
   with the green crayon

   Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
   Fairlawn, Ohio USA

   ~ I recently colored a parrot in a grownup coloring book and looked up pictures to get it ‘right’. This poem reminded me of the bold creativity and impulsiveness we tend to lose along the way. I also imagine the preschooler not staying ‘in the lines.’

   1. April,
      You’re welcome.
      As for the three you mentioned, I agree with you. As for Gallagher’s mistle thrush (and I had to look that bird up) haiku, the wording of the haiku is both alliterative and musical. All those t sounds and s sounds.

      I really like the comparison of newborns with their slick hair to the young raven’s slick feathers, too. I think it is easy to forget (not see) the youngster in an adult whether a child or a bird, but we all went through that once ourselves. Well except for Athena who sprang out of Zeus’s head fully grown, but I digress.

      I think as adults we tend to do exactly what you did…tried to get the parrot ‘right’ but Valentina’s haiku reminds us of a time when we were freer-thinkers. There’s a Harry Chapin song, “Flowers are Red,” about a young boy who likes to draw flowers in varying colors and gets in trouble for it, finally indoctrinating him so much he can’t do anything but follow the rules. Every time I hear it, it saddens me. As a writer-friend of mine says in his book of off-the-wall suggestions, Use All the Colors, use all the colors life presents.

      Thanks for commenting on some of the haiku I really liked.

6. Thanks much, Nancy for including my haiku in this Avian Diversity selection.
   A fabulous read.
   I particularly liked

   photo session the foreign faces I’m wearing

   Mirela Brailean
   Romania

   A powerful poem.

   And

   beside
   the jackfruit
   beehive

   Jagajit Salam
   Imphal, India

   A similarity I had never thought about.

   1. Govind,
      You’re welcome; it was my pleasure include your haiku.

      I agree with your assessment about Mirela’s haiku. It is powerful and can be looked at more than one way.

      Yes, Jagajit’s jackfruit/ beehive side by side comparison was quite interesting. Jackfruit was one of those words I had to look up because I was unfamiliar with it (to be honest, I had never heard of it before), but once I saw some photos of it, I understood better the haiku and just felt it needed to be read by others. Isn’t it wonderful to learn new things? (Ancora imparo–I am still learning!)

   2. Dear haiku friend, I am glad you appreciate my haiku! You find a real treasure here, right? so many great haiku!

      1. Hi Mirela,
         Yes, several people have mentioned liking your haiku, and there are many great haiku in the mix. Our global community of haiku poets is certainly represented here this week as well as all the others. If only the rest of the world could be as peaceful as haiku poets…

7. The world would be very dull without our avian friends. It’s lovely to give them space here on Haiku Dialogue, thank you, Nancy, and for including one of mine.

   A rather sad one from Caroline, which could be taken in two ways:

   Birds in my garden –
   so many songs
   I no longer hear

   Caroline Ridley-Duff
   UK

   Impaired hearing especially as one ages is no joy; and residing, as I do, in a town with too many stray cats. The only safe birds here are swallows and swifts.

   And a happy one:

   party girls in pink
   line dancing
   …galahs

   wanda amos
   Old Bar, Australia

   What fun! I can just see this, can’t you?

   1. Ingrid,
      First, you had me checking out jobbies, and I loved your comparison between the colorful peacock and the plain birds. We definitely need color in our world, but we need the jobbies, too.

      I felt the sadness of Caroline ‘s haiku, too. Missing bird songs for whatever reason, and it would be devastating to me since I try to wake early enough (early summer only as I am more of a night owl than an early morning person) to listen to the tuning up of one, then two, then more birds as the night turns to sunrise. I can’t imagine losing that joy.

      As for Wanda’s haiku, yes, you are absolutely right. It’s happy and I, too, could see this. Just makes me smile, and I bet it did for you as well. I did have to look up galah though.

      Thanks for commenting on these two as they were two that hit me from my first reading of them.

8. Always a pleasure to read the Dialogue. Notable for me were:

   a) for its ingenuity and transitions in just four words:

   swift flight correction swallow
   — Herb Tate
   UK

   and b) for its sweet simplicity, and how it can be generalised to many other activities:

   mockingbird…
   his song
   of songs

   — Laurie Greer
   Washington, DC

   Love ’em.

   1. Keith, I agree with you on both haiku as well as always enjoying the column each week. Watching swifts make course corrections is awesome. One night a couple summers ago, when the muffleheads (midges) were forming their mating “cloud,” the swifts were zipping here and there, eating well. ~Nan

   2. ….It’s so easy to mistake swallows and swifts on the wing…

      1. Keith,
         Agreed! I don’t think my eyes could easily distinguish them in flight, they move so fast. I think that’s why the haiku works so well, I also think those were swallows grabbing their dinner on the fly. Here, we have several types of swallows and from photos, they were probably barn swallows. Regardless, that night of their feast, I was so fascinated watching them that I thought a few of them might hit me before veering swiftly away.

