HAIKU DIALOGUE – Ekphrasti-ku… In the Realms of the Unreal

Ekphrasti-ku with Guest Editor Pippa Phillips

Once upon a time, under the dubious influence of Nietzsche, I grew despairing of the undeniable fact that I wasn’t a cool Dionysian at all, but a nerdy and visually fixated Apollinian. Once I got over myself, I leaned into it. There’s nothing I like more than taking a sketchbook to a museum on one of its free days. This time, I’d like to take you with me, to visit some of my favorite paintings, and the stories behind them, on a kind of digital ginko walk. These paintings are rich with detail and all are open to metatextual rumination. I look forward to seeing how they inspire you.

next week’s theme: “Hanuman Bearing the Mountaintop with Medicinal Herbs”

The link to “Hanuman Bearing the Mountaintop with Medicinal Herbs” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is here.

Maharishi Valmiki wrote about Hanuman in the Ramayana, an ancient Sanskrit epic concerning the life of Prince Rama, one of Vishnu’s avatars. Much of the text is consumed with the kidnapping of his wife, Sita, by King Havana, and the war that results. Hanuman, son of the wind and a member of an intelligent monkey warrior race known as the Vanaras, assists him, proving his bal (strength), buddhi (intelligence), vidya (wisdom), and above all his loyalty. In many devotional depictions, Hanuman has pulled his chest open to reveal Rama and Sita where his heart should be.

In my favorite story about Hanuman, he is a poet, and he interacts with his author. When Valmiki hears that Hanuman has written his own version of Prince Rama’s tale, the poet seeks out the monkey king’s residence in the Himalayas. He finds Hanuman’s version scratched into the rocks with his sharp fingernails. When Valmiki reads the piece, he is overwhelmed by its beauty, and also sadness, because the greatness of Hanuman’s poem surpasses his own. In response, Hanuman smashes his work to pieces, since he had only created it for his own amusement in the first place. True art is egoless – a lesson haiku teaches, as well.

This devotional image shows Hanuman carrying Mount Dronagiri, on whose peaks grow the medicinal herb Sanjivani, to Rama and Lakshmana, who have been wounded in battle. A little icon of Rama sits on his shoulder, and he carries his lord’s army on the powerful tail that circles his head. I cannot provide a better analysis of this work of art than Nalini Malani. She’s an incredible artist in her own right, and you can find her works here. Consider the army born on the monkey’s tail, the mountain in his hand, and the god on his shoulder. What do you carry, and what is its weight?

Sita Sings the Blues is a cartoon retelling of the Ramayana from Sita’s point of view.

The deadline is midnight Central Time, Saturday February 26, 2022.

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 as you would like it to appear in the column. 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 Pippa’s commentary for “In the Realms of the Unreal”:

three dots . . .
the names of my daughters
that never were

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

An ellipsis denotes silence, something that the experience of miscarriage is often burdened with. It is not just words of expression that are taken away, but the most important word of a person’s life, their name. With these invisible names, Rajkumar makes us ponder the lives they would have led. The choice to use three points as kireji underscores the lives that could have been – after all, these children were only ever given a starting point, not a line.

…………………………………………………………………g..o..d
…………………..the chilling breath
of dawn from the roses

Ash Lippert
South Carolina, USA

A prayer of a poem, God is made into mist, or perhaps he is the sun. There are contradictions in this poem – dawn brings light; breath is warm, yet the breath in this poem is described as chilling – and does it stem from dawn, or from the roses? There are no easy resolutions, stirring a strong sense of yūgen, or sense of mystery. This poem takes a veil off the world, only to reveal more veils.

rondine…
gli occhi spalancati pieni di vento

swallow…
wide open eyes full of wind

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italia)

This striking and surreal image is made even stranger by the asymmetry of its binary composition. A duostitch is one of the rarer forms of haiku, which seems odd, given the disjunctive nature of the poem. This poem is another example of yūgen – the sense of subtle mystery is often coded into air, or mist, or as here, the wind – the swallow is flying. The gentle euphony of repeating ‘w’ creates a sense of up and down air currents that the bird is buffeted on.

red balloon
holding my breath
I let it go

Lafcadio
USA

You may have heard of a short movie called The Red Balloon (Le Ballon Rouge) – in it, a little boy goes about his days with a red balloon that he treats like a pet, and which at times seems to have its own mind. It loyally follows him, even when the pair encounter obstacles, although it has a mischievous nature, as well. I won’t spoil it for you. This poem magicked up that movie right away, with all of the innocence and sadness that penetrated Darger’s work. And finally, what a banger of a pivot line, playing on the double meaning of “holding my breath” to conjure up cautious hope and the whimsical but true notion of the poet’s breath (her words?) being carried away by a balloon. The literal meaning belies the childish wish for the balloon to fly, imbuing the poem with a wistfulness, or more properly, mono no aware, an awareness of the transience of things that heightens their beauty. The love, the breath, the hope of the child is juxtaposed with the inevitable failure of the balloon – the beauty here hinges on its failure to catch.

