HAIKU DIALOGUE – Ekphrasti-ku…Tree of Hope, Remain Strong
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: “Nunavut, Our Land”
The link to “Nunavut, Our Land,” from Resilience Project, (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art), which houses Kenojuak Ashevak’s lithograph is here.
Kenojuak Ashevak is probably the most well-known Inuit artist. She worked in Kinngait, formerly known as Cape Dorset, Nunavut, which is the epicenter of Inuit art, before her death in 2013.
Nunavut was created in 1999, carved out of the Eastern part of the Northwest Territories, to be the first Canadian territory effectively governed by its indigenous population. Prior to this was the creation of a homeland for the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic, per the 1993 Tungavik Federation of Nunavut Settlement Agreement.
Ashevak’s piece, “Nunavut, Our Land,” is a lithograph commemorating this initial step. It is a portrait of Nunavut as seen through the eyes of the artist. Mountains border the edge – ‘Kinngait’ means “where the hills are” in Inuktitut. In the landscape you can see native fish, mammals, and birds (the artist famously loved owls), dogsleds, and iglu – the depiction is of traditional life, before snowmobiles and permanent settlements, before the malign effects of colonization. Within this work of art is a cornucopia of potential kigo words specific to Nunavut. Let your inspiration take you North this week, where winter rules the seasons.
Kinngait is full of artists who use traditional techniques in sculpting stone, etching, and printmaking. If you are interested in exploring more Inuit art or purchasing it from the artists, you can visit here.
The deadline is midnight Central Time, Saturday February 5, 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Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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 Tree of Hope, Remain Strong:
dolor
del
colores
los
trepo
—pain
of
colors
the
climb
Irs
Middletown, DE
This is a poem you need to climb up to understand – much like the experience of living with chronic pain. The structure of this poem contributes a lot to its meaning, forcing the reader into an uncomfortable situation so that they share the poet’s perspective. The monoku works on a figurative level – a strong burst of pain can distort your vision, making things brighter – but it also refers to the universal pain assessment tool, which color-codes one’s pain – the poet faces no relief, the poem suggests.
cracks
in her body
covered with snowChittaluri Satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India
Even if I didn’t know this poem was written in response to a painting, the cracks the poet refers to conjure up an aged painting immediately – as well as the fissures and wrinkles that come with age, or the cracked lips that occur in winter. Relief comes here not in the form of blooming flowers or images of spring, but winter snow, an unusual but resonant choice. Rest must come before restoration – after the snow cools the fever, it’s time to hibernate.
enduring pain(t)
Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, United States
This two-word monoku folds a number of meanings into its brevity – first we contrast enduring pain with enduring paint, the former negative, the latter positive. The fact that the ‘t’ of paint is hidden in parenthesis suggests that the artist is attempting to assuage their pain through art, but failing – but when one returns to the question of what endures longest, pain or paint, there is relief in recognizing that the beauty the artist transmits to the canvas will last longer than their suffering.
rift valley –
how painting shiftsher pain
Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom
Another concrete poem whose composition underscores and informs its meaning, Burrows describes the effect of using art to address pain – it doesn’t get rid of it, but it tends to move the pain to a more manageable location. Despite the subject, the tone of the haiku is light, allowing the fragment to be ambiguous between a reading in which it is the subject of the artist’s painting or serves as a counterpoint to her observation.
winter equinox
finding the axis
of my shadowHifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
There is no such thing as a winter equinox, and setting up this seasonal impossibility creates an immediate tension in this poem that will not be remedied. If seasons exist due to the tilt in the global axis, then the poet looks inward, to the seasons that compose herself, her contradictions and impossibilities – her shadow self.
