HAIKU DIALOGUE – ink
Welcome to Haiku Dialogue
Let’s talk about haiku! You are invited to respond to photographs – I will share a photo each week as a prompt for your writing…
Submit an original unpublished poem via our Contact Form by Saturday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence.
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.
Poems will be selected based on the potential to generate discussion – these poems will be the best to talk about…
next week’s theme:
This is the final photo prompt for now – next week we will begin a new series… stay tuned!
The deadline for this theme is midnight Pacific Time, Saturday 27 July 2019.
I look forward to reading your submissions.
HAIKU DIALOGUE: ink
Here are my selections for this week:
dark matter my mother says not to worry
Adrian Bouter
paint it black
on a white canvas
night winter skyAgus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia
fickle breeze and
dappled shade… the artist tweaks
her palette againAl Gallia
Lafayette, Louisiana USA
image emerges
from the shadows –
flight toward infinityAlan Harvey
Tacoma, WA
summer room
a locker key glistens
with its secretsAlan Summers
Chippenham, Wiltshire, England
cities flicker
trying to mirror starlight…
night rolls inAlfred Booth
France
drunk painter –
one more work
of contemporary artAljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia
dark period…
technical tests
of depressionAngiola Inglese
palette knife
an attempt to gauge the depth
of his eyesAnitha Varma
painting mindscape
with
your coloursAnjali Warhadpande
blue afternoon –
the Rolling Stones sing
paint it blackanna maria domburg-sancristoforo
paint roller –
how my palm print
fits into grandpa’sarvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India
sea glass
the glow between
squallsB Shropshire
TX, USA
abstract
off to lunch for a
brighter perspectiveBarbara Tate
take the sludgy paint
shove and spread it around
my chunky versesBruce Jewett
silkscreen
before the impression
has setC.R. Harper
closed grisaille
the sadness
behind a smilecarol jones
Wales
sumi-e course
those dark spots
on his lungcezar-florin ciobîcă
adoption
re-coloring
a futureClaire Vogel Camargo
edgy night wind
stops and starts –
winter’s chill deepensclysta seney
art nouveau –
so little I can hide
with makeupCristina Angelescu
Romania
after funeral
changing photos
in black & whiteCristina Apetrei
deleted in draft
all those words
we won’t regretDebbie Scheving
Bremerton WA
Mother’s face
etched in linoleum
birthday giftdianne moritz
a bright future
a four-year-old son
painting all blackDubravka Šćukanec
Zagreb, Croatia
black on white –
jasmine blossoms
into the nightElisa Allo
Zug, Switzerland
mayday! mayday!
from my atelier straight to
delivery roomFranjo Ordanić
a thin mist
ahead of the coming storm
battleship greyGarry Eaton
broken shell:
nostalgia sinks into the shadowsGiuliana Ravaglia
out of darkness
a rogue thought
breaks into wordsGreer Woodward
prognosis
she paints her feelings
in black and whiteHifsa Ashraf
roller primed
for a first print –
Bashō’s thousand editsIngrid Baluchi
Ohrid, Macedonia
writer’s block
my brain a dark canvas
of wordless thoughtsJackie Chou
Pico Rivera CA USA
red hilt and ink of
black white brown and more
all have the same colored bloodJo El
North Carolina
black day
her dear john letter
starts to blurjohn hawkhead
museum art –
the child plays with
a plastic bottleJustin Orlando
Charlottesville, VA
red handled roller
in the sky not yet
a touch of pinkKath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, CA
artist’s attempt
new painting techniques
ebony flashKathleen Mazurowski
… colouring
vibgyor seems
to fit my spaceLakshmi Iyer
ink study
all I see
when I close my eyesLaurie Greer
Washington DC
diver in a hunt
octopus draws with ink
on the seaLjiljana Dobra
Sibenik Croatia
ink spots…
the undefined contours
of my fearsmacchie d’inchiostro … i contorni indefiniti / delle mie paure
Lucia Cardillo
antique printing block
Cinderella’s dress
fills with moonlightLucy Whitehead
Essex, UK
unsure strokes
among wild thoughts
an unsolved riddleLuisa Santoro
canvas of life
a splash of equanimity
to see me throughMadhuri Pillai
deep dark
secrets
slowly revealedMargaret Walker
After musical
The theatre once more has
To return to blackMargie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA
in front of Rothko
