HAIKU DIALOGUE – Looking Out – far from Earth

Thank you, poets, from all around the world, for continuing to support Haiku Dialogue! We are looking for further administrative help with this column – please use the General Inquiry Form under ‘Contact’ on The Haiku Foundation website to let us know if you can help… cheers, kj

Thanks to Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt for a wonderful series of ginko-inspired poetry! Please welcome returning Guest Editor Marietta McGregor who invites us to look a little closer – happy writing! kj

Looking Out with Guest Editor Marietta McGregor

The phrase ‛looking out’ can mean to be on the watch in case something unexpected should happen. We shout, “Look out!” if we see danger approaching. We build physical lookouts. They may take the form of tall steel and wooden towers used as vantage points to search for forest fires, a crow’s nest high on a ship’s mast, periscopes on a submarine, or wooden clifftop decks on headlands overlooking scenic coastal vistas for travelers’ photo stops. Human lookouts are people whose job it is to warn against hazards on land and at sea. ‛Looking out’ can also mean observing our surroundings. As well as our own finely tuned senses, we use a variety of instruments to help us see more of the world. Microscopes and electron microscopes allow us to scrutinise very small things. Medicine makes use of X-rays, ultraviolet light and radio waves for scanning the body. Binoculars and telescopes help us look out beyond the planet. From our earliest existence, we look outwards to the world for a holistic view, through our parents and other family members, teachers, books, radio, TV and the internet. Space beckons us. And, of course, we look out for each other, to help in times of need or stress.

prompt: Looking Out – far from Earth

Telescopes have been called “windows on the universe”. Optical telescopes allow humans to map stars and planets of our galaxy the Milky Way, using visible, ultra-violet and infra-red light or X-rays, while radio telescopes listen in to the music of distant galaxies in the form of faint radio waves transmitted from giant gas clouds and extraterrestrial bodies including comets, pulsars, quasars and black holes. Some optical telescopes, such as the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, have been launched into deep space to peer into the secrets of worlds far beyond our planet Earth. With sophisticated detectors, faint smudges of incandescent gas and dust billions of light years away resolve into stunning colors and shapes. When you go outside at night and look at the moon, planets and stars, what do you see? Perhaps you remember your amazement at seeing astronauts step onto the moon’s dusty face, your first glimpse from Hubble of the Horsehead Nebula, a lunar eclipse, or the excitement of getting up in pre-dawn chill to watch a meteoric light show of Perseids or Orionids. This week I invite your haiku and scifaiku inspired by looking out to places of memory or imagination.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday August 24, 2024.

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 & 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 Marietta’s selection of poems on the topic of Looking Out – far from Earth…

Guest editor Marietta McGregor is a retired Tasmanian botanist and journalist who has made her home between Canberra and the scenic south coast of New South Wales for over four decades. A lover of the natural world since childhood, she went on to study natural sciences, and has worked as palynologist, garden designer, science journalist, editor, university tutor, education manager, and grants developer for the national wildlife collection. Her haiku, haibun and haiga have been widely published, have won awards and appear in anthologies.

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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Photo Credits:

Banner photo credit: Marietta McGregor

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.