& here are the rest of the selections:
mothering tree
growing hope
from a stumpLaurie Greer
Washington, DC
botched phlebotomy touching a thorn of the rose
Kat Lehmann
Connecticut, USA
hospice
all the waiting
magnolia budsMaurice Nevile
Australia
day into night into day her buzz in the venus trap a song
Eric Lohman
USA
groom’s home . . .
she takes the shape
of her childhood dollMilan Rajkumar
Imphal, India
buckling, this body
of water where my fingers
touch my fingersAsh Evan Lippert
South Carolina, USA
me mantengo derecho
aun sin ayuda tuya
espinazoi hold myself upright
even without your help
backbonePeggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama
end-stage
Mother’s faint smile
at my lullabyIngrid Baluchi
North Macedonia
cold snap…
again the shadow
on his lungsDeborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany
under covers
shrinking
into anotherPaul Millar
United Kingdom
she hides her scars
in a song
ascending larkEva Limbach
Deutschland
in a gloomy sky
the sun and the moon…
the blue painted blueRosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania (Italy)
healing…
I create a new
AvatarAna Drobot
Romania
my wounded self
……my free self
………two skiesHannah Mahoney
Cambridge, MA, USA
Gut knifed- eye to fin,
devices: spine- tree
mother, rip them outSarah Davies
Bedford, UK
cracked earth
the moon softens
my shadowAlex Fyffe
Texas, USA
burning the anodyne inscape of faith
simonj
UK
playing with the wind
on the tree branches
thousand wishesBakhtiyar Amini
Germany
the sun
the moon
our DNARoberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA
wolf moon
the white light over
my gurneyJames Gaskin
Fukushima, Japan
cracked earth….
clouds festoon
the full moonGeetha Ravichandran
India
haiku –
the here and now
of a scarMaria Teresa Piras
Italia
heavenly beings
i exchange bodies
day and nightBaisali Chatterjee Dutt
Kolkata, India
Tree of Hope…
my diary of
self-analysisAna Drobot
Romania
creating my own rhythm five stressed with One unstressed a big score
Melanie Vance
USA
on edge crack pain her shadow
Marcie Wessels
San Diego, CA, USA
Fissure borne and bound—
she stares glassy eyed
at sunbeamsSonika Jaiganesh
United Kingdom
chilly dawn finally i sat on the colder bed
Devoshruti Mandal
India
no more than a step
from moon to sun
old self to newAmanda White
Morvah, Cornwall, UK
red velvet curtains
closed
her hidden scarsMaxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec
listening to the song echo from a hospice ceiling
Dan Campbell
Virginia
granite wings of the ash bird
Mircea Moldovan
România
walking a familiar path
his muddy shoes
at the doorstepDeborah Beachboard
Adna WA
what I named it
what she named it
aborted childBryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA
i cross
oceans of tears…
I singNeena Singh
India
full moon . . .
the ghost of me then me
sings esperanzaAlfred Booth
Colombes, France
finding peace
not finding peace
enduringMargaret Mahony
Australia
bedridden
the play of sun and shadow
on the coast rangeCynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California
blurred boundaries the constancy of pain
Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA
duality . . .
this world of darkness
and lightBill Waters
Pennington, New Jersey, U.S.A.