a toddler standing
on her headMarietta McGregor
stippled the canvas and the painter
Marilyn Ashbaugh
black canvas
she dips her fingers into glitter
and creates starsMarisa Fazio
fading memories
scrape the canvas
black and blueMark Gilbert
UK
highlights and shadows
the chiaroscuro life
of my motherMark Meyer
ink brush
on the night jar’s wing
a sliver of lightMartha Magenta
Halloween
the boy uses up
all the black paintMinal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India
deep in your eyes
exploring all shades
of the blackNadejda Kostadinova
Bulgaria
Rorschach test
she sees a dragon
in the cloudsNancy Brady
Huron, Ohio
charcoal portrait
I smear my hands
all over your facenancy liddle
broken hill, australia
losing out in
finding a particular speck
night skyNeelam Dadhwal
Chandigarh, India
black…
paint in canvas
and also my hairNeni Rusliana
Bandung, Indonesia
how blotting paper
soaks up ink
evening fogOlivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland
black and white –
I remember the colours
in the old photoPasquale Asprea
etaoinshrdlu
the printer’s devil
inks the typePaul Geiger
Sebastopol CA
cross-legged
I touch all the colors
in the night skyPris Campbell
painting on canvas
day and night
merge into oneRadhamani sarma
indoor repair works
her way to pronounce
miscarriageRadostina Dragostinova
Bulgaria
tunnel vision
colour coding my world
in black and whiteRashmi Vesa
brush and ink
dancing the world
onto paperRehn Kovacic
the color of memories indelible ink
Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO
out of the cellar
my wax drawing
alive with fishRobert Kingston
Essex, UK
dark matter –
the coming and going
of melancholyrobyn brooks
usa
India ink again
rolls out the soul’s pigment
lightfast absenceRon Scully
artist adds colors
to a shady background
unfinished lifeRonald K. Craig
Batavia, OH USA
loneliness…
nothing to paint
except blackRosa Maria Di Salvatore
fresh coat of paint
on memories –
from long time agoSD Desai
Rorschach inkblot
lovely butterfly wings
I lie aboutSanela Pliško
my teenager
paints her pink bedroom walls
blackSari Grandstaff
layer after layer
covering the present –
black print of pastSaša Slavković
Slovenia
receding shadows the night layers to a footnote
Shloka Shankar
artist’s proof
my john hancock
drawkcabsimonj
UK
new wife
the traditionally white room becomes pinkSlobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia
darkness on the canvas
trying to walk away
from myselfStephen A. Peters
unfinished work
the wavering vision
of yes and noSteve Tabb
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
paint cans and rollers
redesigning my space
for this new danceSusan Bonk Plumridge
London, Canada
rehab painting day
the brain-injured boy draws
his first miracleSusan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA USA
petrichor…
black-and-white photos
of mom and dadTheresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware USA
daughter’s first painting
in place of signature
her fingerprintsTomislav Sjekloća
Cetinje, Montenegro
Christmas eve
hobo paints a pretty
fireplaceTsanka Shishkova
teaching cursive…
the writing is no longer
on the wallValentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA
dark chocolate
all the goodness beneath
dad’s firmnessVandana Parashar
paint on his face
my nephew’s laughter
colours the wallsVeronika Zora Novak
the palmist circles
her mount of moon
a haikuVicki Miko
in the studio
question for the question –
black is okZdenka Mlinar
Zagreb, Croatia
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).
This Post Has 80 Comments
Comments are closed.
Dear Kathy,
Thank you for including my haiku in this wonderful collection written for your Ink prompt.
I so enjoy participating and reading the fine haiku written by all.
Eyes glued,
Claire
Thank you Kathy for including my haiku in this week’s selection of ekphrastic writing. It’s amazing to see so many beautiful and thought-provoking haiku stemming from one source.
Kathy –
Thank you for the intriguing photo prompts! I look forward each week to the responses – and a new prompt to capture my imagination.
the leaves and I reach
for the lake
to cool down
Hello Laura. If this was intended for next week’s photo prompt, you just need to click on the red “contact form” in the above second paragraph before midnight today and it will go to Kathy for consideration.
