HAIKU DIALOGUE – Dreams – Future and Past

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

prompt: Future and Past

Do you remember what you wanted to grow up to be? That kind of dream might change over time, and it might even have been a big and seemingly impossible dream, like becoming a superhero and changing the whole world. Be adventurous – since we only live once, and all the human advancements have been built upon dreams our ancestors once had. Dreams are pathways connecting us with the future and the past, or even another realm and dimension. Be it a fantasy, or realistic goals such as “I want to be a ___ so I can ___”. Perhaps humans are the only species gifted with the ability to dream, but who knows? Share with us your aspirations, whether your dreams have come true or not. There is always hope. Dare to dream!

Easter bunny
waiting for the egg
to hatch

– Zoe Grant (NZ), Stardust Issue 65, May 2022

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday January 04, 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.) With your poem, 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 Sherry’s & Zoe’s selection of poems on the topic of Dreams – Future and Past…

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.