HAIKU DIALOGUE – Surrealism II – “Self-Portrait” (Inn of the Dawn Horse) – long list

Surrealism II with Guest Editor Lafcadio

For the next few weeks I would like to be your docent again in The Haiku Foundation Art museum. We will continue our tour of the Surrealist gallery. I know we were there last year, but now I’d like to show you a few of the works of the female Surrealist painters. First, let’s have a quick review about surrealism to make sure we are all on the same page, or in the same room. Surrealism is an artistic movement that began in the early 20th century. Surrealistic painters created dreamlike and often inexplicable images. One of the major characteristics of this kind of painting is the comparison of unrelated entities and components. This creates a surprise for the viewer and hopefully carries them into a world of fantasy and symbolism. This technique of painting not only challenged traditional painting, but was also a representation of the social and political upheavals of society after the trauma and disillusionment of World War I. Still, surrealistic paintings are used today to transcend the boundaries of the ordinary and deliver us in the realm of the extraordinary.

In 1924 Andre Breton, known as the father of Surrealism, wrote his first Surrealist Manifesto. He stated that 19 painters had created art that was absolute Surrealism. None of these painters were female. These painters felt women were useful to them as muses and inspiration but not as artists in their own right. However, by 1985 it was determined that no other art movement had such a large number of women participants. As Surrealist art grew into a larger and more diverse group of men, women became interested in expressing themselves through this art movement. Most of the first women who entered the Surrealistic movement were lovers of male Surrealists.

As with the previous male painters we have viewed, there is so much abstraction and symbolism in the drawings and paintings that you will be able to create surrealistic haiku and senryu that reflect the emotions in these works of art. Let’s begin…

Below is Lafcadio’s selection of poems on the topic of “Self-Portrait” (Inn of the Dawn Horse):

man’s world
i dream of a snake
that flies

Aparna Pathak
Gurugram, India

 

coming out
of my shell
e l e c t r o n
by
e
l
e
c
t
r
o
n

John Hawkhead
UK

 

beyond the sea
a boat beckons me
my wings sprout

Pris Campbell
US

 

the only thing
to do is floating
on your back

Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona – Italy

 

full moon
the neanderthal in me
wants out

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

longing to exhale
i beckon my spirit
animal

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

light in my darkness
the white-tipped wings of
a black swan

Caroline Ridley-Duff
UK

 

dis/em/bo/died
I float carelessly above
my hobby horse

Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson, Arizona USA

 

still life on carousel
her fire turns
the rotisserie

Curt Linderman
Seattle

 

white lilies
on wedding kite
Milky Way

Tsanka Shishkova
Bulgaria

 

offerings –
her hair and hyena’s milk
to a divine horse

Radhika De Silva
Sri Lanka

 

lily of the valley
flowering through concrete
all my smiles

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

absorbing myself
into the
wolf moon

Vicki Vogt
Watertown, MA USA

 

this longing for a dance northern lights

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

old scrapbook
horses where his face
should have been

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, California

 

i capelli legati
a coda di cavallo…
fughe d’infanzia

hair tied
in a ponytail…
childhood escapes

Angiola Inglese
Italia

 

the white horse
flying toward freedom
please take me

Deborah Guenther-Beachboard
Adna, MA USA

 

Riding a wild horse
in his chamber
the old monk

John Hamley
Marmora, Ontario

 

unseen in the shadows my self

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

I thought I was a stone–
later I found inside me
a crushed butterfly

Lorraine Schein
Sunnyside, Queens, NYC

 

escape route—
she plucks the manes
of wild equines

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

grandma frog’s bonnet
no one talks about her
like they do big bull

Cindy Putnam Guentherman
Illinois, USA

 

Hyena milk for
breakfast enriches my hair
Time to roam pastures

S Janczyk
United States

 

dummy horse dance –
the anklets ringing
on her wooden legs

(dummy horse dance is a folk dance performed in parts of India)

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

playing
this little piggy
with baby beluga

Pamela Garry
Connecticut USA

 

flowing hair
with raised sword, she charges
her horse flying

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, lndia

 

looking in the mirror
before my eyes
a grid

Boryana Boteva
Sofia, Bulgaria

 

two cheshire cats
punished
for inebriation

Charles Harper
Yokohama

 

sea foam…
a white horse charges
out of Pandora’s box

Shloka Shankar
India

 

shadow holds the fears —
behind me a child’s dream in chalk,
an unfinished hobby horse

Goda Virginija Bendoraitienė
Lithuania

 

each night I wander —
my trunk dancing
in the whispering grass

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

two emerald jewels
peer at me from the flax bushes –
intrepid explorer

Anne Curran
Hamilton, New Zealand

 

black moon
a spider weaving
barbed-wire

Mohammad Azim Khan
Peshawar, Pakistan

 

rainbow’s end
in a desert a woman
hugs a pot of gold

Jenny Shepherd
London, United Kingdom

 

flying unbridled
towards the stars
winged horse

Raji Vijayaraghavan
Bangalore, India

 

a rocking horse
rears up in my thoughts
I flee out the window

Marie Derley
Ath, Belgium

 

cobwebbed windows…
dimly seen
the sun setting

Andrew Pineo
Exeter NH USA

 