Thanks and apologies, being new to the blog, I mucked up and used the wrong contact box.
thanks for catching this Debbie! & no worries, Laura – there is always next week! Please do submit again – a new prompt will be posted on Wednesday each week… kj
Thank you so much Kathy for including mine among these fine haiku inkterpretations. And thank you Alan for commentary! I too very much look forward each week to trying my hand at haiku and reading everyone’s.
A black light torch might be a great Christmas gift for your daughter! 🙂
Fascinating haiku and I wonder how far can a person go, in order to make a room meld to black?
Dear Kathy,
My thanks for choosing my haiku once again. I am really in great company. Congrats to everyone.
I especially enjoyed these three
dark matter my mother says not to worry
Adrian Bouter
ink spots…
the undefined contours
of my fears
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macchie d’inchiostro … i contorni indefiniti / delle mie paure
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Lucia Cardillo
the color of memories indelible ink
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Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO
Dear, Dear, Marietta McGregor…
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Within the wallow of all the dark, of all the prose, a haiku of merit!
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You nailed it with unexpected whimsy, and with a perfect foil; the Rothko reference.
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You are a prize, and a gift to the haiku community!
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in front of Rothko
a toddler standing
on her head
Marietta McGregor
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Jan in Texas
Dear Kathy,
Thank you for including mine in your artfully selected fine haiku this week. Working with a prompt is very helpful to our craft but we cannot do it alone.
Thanks again,
Margie Gustafson
Dear Margie,
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Kathy runs a great feature, where people can discuss and comment on haiku and it’s really helpful isn’t it? 🙂
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Most weeks I try to post a themed commentary, and this week it’s The Five Quarters of Haiku:
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2019/07/24/haiku-dialogue-ink/#comment-105051
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After musical
The theatre once more has
To return to black
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Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA
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I love this phrase!!!
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“The theatre once more has to return to black”
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aka
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The theatre once more has
To return to black
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It takes me back to childhood and big thick black closing curtains where actors might come out for another run of applause, and then simply ‘vanish’. 🙂
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It’s been a long time since I’ve attended a musical. The last one was Terje Isungset’s version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, with the Emperor as a kind of British Prime Minister closely similar to Tony Blair. I remember we bumped into the actor and praised his work. It was an incredible production!
Thank you so much, Alan!
No worries, keep enjoying, it will feel new and fresh every day too!
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Alan
thanks for this, Alan, as always!
painting mindscape
with
your colours
Anjali Warhadpande
Maybe you paint an aura.
I hope it’s not in black and white 🙂
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blue afternoon –
the Rolling Stones sing
paint it black
I like this haiku.
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teaching cursive…
the writing is no longer
on the wall
Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
…except on the walls of streets 🙂
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daughter’s first painting
in place of signature
her fingerprints
Tomislav Sjekloća
what a charming haiku
Thank you, Tsanka!
Thank you Tomislav for liking my haiku!
Anna Maria
Thank-you for commenting on mine – good observation.
Another great week, and I learned several new words, not being an artist.
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highlights and shadows
the chiaroscuro life
of my mother
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Mark Meyer
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The story and feeling here intrigued me.
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the color of memories indelible ink
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Rich Schilling
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A lot packed into one short line!
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new wife
the traditionally white room
becomes pink
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Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia
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I enjoy hearing cultural traditions that are new to me. Is there some rebellion against the norm here?
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blue afternoon-
the Rolling Stones sing
paint it black
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anna maria domburg-sancristoforo
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This lyrical haiku lifted the blues.
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“…octopus draws with ink…” by Ljiljana
Dobra was a clever use of the prompt.
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And Alan Summers’ “…locker key glistens…” immediately reminded me of reading Nancy Drew mysteries when young.
Thanks! 🙂
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deleted in draft
all those words
we won’t regret
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Debbie Scheving
Bremerton WA
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This reminds me of the old haiku email forums, where I tried to suggest that strong feelings be best put into draft and not sent a second later with regret. 🙂
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If something or someone deeply upsets me I certainly consider a draft email with no email address inserted, and delete it a few moments later, having got whatever it was out of my system.
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Sometimes to have no regrets, because we didn’t rush our words, is something to envy very much. Thanks for such a strong verse.
