HAIKU DIALOGUE – Dreams – Future and Past – commentary

Dreams with Co-Guest Editors Sherry & Zoe Grant

Dreams. Where do they come from? Can we foresee the future? Are our conscious thoughts during the day reflected in dreams at night? So many questions yet no definite answers. Dreams can be vivid, or half forgotten; they can be spun into beautiful poems or analysed and studied using Freudian techniques. Some dreams can be soothing, while nightmares are mostly disturbing. Dreams have EVERYTHING to do with our mental health and well-being. Dreams can be abstract or measurable, they can also be the start of something great, for as soon as you dream of something, you send out a message to the universe and the universe might just respond for your wishes to come true. It remains Zoe’s and my dream to inspire at least one billion people with what we create together: perhaps dreaming something up is rather like setting a tangible goal…Zoe and I promote haiku and rengay through editing our own poetry journals, chalk on the walk haiku and monoku, hosting workshops and our own online radio station because we strongly believe that our joint efforts can lead us all to the Next Golden Age. We have been gathering up our own “army” to combat commercialism in an age of depression, in the hopes to heal the world with the power of arts and creativity. Zoe and I would like to bring back kindness and gratitude through building networks and global communities, so nobody will have to feel alone or left out. In November 2025 Zoe and I will host our 5th online international music, poetry & arts festival to celebrate my favourite composer Alexander Scriabin’s (Russia, 1872-1915) 110th as well as haiku poet Fukuda Chiyo-ni’s (Japan, 1703-1775) 250th anniversaries since death. We would like to now leave you with Chiyo-ni’s beautiful haiku about dreams, translated to English by Marco Fraticelli in his book A Thousand Years: The Haiku and Love Letters of Chiyo-ni. Come dream with us!

dream fragment
a butterfly
through wildflowers

– Chiyo-ni

Below is Sherry’s & Zoe’s commentary for Future and Past:

Zoe’s comments:

Happy New Year everyone! We have chosen to comment on many haiku this time and we hope you like them too!

These two animal poems are super cute! I can just imagine myself petting those fluffy creatures. I used to have a kitten named Cookie (the Captain) and my mum and I wrote about him in poems a lot.

zillions of paws
hug human hands –
a blanket of snores

Anne Curran
Hamilton, NZ

 

hoping to be
the captain of a ship…
ducklings on pond

Mircea Moldovan
România

Butterflies are so elegant and pretty. They’re also a symbol of transformation. When we enter the world of dream, we can be anything! These butterfly poems make me a little sad though.

dreaming
of dancing through trees
a tiny chrysalis

madeleine kavanagh
United States

 

all that remains
of yesterday’s dreams
butterfly dust

Ravi Kiran
India

 

country house
my request to become
a butterfly rejected

Vandana Parashar
India

Is magic real? It would be nice to be able to do anything – if only I had a magic wand…maybe in a dream!

the Yellow Brick Road
after all these years
gold dust on my shoes

Greer Woodward
Kamuela, Hawaii USA

 

my magic wand
all the stray black cats
follow me home

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

One of my favourite TV shows is Doctor Who. I love how he can travel through time and space in a tiny police phone box called the ‘tardis’ and go on many adventures. However, it is frustrating when one gets “stuck”, like the ‘kite’ in the second poem.

the tardis won’t start my time traveler’s dream

Sharon Ferrante
Florida, USA

 

dreamless . . .
a kite suspended
into the blue

Daniela Misso
Italy

These two haiku use sound and smell very well. The ‘mermaid dream’ is adorable, although anyone would get annoyed when a sweet dream gets interrupted like that. It reminds me of ringing phones in the middle of concerts. The ‘bookstore’ poem feels nostalgic by combining the smell of used books and ‘old dog’, wet from the rain.

an abrupt end
to the mermaid dream
ringing phone

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

the dream recurs
used bookstore
the old dog smells of rain

Ron Scully
Burien USA

I don’t usually have very scary dreams, but I’ve had dreams about getting lost or super embarrassing moments. I enjoy these autumn poems. The first poem sends chills right up my spine, and the second one reminds me of the opening of DreamWorks movies.