gliding dragonfly …
on the pond surface
my split shadow

Samo Kreutz
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

sitting still
the world floats by
in thunderclaps

Pat Davis
Concord, NH USA

 

calliope’s filly
wind galloping through
her mane

marilyn ashbaugh
usa

 

stress and might
I sink and rise
from wild waters

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

ocean thunder
white horses galloping
out of her calendar

Ann Sullivan
Massachusetts USA

 

unbridled heart
a carriage horse dreams
of Pegasus

Ravi Kiran
India

 

she abandons
dressage to race
with the wind

Clysta Seney
Northern California

 

raising the bet –
a wild horse bolts for
the forest

Pachnik Zoltán
Hungary

 

why do I
hit the same piano key
over and over

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, USA

 

olive branches
the dove in me
always busy

Hla Yin Mon
Yangon, Myanmar

 

billowing clouds
on the distant horizon
a mermaid’s open hair

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh India

 

ginger roots
my words want to go deep
into the soil

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

rocking horse —
eyes shut she gallops
faster & faster

Rupa Anand
New Delhi, India

 

as if the wind braided wishes into hair

Nitu Yumnam
UAE

 

homebody–
every window breathing out
breathing in

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

roused from slumber
I shake the night
from my feathers

Nick T
Frome, UK

 

dawn breeze
the past regions of
her window face

Richa Sharma
India

 

living under the rock
i find
myself

Govind Joshi
Dehradun, India

 

black cats…
she brews potions
with her mortar and pestle

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

first haircut
she brings a picture
of a unicorn

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

childhood prayers
a rocking horse
my trusty steed

Anette Chaney
United States

 

late into the night
still at the sewing machine
I stitch my new skin

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

iris petals
swirl in a river eddy —
spiral galaxy

Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC

 

through a stained glass of odd angles this moonlight

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

driftwood girl
with a tumbleweed head
her flowery hat

Kathabela Wilson
California, USA

 

elven tongue
the melodies
in my language

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

Shredded mirrors
my reflection
broken too

Amotz Maimon
California, US

 

inside a dream
playing air piano
echo of shadows

John S Green
Bellingham, Washington

 

one character
keeps flickering
hologram glitch

Arrigo Bassi
Switzerland

 

peaks under the stars
green-eyed woman
flies over the roses

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

wild spirits
tear the curtain –
cry of hyenas

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

selfie
trying to capture
his solitude

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

at one
with freedom
woman and beast

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

skyborne . . .
curlicued in cashmere
lotus roots run deep

(All winter season word, kigo 季語: lotus roots, renkon 蓮根. The World Kigo Database by Dr. Gabi Greve, Daruma Museum, Japan, is my primary almanac (saijiki) for kigo and muki, footnotes about kigo, and for translation of kigo and muki into English.)

Monica Kakkar
India

 

spil
ling
from
my roots:
words wasps bees and birds

Melissa Dennison
UK

 

open window
my hair escapes
with the horse

Ella Aboutboul
West Sussex, UK

 

the gospel according to an empty desert road

Lee Hudspeth
USA

 

geode
the multiverse
inside my head

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

undiscovered self
astride a hobbyhorse
instead of a bronco

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

first self-portrait
within my chest nests
a lyrebird

Cezar Ciobica
Romania

 

green velvet coat
I unzip the trees
inside me

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

 

I opened the double doors—
a crepuscular eye
of the mountain

Kristian Abe Dalao
Rizal, Philippines

 

every breath
one leaf closer
to the flowered sky

Elizabeth Shack
Illinois

 

prison wall
i draw a window with colours
outside the spectrum

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

diamond raindrops
yet here I am dwelling
in my dwelling

C.R. Harper
United States

 

ears
of the elephant plant
watching our conversation

(When I was younger, I had a dream that six elephants were resting in the backyard of our house…I woke up feeling a kind of happiness, as if I had their protection somehow. I know there are people in this world who feel that elephants have a protective presence, and I have become a believer too. At the same time, I’ve considered that by appearing in my dream, these magnificent creatures may have been asking for the same favor from me.)

Madeleine Kavanagh
United States

 

untethered dreams
astride a winged stallion
she rides the wind

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

banyan roots all around my self esteem

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

smart phone video
bluebird dropping the ichthys
replay

Brian Soderman
Stanwood, Washington

 

in and out
I wave the moonbeams
into verses

Mona Iordan
Bucharest, Romania

 

red heels
bestride the fields and daffodils
give way to wooden spoons

Helene Guojah
UK

 

lost horse shoves
mom off her rocker
hyena laughs

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

self-portrait –
a cheetah running
under the harvest moon

Cristina Povero
Italy

 

soft antler
the part of me
still growing

C.X. Turner
UK

 

on a polar bear
a birch spoon
promises

Bittor Duce Zubillaga
Basque Country

 

water monkey
hoards found sparkles
spirit of raven

Sigrid Saradunn
DownEast Maine, USA

 

metamorphosis
one thousand fears become
a framework

Christine D
USA

 

leaves behind inkings
is the black walnut tree
writing about herself

wendy c. bialek
usa

Join us next week for Lafcadio’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios:

Guest (& 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

The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy.

Please note that all poems & images appearing in Haiku Dialogue may not be used elsewhere without express permission – copyright is retained by the creators. Please see our Copyright Policies.

Photo Credit:

Banner photo credit:  Lafcadio

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.