Thank you Alan. My first attempts were about writing crossed out in ink, I go through a lot of pens myself, then it went in a different direction.
Thanks for your comment on my haiku!
Dear Kathy
thank you for including my works
This one is stunning:
dark matter my mother says not to worry
Adrian Bouter
Love it
Dear Kathy,
thanks for including mine. this weekly challenge is a treasure trove for me.
Nancy
fresh coat of paint
on memories –
from long time ago
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SD Desai
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Time has a way of changing memories.
Christmas eve
hobo paints a pretty
fireplace
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Tsanka Shishkova
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Nicely written haiku about the fact that not everyone is able to enjoy
an abundance at Christmas.
Thanks Khaty for publishing my haiku, as usual I read some very interesting things, trying to learn to do better and better
Dear Kathy
Thank you so much for including mine.
I have so enjoyed responding to the images put up.
dark matter my mother says not to worry
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Adrian Bouter
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The intangible and uncontrollable at both ends, connected by a real and sage presence.
Amid all the darkness I appreciated these two humourous senryu (?) – Aljoša Vuković‘s ‘drunk painter – / one more work / of contemporary art’ and Barbara Tate‘s ‘abstract / off to lunch for a / brighter perspective’. Thanks KJ.
Thank you Mark. Your comment is so much appreciated.
this week we enjoy photos, night, weather, colour & shade, art & artists, writing & editing, words & letters, birth, health, hands, ink & paint of course… thank you all as always – we will be welcoming Craig Kittner back as guest editor for the month of August… & we are actively seeking new guest editors to join the team – please consider this & send a note on the contact form if you are interested in learning more!
Thank you for including mine and for the great picture prompts!
Dear kj munro –
My apologies for my late reply…I’ve been out of the loop/ loopy with summer allergies and a bit of melancholy…It is the anniversary of my grandmother’s passing and my late aunt’s birthday…
Thank you, so much, for publishing my haiku.
Congratulations to this stellar group of poets. Thank you all! robyn
Many thanks for including my verse in your line-up, and for your informative comment, Alan.
Much appreciated.
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Your verse has a profound tilt, its as if the ‘key’ has a mischief all of its own.
Keys can hold so much mystery, and if this is Kathy’s locker key, what dark secrets might it have access to, I wonder. 😉
I’m sure most of us have a little locker key 🙂
I can’t remember the last time I had a locker key, and it would have been for some changing locker (swim kit or such). I think it was Glasgow in 1994 when I was taken along to the sauna, steam rooms, and those bitter cold pools!
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I did know someone with a Swiss Bank Account, but he said he was just holding it open with about ten dollars. 🙂
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So do you have a locker room stashed away, maybe somewhere in an accessible part of the Welsh Black Mountains? 🙂
Well well, look you now, ‘cough’
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I may have a little one somewhere, but nowhere accessible in them there hills 🙂
haha… it is not my key!!
it is my photo, though – taken last May at the Dawson Daily News Print & Publishing Festival in Dawson City, Yukon… so glad it provided such inspiration! kj
Hi Kathy,
I loved the amount of things on the fringe of the photo! In fact Call of the Page held a shahai convo available to our course students touching on this aspect.
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I wonder whose locker key it was? 🙂
Dear Katherine,
thank you for publishing my haiku… it is a pleasure for me.
Congrats to all the selected!
Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Thank you, Kathy, for another great selection. Love Margaret Walker’s deep dark / secrets / slowly revealed. Here is my version of darkness and secrets:
low light
all the secrets
we reveal
(Olivier Schopfer, Failed Haiku 31, July 2018)
Oliver,
Thank you. I’m so pleased you liked my haiku! It looks like we had very similar thoughts or experiences at some time. I like your take on this as well.
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THE FIVE QUARTERS OF HAIKU
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by Alan Summers
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If anyone is or was in certain types of health and safety ‘jobs’ you will know we quarter each room, and know what’s beyond, what is ‘outside’. Doors or fire exits may be locked or jammed, and it’s good to know that and any hazards right outside.
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With haiku, if we approach a picture (photograph or painting), or a room, it’s not a bad idea to look at each corner of the room, all four of them, plus that ‘fifth’ quarter, the area or areas ‘outside’ or ‘behind’ or ‘beyond’.