within the Garden of Eden within the outsider

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

Grammar and syntax are, in my opinion, underexplored aspects of haiku aesthetics. I’d previously mentioned the noun-aptness of haiku. Heading your haiku with prepositions is one way to make a haiku stand out, as it is rare; doubling it up by putting it at the head of the fragment makes it pop. It also gives the poem a sort of rhythm more often than not eschewed within haiku – but this poem is a rebel. I’ve previously noted my bias for pro-Eve poems. Here the poet juxtaposes Eve within the garden and Eve expelled from the Garden, Eve the individual and the sinner in general. It reveals how the story is a form of internalization of original sin, a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.

watching the sun
through my eyelids
ear buds

Tim Cremin
Massachusetts

The juxtaposition of a striking image we have all seen, and the implied song emitted through the earbuds could take you to any song or any place. I was transported to the beach, lying on the sand. I think shasei visuals are striking when extremely minimal. Here we have no modifiers, we are given exactly enough words to summon an idyllic sunbathing session, and there is enough space to fill with the reader’s particular experiences.

& here are the rest of the selections:

sunflowers –
my swing and I
kick a giant’s cloud

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

lockdown
my daughter falling down
the rabbit hole

Florin C. Ciobica
Romania

 

sunny afternoon
escaping the confines
of childhood

Nancy B
Huron, Ohio, USA

 

cinematography how this planet holds us all together

Robert Kingston
United Kingdom

 

real(m) unreal…
the never-never land
of childhood

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

under my bed
a fuffle of dust bunnies
munching lost socks

Terri French
Huntsville, AL

 

spent sunflower
I consider the weight
of a star

Sheila Windsor
Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, U.K.

 

children of the earth
perfect in
and of themselves

Alex Fyffe
Texas, United States

 

my own handmade jewelry
little people and their world
angel cats have wings

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, United States

 

ruched pinafore . . .
summer
surrounds her

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

road by river
through nettles and willows
fish clap

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

i as a child a dot out of circle

Devoshruti Mandal
India

 

tattered towel –
my Superman
cape

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

escaping from a bubble his imaginary world

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

Rappaccini’s daughter
snowflakes drifting down
on black ice

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

forbidden fruit
the threat
of rapture

P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada

 

blooming tree
the child within me
starts to climb up

Helga Stania
Switzerland

 

wingless flight
inside a snow globe
inside me

Ravi Kiran
India

 

the planet realm
of my childhood
I dress up as myself

Deborah P Kolodji
Temple City, California

 

pretend play which me am I going to be today

Vandana Parashar
India

 

prison curfew siren
my mother wears a mask
of cold cream

Colette Kern
Southold, New York

 

walking topsy-turvy
to get a better view
childhood memory

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

faded lines
of the hopscotch court –
chalk moon

Valentina Ranaldi-Adam
Fairlawn, Ohio

 

Doppelgänger —
we can’t all be full
moonlight

Alfred Booth
Colombes, France

 

asylum window
different scenery
every day

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

Himalaya –
Barbies climb up
the closet

Daniela Misso
Italia

 

hidden
under his mattress
her stolen ballet shoes

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton, UK

 

she starts the plane…
higher and higher
swings the swing

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany

 

grounded
the wings I lost
while growing up

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

an dtabharfar ar ais sinn
chuig laethanta ár n-óige?
monabhar na habhann

will it bring us back
to childhood days?
murmuring river

Gabriel Rosenstock
Éire (Ireland)

 

between twilight
and moonlight…
the Ganges runs quietly

Ram Chandran
India

 

looking for a name for the space between two mountains

Pere Risteski
North Macedonia

 

puddle
looking inward
introspection

plas water
binnen richten
Introspectie

Christopher Calvin
Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia

 

curled in the secret realm the cloaks she wears

Madhuri Pillai
Australia

 

single girl child …
so much she fears
her inside out

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

fragile-skinned
my floating self
end of the string

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

a beauty bush
still blooming in a child’s garden
of adversity

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY, USA

 

holding on Platform 9 3/4 my endless curiosity

Melanie Vance
USA

 

playground…
fairies glide up and down
the sliding board

Pris Campbell
US

 

rereading
Dick and Jane
my tail twitches

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

dream snipped
from summertime
CRISPR chimera

Clysta Seney
California, USA

 

little Eye-
made from monster,
tails of girls

Sarah Davies
Bedford, UK

 

petite fawns
scattering the seeds
of future freedom

Marlyn Ward
UK

 

shackled in silk Bombyx mori

Teji Sethi
India

 

