HAIKU DIALOGUE – Connection with Self

Welcome to Connection, with Guest Editors Tanya McDonald & Kelly Sauvage Angel

The challenges of 2020 have taught us many things, perhaps most significantly the importance of connection—connection with others, connection with one’s self, connection with the natural world. For those who lack a strong support network, the isolation of the past several months (amid job loss, political unrest, violent crime, etc.) has proven traumatic. For others, re-crafting relationships as virtual has been to a lesser or greater degree fulfilling. Only time will reveal how successful we’ve been in nurturing our most treasured connections. We invite you to contemplate what connection means to you, how you’ve come to navigate feelings of isolation, and ways in which you might more fully tend to your relationships (including the one with yourself!) going forward.

next week’s theme: Connection with Natural World

During this unsettling and uncertain year, many people have been turning to nature for solace, for escape, for rejuvenation, for joy. Whether watching nature through one’s window, enjoying it in one’s backyard, or going on a walk, people are reconnecting with something that many have been too busy or otherwise occupied to appreciate. This week, please send us your haiku/senryu about how you’ve been connecting with the natural world. How do you see yourself reflected within the turning leaves?

The deadline is midnight Pacific Standard Time, Saturday December 05, 2020.

Please submit one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme by clicking here: Contact Form. Please put Haiku Dialogue in the Subject box, & include your name as you would like it to appear, & your place of residence, with your poem.

A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week.

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.

below is Tanya’s commentary:

letter to myself—
the slow change
of a river’s course

Pippa Phillips

A letter to oneself serves as a connection to a different part of one’s life. It may be written as an exercise addressing one’s younger self, containing advice and wisdom that one wished their younger self knew, or it may be written to a self in the future as a reminder of what life was like at the time of composition. This haiku doesn’t specify whether the letter is being written, or whether it’s being read, which opens the poem for multiple interpretations. In either case, “the slow change/ of a river’s course” is a skillful example of objectivity in haiku. It encourages readers to consider what the first part of the haiku has to do with the second part and allows readers to draw their own conclusions. In addition, it invites readers to reflect upon their own lives and the ways in which they have or have not changed over the years.

sparkling field frost—
finding I love
solitude

Dorothy Burrows
UK

This haiku begins with a concrete image, immediately drawing the reader into the poem, not just with the image itself, but with what is left unsaid. For there to be frost, it must be cold. For the frost to sparkle, there must be light, possibly sunlight, though it would sparkle in the beam of a flashlight as well. Whether the poet is experiencing the field frost as viewed from a window or while walking through the field is not specified, nor does it need to be. The image is sharp and inviting, and sets up the juxtaposition, which comes in the form of the revelation or confession of the poet: “finding I love/ solitude.” A simple enough statement, yet when taken in context of the pandemic, when isolation has been a hardship for many people, it reveals a keen self-acknowledgement. It’s okay to enjoy being alone. Perhaps the poet has been sheltering-in-place by herself. Or perhaps she’s been in close quarters with one or more people—even people she loves—and has recognized that she values her solitude. The reader is invited to interpret it in whichever way is most meaningful to them. This idea of being comfortable with one’s own self resonates with the image of “sparkling field frost” in a unique and pleasing manner.

below is Kelly’s commentary:

tea ceremony…
making up the rules
for myself

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

Over the course of our lives, many of us have put immeasurable effort into making choices that we have come to understand will lead to a desirable outcome. We treat our lovers well, show up for work on time, even tidy up the dishes before we turn in for the night. Yet, if nothing else, this year has shown us that the crow of good karma knows no direct path. Whether we’ve found ourselves without an income or grieving the absence of someone we thought would be by our side forever, we may have begun questioning what all of that effort was worth.

A tea ceremony has prescribed rules for the way it is to be carried out. They are not to be questioned. However, Greer’s senryu posits the revolutionary notion that, in fact, we can conduct our lives as we wish. After all, these days, no one watching.

thick fog
pacing from illusion
to illusion

Bakhtiyar Amini

In isolation, without the stimuli to which we’ve grown accustomed, many have described the sensation of walking through a fog, navigating a cognitive state that leaves us feeling dull, not as astute as we previously knew ourselves to be. At the same time, we’re faced with the knowledge that what we knew to be is no more—that is, if it ever was.