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Any ekphrastic writing might directly be about the artwork in question, or the aspects ‘behind’ the work, whether about the artist or what is left out or ‘behind’. The 5th Quarter is always as valid as any visible or not-so-visible corner, or quarter of a room.
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The photograph has several corners! There is the white board, there are the ‘corners’ of each swipe of the inking device, there is the corners of the room with the blue floor, and of course each floorboard is bound by four corners.
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And of course there is always something lurking or lying deep inside one corner of something at least, whether photograph (think Bladerunner) or any of the ‘framed’ objects/subjects or images.
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Then there is the corners of the photograph itself!
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Beware flashing lights/images!
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Blade Runner Enhance Scene
“A photograph acts as interface to a 3D space”
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ironman28/clips/bladeRunner3DphotoH264.mov/view
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Beware flashing lights/images!
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And of course not everything is visible or present in a corner, perhaps the sharp angle of a corner points to something else, in us as much as ‘outside’?
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There was certainly a lot of mention about ‘black’ and ‘dark’ including this wonderful monoku:
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dark matter my mother says not to worry
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Adrian Bouter
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A parent is a parent regardless how old the ‘toddler’ is, whether they are six years or sixty years old! The dark matter might be one of the building blocks of the universe, or one of the disturbing dark matters that too many people in power (crime, politics, corporate activities) engage in, at our own peril, rather than their peril. A mother protects, as they can only do so much, and it would wrong to subject a child to the hidden wrongs of the human world all at once.
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Whole cities flicker with Alfred Booth’s haiku! This author successfully goes beyond one ‘thing’ to many things, but all them, we think, are under night aka nightfall.
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cities flicker
trying to mirror starlight…
night rolls in
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Alfred Booth
France
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paint roller –
how my palm print
fits into grandpa’s
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arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India
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A beautful treatment here, very tactile, very physical and inter-generational.
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sea glass
the glow between
squalls
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B Shropshire
TX, USA
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Ah, there are always “in-betweenesses” to look for and appreciate. 🙂
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closed grisaille
the sadness
behind a smile
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carol jones
Wales
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Fantastic use of a word for an art technique many of us may have seen sometime, but not realised the name of it. Grisaille is a method of painting in grey monochrome, typically to imitate sculptures.
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Great use of consonance with the ’s’ letters in almost every word!
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sumi-e course
those dark spots
on his lung
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cezar-florin ciobîcă
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A fantastic use of juxtaposition that projects the reader in a participatory trajectory! This is rich in context and psychological inner journey.
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adoption
re-coloring
a future
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Claire Vogel Camargo
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Adoption or fostering is a gift to a child bereft of family, and of care and diligence, and love. Wonderful poem.
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art nouveau –
so little I can hide
with makeup
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Cristina Angelescu
Romania
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Wow, what a phrase, and what a reaction or juxtaposition to the opening line. Very strong poem.
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roller primed
for a first print –
Bashō’s thousand edits
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Ingrid Baluchi
Ohrid, Macedonia
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As we know, Matsuo Bashō spent years editing his haikai verses, especially those in his famous haibun. A haiku can be a poem of a thousand cuts, and if anyone says we shouldn’t edit a haiku e ever, or hardly at all, point them to Bashō and his most famous Narrow Road to the Far North haibun!
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black day
her dear john letter
starts to blur
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john hawkhead
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I remember a friend reading tens of thousands of letters for a book, and many of them would have been letters about family members passing away from piracy on the open seas or several world wars from medieval times to the mid-20th century. I’m sure other letters were about romantic losses of the heart as well.
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ink study
all I see
when I close my eyes
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Laurie Greer
Washington DC
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Intriguing! I know if I’ve looked into something bright (external source) and then close my eyes I have a lot of inkblots and my own personal rorschach test. And for those with intricate imaginations, doubtless you see whole countries of the mind unfold.
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ink spots…
the undefined contours
of my fears
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macchie d’inchiostro … i contorni indefiniti / delle mie paure
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Lucia Cardillo
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That’s a brilliant line of poetry (or even prose)!