9. baby herons molting into the blue
   /
   Lorraine A. Padden
   San Diego, California USA
   /
   This haiku has a nice flow to it.

   1. Valentina, I agree with you; it flows. Herons are such graceful birds, and I could just see it.
      ~Nan

10. Congratulations on your first time guest editing, Nan! What a wonderful job you’ve done. I was particularly delighted to find 3 of my favorite poets (and people) all in a row.

    raven
    in a snow storm
    all the more visible

    Jerome Berglund
    Minneapolis, Minnesota

    mother loves
    every hatchling—
    cuckoo too

    Stephen J. DeGuire
    Los Angeles, CA

    in every
    murmuration, several
    still whispers

    Curt Linderman
    United States

    1. Eavonka,
       It was just a coincidence that your friends are paired together, but I am glad you appreciate their haiku. I obviously liked their haiku, too. Watching starlings’ murmurations fascinate me; it’s a wonder I didn’t have an accident the first time I saw the birds flying in unison. ~Nan

11. Thank you for including me! I’ve been writing Haiku as a centering meditation and means to share thoughts with other writers for the last couple of years, but this is my first entry into anything! I’ve found countless hours of serenity in the woods, befriending my bird and squirrel neighbors. To this day, I know my many yard critters by individual name; ie: “Red and Cardi”, our Cardinal couple, and “STOPIT!”, the woodpecker who loves our siding, lol!

    1. Linda,
       Glad you joined the dialogue. Your approach to haiku sounds wonderful, and getting out into nature can’t be beat. I can’t claim to have named our birds, but we do call the squirrels around our neighborhood, Ralph, after the one who was so friendly. Of course, it might be because of my throwing of peanuts for the jays.
       ~Nan

12. Congratulations Nancy on publishing your first column. Thank-you for choosing my
    haiku. Thank-you also to Kathy, Lori, and the Haiku Foundation.

    1. Thanks, Valentina, and you’re welcome. My favorite bird is the blue jay so your haiku really resonated with me. By the way, when I was looking up some other bird, I discovered that there are green jays. Did you know that? I certainly learned a thing or two about birds this past week.

       I owe a great big thanks to Kathy, Lori, and the Haiku Foundation, too. They are awesome .

13. Thank you Nancy for taking us in a journey into the avian world. My knowledge is limited to common local and garden birds, hence it has been a blast, travelling the globe.

    1. Robert,
       I hope you (and everyone else) enjoy the journey. I spent a great deal of time looking at the various birds mentioned in everyone’s haiku including your Dunnock song. My bird knowledge has increased, if not exponentially, at least, greatly. I am more of a backyard birder although my husband and I did get to see some beautiful birds when we in Kenya like the Egyptian goose on the title page.
       ~Nan

14. Thank you, Nancy, for including me on this list on the theme of diversity.
    The couple of egrets is in my heart: lives here. There’s plenty of great birdwatching in the area.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWqAHpInFNs
    I wish you only the best!
    Congratulations to all.
    Barbara Anna Gaiardoni

    1. Barbara,
       After viewing the video, I can certainly believe that it is a great place to watch birds. We have egrets and herons in the summer although lately some of them have been wintering here. Egrets and herons, especially the Great Blue, are so majestic looking.
       ~Nan

15. Thank you Nancy for wonderful theme, a joy to read each haiku and to be included.

    1. Margaret,
       Thanks for your vote of confidence on the theme, and it was a joy to read them all. Any favorites among them?

       ~Nan

16. Mirela,
    Your monoku certainly addressed diversity in a unique way. As someone who takes digital photographs, I am often amazed later by what I captured on “film” when I go through the photos I took. Living in Europe as you do I imagine you do get many foreign faces even if inadvertently, yet those faces can be captivating. Well done to you even if I read something into your minimum you didn’t mean.

    Thanks for commenting and thanks for submitting your monoku, too.

    1. I hate auto-correct. How could it manage to change HAIKU into MINIMUM? Although…haiku is a minimalist poetry form. FWIW

       1. Hahaha, it came out as a nice play on words. Dear Nancy, it often happens to me too!

          1. Mirela,
             I think it was supposed to be monoku that auto-correct made into minimum. I am glad you found humor in it. I often write haiku about crocuses, and I don’t know how many times auto-correct changed it to circuses. Obviously Bill Gates and other computer geeks don’t know about the flower.

             As I am about to hit the Post Comment button, I wonder if it will auto-correct me again.

17. Thank you, Nancy, for including me on this list of successful haiku about failures! I have to ponder every poem…there were quite a few that stood out to me. I love poems that make me stop and think which is exactly what happened here. Best regards to all the contributors.

Comments are closed.