HAIKU DIALOGUE – Intoxication – Meditation

Intoxication with Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt

It has been with us since time immemorial, and almost all of us have experienced it firsthand: intoxication. Endorphins produced in the body during exercise give us a feeling of happiness known as a “runner’s high,” and once again we are intoxicated. Intoxicants have been used to awaken our spirituality, make us forget physical hardships, or elevate our imagination to unprecedented heights. And yet intoxication has its dark side. In the coming weeks, we want to explore how legal intoxicants affect us, our brains, and our everyday lives. I invite you to join me on a journey into our everyday lives and our brains to explore intoxication.

Prompt: Meditation

Today, we want to focus inwardly on our breathing or on our feet as they touch the ground when we walk. Regular meditation practice has many health benefits: There are physical effects (lowering of blood pressure), psychological effects and effects on brain function and brain anatomy. What’s more, meditation makes us happy. But here, too, regular practice makes perfect. I would like to know what connects you to meditation: Have you always been involved, have you just started, have you always wanted to try it, or is meditation not for you at all? When practicing zazen, do your thoughts just go round and round in circles, your butt hurts, and enlightenment and inner peace remain elusive? Please let me know. I look forward to reading your poems.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday, September 5th, 2026.

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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.) In the Poem box, with your poem(s), 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 Deborah’s selection of poems on the topic Meditation…

Bios

Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt lives in Sinzig, Germany, with her husband, two rabbits, and a sizable collection of books. After completing her PhD in Scandinavian languages and literatures, she works as a freelance writer. Her works have appeared in numerous haiku and short poetry magazines and have earned her several honorable mentions, second place in the haiku competition at the 2021 Pula Film Festival, and the 6th Star Haiku Contest Overseas Grand Prize in 2025. Also in 2025, she was selected as a fellow for confluence. She has also served as a guest editor for Haiku Dialogue since 2023. Her new book, Wild Rabbit Moon, was published in 2026.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Photo Credit:

Banner Photo credit:  Andreas Brandt

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. Read past Haiku Dialogue posts here.