“the undefined contours of my fears”
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antique printing block
Cinderella’s dress
fills with moonlight
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Lucy Whitehead
Essex, UK
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So many of us have had a Cinderella moment, when midnight might reduce our realised dreams to those of rags and tears. I like how I can imagine a printing block reproducing the tale of Cinderella, and through the window come moonbeams full of promise, and a private telling of a story.
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deep dark
secrets
slowly revealed
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Margaret Walker
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Ah, deep dark, and deep dark secrets, slowly revealed by dawn or another agent? An intriguingly mysterious poem.
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in front of Rothko
a toddler standing
on her head
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Marietta McGregor
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The unrestrained honesty of a child! And a great way of fully enjoying a painting! A wonderful poem!!! 🙂
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stippled the canvas and the painter
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Marilyn Ashbaugh
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A simple monoku but it has so much inside it. No corner is left unturned.
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fading memories
scrape the canvas
black and blue
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Mark Gilbert
UK
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Sadly whenever I read ‘black and blue’ it takes me back to people I’ve met who have been attacked, at home or in the street. The strong verb choice of ‘scrape’ counters and compliments the dual action of ‘fading’. A poignant verse.
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highlights and shadows
the chiaroscuro life
of my mother
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Mark Meyer
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I love those lines!!! Brilliant poem.
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ink brush
on the night jar’s wing
a sliver of light
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Martha Magenta
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Utterly and breathtakingly beautiful.
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I’m not sure I’ve witnessed night jars aka nightjars or goat suckers, but seen many a Tawny Frogmouth, a distant relative.
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dusk at the golf club
part of a marker pole
a tawny frogmouth
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Alan Summers
1st Prize, Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland, Haiku Competition, June 1995 judged by Janice Bostok
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etaoinshrdlu
the printer’s devil
inks the type
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Paul Geiger
Sebastopol CA
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The language used by the operators of Linotype machines. A private insiders’ joke which would be a devil of a job to understand spoken or “set up”. 🙂
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cross-legged
I touch all the colors
in the night sky
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Pris Campbell
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A beautifully expansive poem!
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Only last night I was outside watching the sky lit up twice a second by lightning, glorious!
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painting on canvas
day and night
merge into one
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Radhamani sarma
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Ah, the two corners of the 24 hours period, with the ‘other’ two corners of twilight hours at dawn and dusk. 🙂
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indoor repair works
her way to pronounce
miscarriage
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Radostina Dragostinova
Bulgaria
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Incredibly powerful, and deeply poignant. A masterful poem.
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tunnel vision
colour coding my world
in black and white
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Rashmi Vesa
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Ah, gosh, we do that too often don’t we? Great phrase.
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the color of memories indelible ink
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Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO
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A wonderful monoku! 🙂
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I love reading my different versions!!!!
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out of the cellar
my wax drawing
alive with fish
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Robert Kingston
Essex, UK
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Love that phrase! I wonder what else escapes the cellar?
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dark matter –
the coming and going
of melancholy
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robyn brooks
usa
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Beautifully poignant poem.
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Rorschach inkblot
lovely butterfly wings
I lie about
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Sanela Pliško
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Wow! What a brilliant example of juxtaposition, and grasping all five corners.
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my teenager
paints her pink bedroom walls
black
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Sari Grandstaff
.
.
I’ve seen photos of people having painted walls and ceiling in black and it was nearly impossible to find any furniture, or the door! It’s a great challenge to transform the entirety of a room to black, so congratulations. I bet more than five quarters were covered! 🙂
.
.
layer after layer
covering the present –
black print of past
.
Saša Slavković
Slovenia
.
.
The abruptness of that last line, withholding an article (a, an, the) or personal pronoun, makes this a powerfully effective poem throughout.
.
.
receding shadows the night layers to a footnote
.
Shloka Shankar
.
.
I love that ‘the night layers to a footnote’! The whole monoku is a beauty!!!
.
.
artist’s proof
my john hancock
drawkcab
.
simonj
UK
.
I remember a few comedy actors or comedians who were practiced at “The language of speaking backwards.” Perhaps all politicians should have to do this, and then perhaps the sheer overwhelming amount of talk for talk’s sake might reduce to an acceptable and practical level.
.
.
darkness on the canvas
trying to walk away
from myself
.