What Amini gives us here with his masterful use of metaphor is a vivid image of one doing all he can to navigate an (internal or external) environment void of clarity and direction. Our “pacing” only takes us “from illusion to illusion,” which may very well leave us disheartened.

Though it is not explicitly stated, we know that in time the fog that has settled in the lowlands will lift. Positive case percentages will eventually decline. In the meantime, we wander as we must. There is no judgement within this poet’s words.

below are the rest of the selections:

supermom . . .
unknotting
my cape

Sanela Pliško

 

focusing on my essence morning light

Daniela Misso
San Gemini (Terni), Italy

 

pandemic—
I learn to parent
myself

Padma Srinivasan
Dundee, Scotland

 

spring noon—
my shadow reduced
to nothing

Tapan Mozumdar

 

sinking deeper
into the bubble bath
my reflection

Roberta Beary
Count Mayo Ireland

 

making peace
with self—
a fallen parijat*

* Indian Night Jasmine

Teji Sethi
India

 

anxiety blues—
testing scented candles
under my nose

Lamart Cooper

 

Diwali—
putting on a mask
on my mask

Kanchan Chatterjee

 

my quarantine
in a kingfisher’s silence
naked blue sky

Lakshmi Iyer
Kerala, India

 

winter evening—
stirring the soup
for its warmth

Shalini Pattabiraman

 

all the ways
I have never known myself . . .
autumn solitude

Arvinder Kaur

 

gym—
a blind man touches
his muscles

Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

 

night musings
. . . this need to know
myself before God

Vandana Parashar

 

thrush song in fog
all my anxieties
spiral away

Kristen Lindquist

 

squally night
i quieten my trembling
shadow

Vishnu Kapoor

 

morning meditation—
waiting for the laptop
to boot up

Nick T
UK

 

guilty as charged
I blame it all
on my shadow

john hawkhead

 

trimmed
my beard reaffirmed
manhood

paul geiger

 

reinventing myself—
the alter egos I meet
along the way

Helen Ogden

 

out of work . . .
the only credit
……………is a
…soul-searching

Sushama Kapur

 

long walk
and deep breathing . . .
a bird in flight

Zdenka Mlinar
Zagreb, Croatia

 

childhood dream . . .
at last a bamboo basket
with my own hands

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

covid confinement
my dead friends visit
leaf by leaf

Adjei Agyei-Baah
Kumasi, Ghana

 

moonlight—
staring at my shadow
flickering on the wall

Nicole Pottier
France

 

Covid
another notebook
filled

Bryan Rickert

 

no one else around
must be the mountain’s
voice I’m hearing

Tim Cremin
Andover, Massachusetts

 

sheltered from the plague
my agoraphobia
enjoying perfect health

Dana Rapisardi

 

lockdown
with such unpleasant strangers—
me, myself and I

Fern White

 

pandemic record
the length of
my monologues

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

rain
at the flower market
flowers for me

pioggia
al mercato dei fiori
fiori per me

Angiola Inglese

Guest Editor Tanya McDonald (she/her) is known for her bright plumage and her love of birds. An active member of Haiku Northwest since 2008, her haiku, rengay, and haibun have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She has judged various contests, taught haiku workshops, and served as Regional Coordinator for the Washington State region of the HSA. In June 2020, she launched her new, biannual, print haiku journal, Kingfisher. A Touchstone Award winner and a New Resonance poet, she lives near Seattle.

When not penning ku, Guest Editor Kelly Sauvage Angel (she/her) can be found logging miles on the Ice Age Trail. She is the author of Scarlet Apples and Cream, a long out-of-print poetry collection, as well as the novella Om Namah, recognized as a finalist in the 2016 IPPY Awards. Prolific in nature, Kelly’s work has appeared most notably in the white spaces of discarded receipts and utility bills.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

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

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