lighting the dark —
the ancient chants
of my ancestorsMadhuri Pillai
Australia
holding firmly
what’s left of me
in these handsmenggenggam erat
apa yang tersisa dariku
di kedua tangan iniChristopher Calvin
Kota Mojokerto, Indonesia
the lilies
bruised pink –
hard rainsKaushal Suvarna
India
how bright
the colour of this dawn
bleeding suturesArvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India
red silk skirt
my little sister dances
with prostheticsPadma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India
something unknown
keeps you
going and goingBittor Duce Zubillaga
Basque Country
recovery center
unable to hide
the cracks in my façadeSari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY
darkening sky
a blackbird flies under
a rose bushSue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand
lonely night just the cry of a cicada
Mona Bedi
Delhi, India
‘you have your songs too’
—shadows don’t lieSushama Kapur
Pune, India
autumn rain
shaping ideas
from oblivionFlorin C. Ciobica
Romania
pain pill
all the edges
blend into oneLafcadio
USA
the long suns and moons
of recovery
cielitio valienteGreer Woodward
Waimea, HI
flesh subdued
a shoot rising
off the crossMona Iordan
Romania
absorbing all
her attention
pine resin balmClysta Seney
California, USA
cracked earth –
the wound
uncoveredPamela Jeanne
Yukon, Canada
after the earthquake a song of bees
Susan Rogers
Los Angeles
hat flowers
the growing wispiness
of my chemo hairDeborah P Kolodji
Temple City, CA
shoganai –
from my wounds
I start painting a new meCristina Povero
Italy
a song drips
from its body
scalpelTim Cremin
Massachusetts
desert moon her backstory
P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada
exorcising pain
with each stroke
of her brushSharon Martina
Illinois, US
halflight closing in her best dress
Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK
bridging each abyss my flower crown
Richa Sharma
India
birth room –
instead of anesthesia
wisteria perfumeDaniela Lăcrămioara Capotă
Romania
dressing in red
her permanent scar
cut by the moonjohn hawkhead
Bradford on Avon, UK
emotional scars the bandage of your words
Jackie Chou
United States
from the teeth
to the eye of it
maybe a breath’s lengthAlan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom
carry my bruises
to the silver heel
of mother moonKelli Lage
IA, USA
it keeps growing
behind the dark
there is lightNani Mariani
Australia
tree scars songs I can’t sing
Anette Chaney
Harrison, Arkansas
dove’s coos…
constant from the window
of my cancer wardNeera Kashyap
India
flicked farthing
caught in moonlight
bares a scarRobert Kingston
Chelmsford, United Kingdom
dark sun
the orange core
of my painSuraja Roychowdhury
Lexington, MA, USA
i sing myself green songs
Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India
chemo session-
a ladybug slowly moves
across the crotonRam Chandran
India
vertical horizon
tilting the world
my wayFirdaus Parvez
India
holding the song
that rises from a scar
metal braceRavi Kiran
India
sickbed –
behind the curtains
a birdsongletto di malattia –
dietro le tendine
un canto di uccelliDaniela Misso
Italia
hemicrania
beside herself
with painAnn Smith
United Kingdom
graffitti mural –
a billy goat
licks the ivy greenR. Suresh babu
India
tree planting
my son’s tiny hands
trim the rootsAnna Yin
Ontario, Canada
Esperanto
learning the language
of hope学习世界语
祈愿隔阂不复存
希望在人间xue xi shi jie yu
qi yuan ge he bu fu cun
xi wang zai ren jianXiaoou Chen
Kunming, China
riverside—
softly singing Cohen’s
SuzanneHelga Stania
Switzerland
tilled soil…
a lark spirals
upwardRandall Herman
Victoria, Texas
decoding metaphors
sometimes
there’s just painVandana Parashar
India
fossilized wood
a black widow feeding
on its venomTeji Sethi
India
La Campanella—
standing ovation
for the blind pianistKeiko Izawa
Yokohama, Japan
starless sky…
I fill the blank canvas
with my heartbreaksKavya Janani. U
India
day and night
these pangs of hope
palomas mexicanasBillie Dee
San Miguel, New Mexico
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.
The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy.
Please note that all poems & images appearing in Haiku Dialogue may not be used elsewhere without express permission – copyright is retained by the creators. Please see our Copyright Policies.
This Post Has 31 Comments
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Many thanks, Pippa, for including my poem in your commentary this week. I was thrilled to see it there and indeed learnt more about my own poem from your analysis than I had seen in it myself. Congratulations to all the poets in this week’s dialogue. There are so many thought-provoking and moving responses and I have loved reading them all. I am so enjoying this series of prompts and commentaries as I am not only learning more about haiku but also about art. Thank you also to Kj and Lori for all your work.
Thanks Pippa for the very educative and interesting challenges. Learning so much, and all the poems have been outstanding. 🙂
Thank you, Pippa, for including my haiku in this collection of very deep haiku.
