HAIKU DIALOGUE – Family Portraits – Portrait One

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1. So many wonderful poems on the passage of generations. Thank you John for the challenging prompt.

2. Congratulations John for all the fine selections. I like the rich variety of all the responses but keep returning to the following which I find stunningly beautiful and multi layered.

   bumble bee dust
   all of the open flowers
   he must visit

   Marilyn Ward
   Scunthorpe UK

   tiarella blooms…
   she hovers on the brink
   of dreams

   Vibha Malhotra
   India

   wavering nest
   a nightingale sings
   to its old tree

   Pravat Kumar Padhy
   India

3. Thank you so much for including my haku in this beautiful collection as well. I was particularly struck by Daniela Misso’s haiku: the strong emotion and tenderness of an instant …

4. Great selections and commentary, John! This will be a fun month 🙂

   A few poems grabbed me this week and provided pause for thought, wonder, or a chuckle.

   burrito…
   the hungry look
   of love

   Nancy Brady
   Huron, Ohio

   This one made me laugh out loud. When our boys were toddlers, we used to wrap them up tight in their bath towels after a bath. I’d call them “my burritos.” One time my wife asked the youngest child if he was a good burrito or bad burrito. He’d always say “I’m a good burrito” but this time he thought he’d mix it up and said, “I’m a hungry burrito” and proceeded to bite his mother on the leg nearly sending her through the roof! We still joke about our little burrito monster who isn’t so little anymore. ;).

   rain on glass
   so many words
   unspoken

   John Hawkhead
   United Kingdom

   This poem is so evocative in its imagery and tenderness as the poet’s tears (perhaps) find affinity with nature’s cold honesty. The melancholy, introspective mood raises many questions for me: were these words of affection that the child needed to hear but never did, words of confession that could have cleared the air and reconciled lovers, words that, indeed, were better left unsaid yet powerfully internalized? There are so many ways to read this poem and the symbolism of rain obfuscating our clear vision of right and wrong, fortune and misfortune, turmoil and peace, is poetically delightful.

   looking at the future looking at the past looking at the future

   Gary Evans
   Stanwood, WA

   As suggested in the prompt, pairing this poem with the photograph results in a powerful and perception-bending Haiga. Speaking of bending, I’d love to take this monoku and bend and twist it into the mobius strip it implies. There’s a continuity here, an invitation to see the eternal story played out among temporal souls. Young or old (chronos time), there is also the sense of “kairos” time, that is, time out of time. The third entity looking at the scene is, of course, the poet, or perhaps even more wonderfully, that numinous, nameless “awareness” or consciousness that is ageless, eternal, never-changing, but always there celebrating the incarnate life from young to old and back again. Take a bow, Gary!

   You too, John! A delightful read this week.

   Thanks,
   Peter

   1. P.J.
      Glad I made you laugh. You basically hit the nail on the head. They now call swaddling newborns especially wrapping up like burritos, and what parent or grandparent doesn’t hone in about the cuteness factor with “I will eat you up,” because they love the baby/ child so much. Even Max in Where the Wild Things Are by Sendak says it.

5. What a fine collection, John. The month is off to a fine start. Congratulations to all the poets selected; every poem made a unique contribution. And thank you for selecting my monoku. I am humbled to have had “looking at the future…” recognized as worthy of inclusion.

   1. It is certainly worthy of dialogue…

      Interpolating the past and future. It covers everything. It is meaningless.

6. John, On this your debut, I am already appreciating your interest in poems that have multiple layers. That is one of the things that I am drawn to when I read haiku. I also enjoy your proclivity toward humor. I found your commentary and selections to be thoughtful and well done. Thank you for publishing my haiku. I must admit that I didn’t realize that the photo you posted may have been suggesting an Ekphrastic haiku and my mind latched onto the idea of a personal family portrait and generations. Now, as I read my haiku I’m always considering other words and thinking — what if I had used the words “mom’s” and “plot” — would those have been better choices? Mom is what we called her but I went with the sound of “t” in mother and spot. Also I think the word spot is like when your standing at the cemetery and tell someone, “that’s her spot,” The word “spot” seemed more pointed and less generic than plot. Although, plot in life, or in this case, plot in death is also another way to look at the word plot. I think it would be interesting and fun to see poets comment on their word options and choices their haiku. Welcome aboard!.

   breezy cemetery
   dad on his knees
   above mother’s spot

   Seretta Martin
   California, United States

   1. Hi Seretta,

      Your analysis of your own poem is refreshing, and it brings up many good points. First, yes writing poetry in response to a photograph is an ekphrastic exercise. But, also simply a prompt to write haiku.