autumn chill . . .
a mannequin dreams
of flesh and bone

Sandip Chauhan
Virginia, USA

 

autumn angling—
lost in a daydream
by the still pond

John Zheng
Mississippi, USA

These poems are dreams about distant memories. I think they are lovely and innocent, perhaps the memory of ‘daisy’ and ‘doll’ came from childhood.

window with daisies –
I remember you
from an old dream

Steliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania

 

starlit sky …
the moon in a dream
wears her doll’s scent

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

World peace is a very big topic for a kid like me. Sometimes there are dreams that seem impossible to achieve, like inspiring a billion people, but if we try, anything is possible! World peace is possible too, if we all work on finding a solution together. My mum and I both think poetry will play a big part, as the haiku way certainly promotes harmony and peace through understanding one another!

world peace
I hope it’s not too big
for my dreamcatcher

Marjolein Rotsteeg
The Netherlands

Sherry’s comments:

Again there were so many beautiful haiku as well as funny ones in this submission for our prompt two of “Dreams — Future and Past”. Instead of analysing the selected poems, I would prefer to share my observations over groups of haiku and leave the readers to FEEL or TASTE these poems for themselves. It was an interesting experience having to edit this issue over the phone with Zoe since we were in different parts of NZ, and to copy/paste over a hundred poems on an iPhone for the long list was quite a tricky task! Zoe and I are also looking forward to sharing some of these selected poems in our future Next Golden Age radio shows and Chalk on the Walk Haiku. Viva le haiku!

In a world plagued by wars, these poets haven’t forgotten to show us the beauty of surroundings which further deepens the sense of loss. Why should we be fighting those who think differently instead of helping one another out?

snowflakes
whirling over battlefields
the orphan girl’s cranes

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

peace center
built of my museum
of broken things

Kathabela Wilson
USA

 

no more wars
weapons turn
into toys

Radhika De Silva
Sri Lanka

Nobody likes nightmares. We all have to somehow cope with our fears. I have learned over the years it is possible to let go of the past, lower unrealistic expectations and follow one’s own heart to live a happier, more fulfilling, confident life and shine!

chased
by nightmares
chasing dreams

Luck Chou
Taiwan

 

childhood dreams
of the mountaineer …
always falling

Barry Smith
New Zealand

It’s always been our ancestor’s dream to fly like a bird or run like a jaguar. Now we have new technology to achieve these travel dreams, however at the same time, technology brings new problems.

migratory birds –
when my child wants wings
instead of the arms

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

empty air the weight of unused wings

anne fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

dreams of space travel
my claustrophobia died
from overheating

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

Sometimes a change of environment is good for the mind and the body. It’s indeed a miracle to be alive and breathing. Take a pause to breathe, deep and slow, and enjoy the haiku way of life.

fresh air
I find solace
in another homeland

Lavender Hahn
USA

 

living the dream still living

Nick T
Frome, Somerset, England

 

breathing slows
to a heron’s pace
dream yoga

marilyn ashbaugh
usa

We can all use a bit of excitement in a seemingly repetitive life at times. And quite often it comes in rather unexpected ways. I enjoy the humour in these poems.

and the crowd goes wild irises

John Pappas
USA

 

loo attendant
at Paddington Station
copper pipe dreams

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

I sense a profound powerlessness in these dreams. Sometimes even dreaming is a luxury.

the permission to dream a xylophone

Engin Gülez
Ankara, Turkey

 

inside his dream my wordlessness

Ranice Tara
India

 

hospice sky
a bit of starlight
in her dreams

Mona Bedi
New Delhi, India

In Chinese we have a saying 新年新希望 which roughly translates to “new resolutions for the new year”. Our lives might be filled with wishes and unfulfilled dreams, but as long as we continue to dream, life is worthwhile. Each day is a miracle and potentially the start of a new dream!

origami stars
all my deferred dreams
in a glass jar

Jackie Chou
United States

 

gibbous moon
pregnant
with wishes

Wilda Morris
Bolingbrook IL

These dreams sound very exotic to me. I love the use of local colours in haiku, and we as readers learn so much about other cultures.