Dear Pippa, I am grateful to see my poem selected for your special commentary this morning. I am in awe of the community of haiku poets and the perspectives they bring to your prompts, to be included in this group is an honor. Thank you for your support of my haiku practice, I am a babe in the woods, only two years, but reading and writing haiku has brought joy into my life that I had no idea existed . . . .
Thank you for another week Pippa! I’m really enjoying this challenge and discovering amazing new art because of it!
I especially enjoyed Xiaoou Chen’s poem: as someone who is (trying) to learn Mandarin, it was very exciting to (attempt) to compare the differences/intricacies between both the translated and untranslated poems.
Thanks Sonika– I always love it when a poem comes in multiple languages. Can’t wait to see what you come up with this week!
Thank you Pippa for leading us in the close inspection of these wonderful artists’ works. The amazing responses show how deep they take us. Thanks for including my haiku.
Thank you Pamela– the topic I think, was pretty deep, I think the poets really rose to the occasion.
I loved this poem and your commentary on it, Pippa.
enduring pain(t)
— Barrie Levine
And thanks for selecting one of mine.
I always enjoy reading your ku, Sue. Keeping that rhyme, ha!
Sue, I feel so honored by your comment and by Pippa’s affirmation of my work. Thank you for letting me know, and in return I want to tell you how much I loved the imagery in your poem and the feeling it evokes. Best wishes from USA!
Thank you Pippa, I sure do look forward to these creative challenges!
Thanks, Dan, I look forward to the next batch!
Thank you so much, Pippa, for selecting my haiku… I am very happy… congratulations to all featured poets!
I’m happy for you, Rosa! It is a lovely ku…
Thank you Pippa for including my haiku in this week’s dialogue. Congratulations to all the poets here! Such a variety of interpretations and Frida Kahlo is a favorite of mine. I really appreciated this one:
Esperanto
learning the language
of hope
学习世界语
祈愿隔阂不复存
希望在人间
xue xi shi jie yu
qi yuan ge he bu fu cun
xi wang zai ren jian
Xiaoou Chen
Kunming, China
Yes, that poem is delightful and I remember immediately earmarking it.
Thank you so much Mr. Pippa for selecting my poem this week. You have given a wonderful review on it. I really appreciate the style of your narration. I also congratulate all my fellow poets for their contribution this time.
Yours sincerely,
Chittaluri satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India
Thanks, Chittaluri, I really enjoyed your poem!
I am really enjoying these ekphrastic challenges and the amazing collection of poems written in response to the art. Your commentary on some of the poems always gives me a new a deeper appreciation of what I am reading. Thanks for the challenge and sharing your thoughts.
That means a lot– it’s very intimidating to put my thoughts on poetry in public, since I’m quite new to this. I’m glad to hear they resonate.
Thank you Pippa, another wonderful week of haiku. Congratulations to every poet.
Thank you, Margaret, and congratulations!
thanks to Pippa for selecting my work again. Such a fine selection. …really enjoyed reading them all! Thanks.
I always look forward to reading your work, Anna.
I’m really thankful to Pippa for featuring this painting this week and for featuring my work as well. It is a topic very close to me. So many thoughtful responses here…really enjoyed reading them all!
Robin
I think the topic resonated with a lot of this week’s poets– so much art is created and consumed in the search for a remedy for some kind of pain. I really appreciate your contribution.
“This is a poem you need to climb up to understand – ” Yes, now I get it. Read bottom to top. And now it makes sense. Like solving a cryptic crossword puzzle. Thank you Robin for the feelings you evoke and Pippa for your commentary and clues.
I’m glad it resonated with you, Sue!
Quite amazing When you read through all these poems, noting they all relate to the same image. Congratulations to all!
Thank you Pippa for including mine. Thank you to KJ and Lori as always for the behind the scenes work.
Thank you, Robert. The breadth and variety of poems continues to delight.