      Your point of looking at your original poem for ways to strengthen it is something we should all do as a normal way of editing. One of the values of haiku gatherings, in person or on zoom, is to workshop our poems. The opportunity to have other poets offer their thoughts on your poem, such as using ‘mom’ and ‘plot’ in place of ‘mother’ and ‘spot’ is invaluable. The haiku community is very kind with the workshopping of each others haiku, haibun etc. Some may suggest to drop spot completely as spot or plot is implied.

      breezy cemetery
      dad on his knees
      above mom

      Thanks for your kind words. It is my honor to be here as guest editor.

7. A tremendous start to a tremendous theme John. Thank you for including mine. Congratulations to all poets, successful or not in making an appearance this week.
   I was stopped my tracks by

   blood moon
   you say
   it isn’t me

   Susan Burch
   Hagerstown, MD

8. Thank you John for including my haiku and your commentary. This week was a wonderful challenge, you have certainly made my day. Congratulations to all poets for their haiku, they were a delight to read.

9. Really interesting selection this week, but I’m going to single out Dana’s mortal alarm for applause:

   suddenly autumn
   all my dreams for the future
   are screaming at me

   Dana Clark-Millar

10. I found two items interesting about this week’s column.
    .
    The first was the submission statistics since they provided an
    understanding of how much time and effort is needed to
    produce the column every week.
    .
    The second was the strength of the relationship between
    each haiku and the photograph.
    .
    Some haiku, like this one, had a strong relationship
    to the photograph while some of the haiku had little or no
    relationship to the photograph.
    /
    grandmother’s prayer
    becomes the lullaby
    spring breeze
    .
    Agus Maulana Sunjaya
    Tangerang, Banten

11. Thank you so much, John for this inspiring collection. It’s always exciting to see which haiku are chosen especially with such a unique objective.

    While I was dazzled by many, I was particularly struck my Kimberly Kuchar’s monoku you chose to comment upon. A great reminder that less can be so much more.

12. Thank you John for including my haiku on family portraits this week. I was really touched by this one. It captures that feeling evoked holding your newborn child, grandchild or great-grandchild for the first time. Similar in tone and theme to my haiku this week:
    carrying the news
    of generations—this
    newborn’s cry

    Penny Harter
    Mays Landing, New Jersey

13. Welcome to our online “haiku family,” John! Make that 146 poets worldwide participating in the weekly Haiku Dialogue. Somehow I missed the deadline last week!
    There were so many insightful perspectives to peruse. I especially liked the depth and nuance of Richard Shaw’s “homestead” haiku:

    homestead
    in the old tree’s shade
    a sapling

    And I was touched by the tenderness of Daniela Misso’s “heartbeat” haiku:

    heartbeat …
    a fallen baby bird
    in my hands

    Congrats to all!

14. Wonderful, John. Indeed there is the magic of image with the muse of words! The genetic link of ‘nose’ by Bryan Rickert and ‘double helix’ by Bona M Santos scintillate the scientific spirit. ‘opera night’ by Ravi Kiran, ‘first cry’ by Lakshmi Iyer, ‘spring music’ by Padmini Krishnan, ‘family tree’ by Rama Chandran’ capture my attention. The monoku ‘looking at the future’ by Gary Evans is unique in its technique of repetition with a streak of philosophical expression. Kudos to all poets.

    1. ‘looking at the future’ has no tangible qualities (phanopoeia), and is devoid of meaning without the picture.
       It does not ‘stand on its own’.

       1. looking at the future looking at the past looking at the future

          Gary Evans
          Stanwood, WA

          I beg to disagree, simonj. We all look (with or without hope) to the future from our experience of the past, don’t we? I see in this poem a real concern by the poet that not all is well in our world, way beyond the obvious disappointment of a grandmother causing a baby’s brief anxiety. The photo supports this, but acts only as a supplementary reminder.

          1. One cannot see-hear-taste-smell-touch ‘looking at the future’.

             1. What happened to intuition?

       2. Thank you John for selecting my poem!

          I was particularly moved by the below poem:

          carrying the news
          of generations—this
          newborn’s cry

          Penny Harter
          Mays Landing, New Jersey

          Also, Bona’s double helix and Pravat Padhy’s wavering nest and of course Ravi’s opera/soprano and Ram’s roots/blossoms.

    2. Thank you, Pavan, for adding my haiku to your list of favourites. Thanks a lot, John, for including my haiku here. And congrats to all the poets whose work was featured this week.

15. Welcome John, and thanks for these photography prompts. It’s certainly going to be a challenge.

    Natalia ‘s haiku is heartbreaking and poignant knowing that war affects generations. Laurie Greer’s made me smile, and Dan Campbell’s made me chuckle.
    Congratulations to all the poets. Thanks for including one of mine in this week’s edition.

    Congratulations to all

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