(un)folding light—
(un)naming the (un)nameable

Sushama Kapur
Pune, India

 

spring morning –
wild flowers unfold
to sunshine

Paul Callus
Malta

 

in the eyes of a woman
under the cherry
girl

Refika Dedić
Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

i wipe my brow
soles dirty
as i walk away

Jason Freeman
Camden Maine, USA

 

on a swing
I flashback to
childhood acrophobia

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

a new Eden
all masks off
and no doubletakes

Richard Matta
San Diego, California

 

only child only not only (just secret)

Amanda White
Morvah, Cornwall, UK

 

old farm barn –
among heaps of seeds
childhood dreams

vecchio granaio –
tra mucchi di semi
i sogni d’infanzia

Luisa Santoro
Rome, Italy

 

tucked away inside
the parts of her
he never reached

Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson, AZ USA

 

roasted corn –
from where the ducks return in the spring?

(J.D.Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye ”Where do the ducks go when winter comes?”)

Mircea Moldovan
România

 

unknown paradise
i swim
in a cat’s emerald eyes

Keiko Izawa
Yokohama, Japan

 

on Sunday
my son asked
Is heaven full of beautiful women who are half naked?

Nani Mariani
Australia

 

Lego The Painting
all the boys and girls
have no b(ol)locks

Robin Rich
UK

 

dreams come true in the orphan’s dream

Tsanka Shishkova
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

seven girls
waiting for seven colors
rising clouds

Chittaluri Satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India

 

yellow pony tail
the girls call her
Rapunzel

R. Suresh babu
India

 

hometown
back to the child I left
on the swing

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

come play with me
let’s walk on green pastures
naked

Genie Nakano
Gardena, CA

 

outsider
Eve exits Eden—
second bite

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

the creak
of a vine swing
orbiting the moon

Sue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand

 

more real
than the real –
my inner landscape

Marianne Sahlin
Sweden

 

a child at heart
how beautiful to live
with illusions

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

that girl
on the swing-
reaching for the stars

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

woven
in frail young bodies
the power of starlight

Geetha Ravichandran
India

 

virtual friendship –
I’m turning the other cheek
to myself

Cristina Angelescu
Romania

 

in the rubble of war lingering lullabies

Hifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan

 

rabbit hole
following Alice to the
Land of Wonder

跳进白兔洞
一路追随爱丽丝
来到仙境中

tiao jin bai tu dong
yi lu zhui sui ai li si
lai dao xian jing zhong

Xiaoou Chen
Kunming, China

 

then, you were alone
today alone
are we

Bittor Duce Zubillaga
Basque Country

 

they ask the same question
. . . and what would you like to be
when you grow up?

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

ah-bah-suh-duh
more human than human:
Eve + Adam

Paul Millar
United Kingdom

 

another realm
another me
but braver

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

paper dolls…
the strength
of holding hands

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

Heaven
thick with angels…
Once

Luciana Moretto
Treviso-Italy

 

girl on a swing..
the lows and highs of
my bipolar swings

Neera Kashyap
India

 

escape mode
the scrapbooks
under my bed

Pat Davis
NH USA

 

childhood
creating a new life
by the river

Rehn Kovacic
Mesa, AZ

 

feeding a doe
fresh grass
on my fairy frock

Richa Sharma
India

 

the boy steals away the ball
needs to own
his corner of the landscape

Ronald Scully
Burien WA

 

secret garden
hiding in plain sight
I turn the pages

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

emancipation
a cockscomb coloured hat
scatters chickenfeed

simonj
UK

 

always with me
the child in me

Daniela Lăcrămioara Capotă
Romania

 

night cocoon
I too steal
the seed of fire

Anna Yin
Ontario, Canada

 

lakeside beach
i cast a pebble
into the past

James Gaskin
Fukushima, Japan

 

deep autumn–
my childhood playground
becomes smaller

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

little fawn
yes I know
just how it is

James Lindley
USA

Guest Editor Pippa Phillips is a recovering academic who hails from Cape Cod. Her micropoetry has been published in a variety of publications, including Cold Moon Journal, Frogpond, Failed Haiku, Modern Haiku, and The Asahi Shimbun. She also writes long and short-form fiction. She is interested in the intersection of ethics and aesthetics and walking the line between the populist and the experimental. You can find her on Twitter @IpsaHerself and Instagram @pheaganesque.

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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