siesta dream
under a yucca
el norte

Steve Bahr
Roseburg, Oregon USA

 

chalk and duster
six yards of dreams draped
in mom’s sari

Nitu Yumnam
India

As a mother of four children, I appreciate the playfulness of this haiku. Education can be fun because mother is their children’s first teacher. Raising my own kids, I have had to juggle and balance life by wearing so many hats as most mothers do. I think the seesaw analogy works very well.

tutoring my twin
on the seesaw
the ups and downs of teaching

Kelly Sargent
Williston, VT

Finally, I will leave you with a beautifully visual haiku that simply took my breath away at first reading and wish you Happy New Year 2025 and may your dreams come true!

raven’s shadow . . .
sand spills in two streams
from the cracked sundial

Ivan Gaćina
Zadar, Croatia

Join us next week for our next prompt…

Bios:

Guest Editor Zoe Grant, a well-published 10-year-old haiku poet from New Zealand, is the co-author and illustrator of Bat Girl (2020) at the age of 6, and illustrator for Being Katherine (2023) at the age of 9. Her haiku “snowy night” won the first prize at the 2021 NZPS International Haiku Competition (School/Junior) and she is the co-editor of Chalk on the Walk Haiku, Chalk on the Walk Monoku, Haiku Zoo Journal and Raining Rengay. Zoe enjoys drawing, crafts, singing, playing the flute, ballet and writing poetry. She co-hosts the International Rengay Gatherings (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/irg) with her mother Sherry Grant twice a year. This daughter-mother duo plans to go on concert tours to share their poetry and music with the world. Zoe read 250 haiku and other short form poems during the 2022 International Scriabin 150 Festival, and was the judge for two haiku competitions, the 2023 Sri Lankan Haiku Contest and 2023 KM100NZ Haiku Competition (junior category). Zoe is the host of “Haiku Journey”, where she interviews haiku poets and journal editors from around the globe since January 2023. Follow Zoe’s projects at www.linktr.ee/zoe.grant and listen to her interviews at Sherry’s Next Golden Age Radio (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10).

Guest Editor Sherry Grant is a Taiwan-born New Zealand classical concert pianist, cellist, poet, author, translator, radio broadcaster and festival organiser. Her own poetry writing journey started in June 2020, with her youngest daughter Zoe. Since 2021 this mother-daughter duo has been promoting short form poetry by co-editing several journals, presenting at haiku conferences (2020 Haiku Society of America conference and 2022 Haiku Down Under conference) and organising poetry workshops. As a musician, Sherry plays multimedia concert tours around the world (2022 USA/Canada, 2023 Thailand/HK/Taiwan/NZ, 2024 Brazil/Argentina/Chile). Sherry is a well published haiku/cherita/rengay poet. Her rengay written with Alan Peat (UK) won the first prize at the 2021 Otoroshi Rengay Contest. Sherry has organised many international music/arts/poetry festivals including the 2022 International Scriabin 150 Festival, the 2023 KM100NZ Festival for Katherine Mansfield’s centenary and is planning the International Scriabin 2025 Festival and the 2026 International Dialogues Down Under Festival to curate New Zealand and Australian Culture. In July 2024 Sherry started her own online radio station “Next Golden Age” curating world literature, arts, poetry, haiku and music weekly, sometimes including interviews from her “Creative Hub” and “Finding Scriabin” interview series. Find the radio programme schedule at https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/13point10 and subscribe to listen at https://nextgoldenage.substack.com/ Visit www.linktr.ee/sherrygrant for updates on Sherry’s projects and concert tours. Sherry’s upcoming 2025-2026 concert tours are planned for USA, Taiwan, Australia and Europe, including her own solo piano + haiku lecture-recitals and Vio-Latino (https://www.artsinfinitypress.com/vio-latino) with Dutch violist Emlyn Stam.

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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Photo Credits:

Banner photo credit: Sherry Grant

Prompt photo credit: by Regina from Pixabay

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.