Stephen A. Peters
.
.
Powerful verse!
.
.
unfinished work
the wavering vision
of yes and no
.
Steve Tabb
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
.
.
Great last two lines!
.
.
paint cans and rollers
redesigning my space
for this new dance
.
Susan Bonk Plumridge
London, Canada
.
.
Just love the musicality of the opening line! And the whole poem works beautifully! 🙂
.
.
rehab painting day
the brain-injured boy draws
his first miracle
.
Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA USA
.
.
Outstanding! I’ve worked with adults at a head injury hospital unit. Painting and also writing haiku really helps.
.
A beautifully uplifting and crafted poem.
.
.
I wish I could comment on more haiku, but these hours were a rare off-duty time, even on a day off!
.
.
Alan Summers
Call of the Page
Thanks for commenting on my haiku, Alan. I love your reading of it! 🙂
Thank you!
.
.
I’d love to spend the day, commenting on these haiku including your’s, but I must venture out into the massed light of day. 🙂
Many thanks, Alan, for seeing into my haiku, and your comments. I wasn’t sure it would be understood if one equates lino cutting with editing haiku, but as a scraperboard artist and lino printer, it was easy for me to see the connection. Both need ‘editing’ (adding to/cutting out) to achieve their final form.
Dear Ingrid,
.
roller primed
for a first print –
Bashō’s thousand edits
.
Ingrid Baluchi
Ohrid, Macedonia
.
.
I love linocuts, and I jointly held a few exhibitions with Trevor Hadrell, where he designed cocktail recipes in linocut for the Floating Nightclub Exhibition, as well as for my lime quarter haiku etc…
https://area17.blogspot.com/2013/03/lime-quarter-sixth-day-haiku-poetry.html
.
I’m astonished how you linocut artists can do either small works so accurately, or massive city scenes!
Alan,
Thank you for your comments about my haiku and all of the others on which you commented. Another wonderful learning experience from you!
Thank you Margaret, and I’m delighted you are still enjoying your deftly crafted minimalist haiku!
🙂
Always enjoy your comments in Dialogs, Alan. Thanks for mentioning mine among an extraordinary set of far-ranging poems. Cheers!
Dear Mark,
It was an exceptional haiku, with its crafted phrasing, thank you! 🙂
Alan,
Thank you for your comment on mine. So many you could have chosen. KJM certainly gives us plenty to submerge ourselves in.
Thank you for the five corner tip.
Love your entry into your analysis through your own turning keys ku.
Best wishes
Rob
Rob,
.
.
out of the cellar
my wax drawing
alive with fish
.
Robert Kingston
Essex, UK
.
.
There were a lot of other good haiku, and I hope others will commentate on them, as this webpage is all about haiku dialogue, and I look forward to that.
.
I systematically went through each haiku, and looked for certain things, including a mention of a room, or something that might have what we perceive to have four corners or four quarters.
.
I really liked the suggestion of the vividness and sheen of the wax crayon drawing of fish that were rising from the cellar just as salmon rise when the rivers are in spate.
.
But also ‘cellar’ can additionally be metaphorical or symbolic of something within us that is good and wishes to surface.
.
It certainly contains a lot of resonance as I’ve read the haiku many times now, and it increases in its ‘movement’ as a haiku.
seeping light
*~(*)-
his fingertips find the words
_^~*
in our braille
Always insightful Alan, and always bringing new perspectives. Hope to catch up soon.
John,
.
.
black day
her dear john letter
starts to blur
.
john hawkhead
.
.
My middle is John, on both occasions, although I’m addressed by two different ‘given’ names. The poem feels so sad, and I worry what the black day was, and if things ever got back to some level of happiness or contentment.
.
Moon is also a beautiful braille system and Felix Dennis had this made into poetry books when he was doing his wine cellar tour by helicopter. Both systems as communication must be amazing, to physically have words move under our fingertips, even in utter darkness, metaphorically and literally.
.
My favourite haunts are The Angel and The Rivo, and the latter is, as you might know, around five or six minutes from the train station if Siemens take you there one fine day. And the ‘Nam station cafe is pretty darned fine too! 🙂
.
warmest regards,
Alan
Thanks Alan,for your comments on my poem and on all the others. Somehow it all remains kind of incomplete without your commentary that we look forward to each week. Thanks kj for wonderful pictures every week and for including my poems. I thoroughly enjoy this blog. Best,arvinder
Dear Arvinder,
.
