HAIKU DIALOGUE – Music Around the World – Loving you with all of my tunes or let’s talk about feelings

Music Around the World with Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt

Hi guys, it’s me again. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be immersing ourselves in music together. There is a variety of instruments, rhythms and melodies to explore around the globe. Ancient Chinese music is based on a five-tone system and the guqin had an almost religious significance. Waka and later the tanka are basically songs. The mother’s steady heartbeat calms the baby in the womb and can be compared to the rhythm of a drum. Music is the language that everyone can connect with, even without understanding the meaning of the words being sung. It speaks directly to our hearts. I would like to invite everyone to explore the world of music with me in these prompts.

prompt:  Loving you with all of my tunes or let’s talk about feelings

Music: Flowing Water Guqin

“High Mountain and Flowing Stream” is one of the most famous pieces for the Chinese guqin. The legend goes that Bo Ya, who played the guqin masterfully, met Zhong Ziqi one day and the two became very close friends. When Bo Ya played over the high mountains, Zhong Ziqi told him that he could see them in his music. When he played about the water flowing down the river, Zhong Ziqi also encountered the rivers. When Zhong Ziqi died, Bo Ya broke his guqin because there was no longer his zhiyin (the one who knows the melody of my heart) in this world, the only one who would fully understand his music and his heart.

Joy and sorrow, longing and fulfillment, grief and relief, all can be found and expressed through music. Have you ever composed a love song or hummed along a soft tune, which helped to express your feelings of longing? Today I am looking for the special song you danced to all night with your love interest, the lullabies you sang to your children, the music you listened to when you needed energy to climb to the top of the mountain or when you were training for a half marathon. The melancholy ballads that have helped ease pain and grief. I am looking forward to reading your poems.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday, October 25, 2025.

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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 Loving you with all of my tunes or let’s talk about feelings…

Bios:

Guest Editor Deborah Karl-Brandt lives in Sinzig, Germany, with her husband, two rabbits and numerous books. After her PhD studies in Scandinavian languages and literatures, she works as a freelance author and poet. Her poems have appeared in magazines like Prune Juice, Kingfisher, First Frost, Frogpond, Failed Haiku and Tsuridoro. If she is not outside for a long stroll or to do some birdwatching, she explores Chinese and Japanese novels.

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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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.