.
paint roller –
how my palm print
fits into grandpa’s
.
arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India
.
.
That’s also a lovely line break/enjambment where you’ve artfully withheld the verb until the final line. Great haiku! 🙂
Thanks for your comment, Alan!
honored by your attention.
Thank you, that is very kind of you.
.
.
ink spots…
the undefined contours
of my fears
.
macchie d’inchiostro … i contorni indefiniti / delle mie paure
.
Lucia Cardillo
.
.
Wonderful!
Alan
.
Claire Camargo has pulled a deep meaningful haiku from the abstraction of the picture.
.
Adoption may well bring to mind humans, but to know Claire is to know her devotion to adopting pets, especially dogs, into healthy families.
.
Claire’s haiku has enough white space (in all that is dark surrounding it) to allow several reads.
.
A seasoned haiku, indeed!
.
Jan in Texas
Dear Jan,
Thank you so much for your insightful comments on my haiku “adoption…” addressed to Alan. Your reading and interpretation of more than one layer is gratifying and instructive. And true.
Thanks much,
Claire
Thank you Alan for including my haiku in such excellent company.
I really enjoyed your haiku!
.
.
cities flicker
trying to mirror starlight…
night rolls in
.
Alfred Booth
France
.
.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just see those star systems we attempt to replicate in soulless office windows though?
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your “Five Quarters” of haiku presentation. Good for several more reads and application.
Happy that Kathy Munro included my haiku. A big thank you for your kindness in commenting on my haiku:
adoption
re-coloring
a future
Something that in my mind applies not just to people, but to animals too.
Much appreciated,
Claire
Dear Alan –
I hope that it is never too late for a heartfelt and sincere thank you…
Thank you so very much for your kind words about my poem. I have been dealing with the enormous loss of my female elders…trying to sort out my own dark matter. I truly appreciate it.☺️ robyn
Kathy–thank you so much for the inclusion–this was fun with flashbacks of art school many years ago. Looking forward to a great afternoon of reading!!
Perhaps like Jackie Chou’s
.
writer’s block/my brain a dark canvas/of wordless thoughts
.
and Laurie Greer’s
.
ink study/all I see/when I close my eyes
.
I imagined this photo would be difficult to translate into a poem. But none of it! What an amazing variety!
Particularly liked the two above, along with Barbara Tate’s humorous comment on the color black:
.
abstract/off to lunch for a /brighter future
.
Adrian Bouter’s comforting
.
dark matter my mother says not to worry
.
and recognized something similar in my own childhood in Vandana Parashar’s lovely
.
dark chocolate/all the goodness beneath/dad’s firmness.
.
What a pleasure to be among you all. Thank you Kathy!
Thank you Ingrid. This was fun.
Thanks dear Kathy for adding my haiku to this beautiful collection on photo theme Ink. An array of emotions and dialogue. Congrats to those works are selected.
I ink, therefore I am…
By the time I get through all of these haiku I suspect my fingers (and mind) will be inky with the all the images presented. A quick glance at some of them finds humor, poignancy, depth, and more.
Thank you for including mine in this grouping, KJ. I feel honored to be among this stalwart group of poets.
I am so glad to be among those who got selected.. enjoyed all.of them, congratulations, all.
Anitha Varma.
Thank you, dear Kathy, for choosing my haiku work! Congratulations to all worthy haikuists!
Kathy, thank-you for publishing my haiku. It is always a pleasure to be published in this column.
Thanks for choosing mine, Kathy. Wow, what an amazingly rich selection of haiku. I think this is my favourite week so far. I love so many of them. Fascinating to see what has come out of the contemplation of black ink.
Who would have though so much humour, sadness, psychology and memories could be portrayed by one small inky patch, an amazing read.
.
Thank you so much for including one of mine Kathy, appreciated.
Dear Kathy,
Greetings. Thankfully delighted to see my haiku in this colorful forum; My eyes are dipped in so many paintings. Going through one by one all the wonderful word paintings.
with regards
S.RADHAMANI