HAIKU DIALOGUE – Surrealistic Art – “Landscape” – long list
As some of you may have noticed, we experienced a transmission problem with our Submission Form last week, but all submissions have been recovered & the issue has been resolved. Special thanks to our amazing team – Dave Russo, Post Manager Lori Zajkowski & Guest Editor Lafcadio – much appreciated! kj
Surrealistic Art with Guest Editor Lafcadio
For the next few weeks I would like to be your docent in The Haiku Foundation museum. We will only have time to visit the surrealism gallery, which I’m sure will have enough inspiration for getting in touch with our subconscious mind and release its creative potential through the power of the irrational juxtaposition in these drawings and paintings.
First, we can discuss surrealism some 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 painting is used today to transcend the boundaries of the ordinary and deliver us in the realm of extraordinary.
I can’t remember which came first for me…surrealistic poetry or surrealistic paintings. Either way I am firmly entrenched in surrealism and would love to see your responses to some of the surrealistic artwork. There is so much abstraction and symbolism in the drawings and paintings, I think there will be ample material to use in writing haiku and senryu.
Below is Lafcadio’s selection of poems on the topic of “Landscape”:
inclinations of a perfect getaway
Barbara Anna Gaiardoni
Verona-Italy
dreaming
my fears now
in technicolorJahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada
glints of burnished brass
marching songs of click beetles
plangent in the mistJohn Hawkhead
UK
he leaps over the obvious
to land in a field
of zig-zag lightningAnn Rawson
Scotland, U.K.
awakening
from aphrodisiac
my missing teethJackie Chou
United States
bottled emotions
leapfrogging over
my dreamscapeCaroline Ridley-Duff
UK
vertical axis Norse mills
Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA
blue hour stacked nightclub tables sticky with vermouth
Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK
still motion: what is seen is what is seen and what else seen
John Zheng
Mississippi
vortex of water
through the tree canopy
third eyeHifsa Ashraf
Pakistan
swallowing a placebo puffin leap from the cliff
simonj
UK
holding up
the sleep of mermaids
her long hairEavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA
golden linden tree…
when the sky is not
blueSteliana Cristina Voicu
Ploiesti, Romania
over the plain
of the moon –
still life with red canoeDeborah A. Bennett
Illinois USA
the sky
above scattered
impedimentaEmil Karla
France
her hair
is a highway
he knows the road signsCindy Putnam Guentherman
Illinois, USA
moonstruck
a magpie’s nest abundant
with jewelsRobert Kingston
Chelmsford, United Kingdom
fold in
fold out
float awayRuth Happel
United States
not escaping
the box…
smoke and mirrorsNancy Brady
Huron, Ohio
concrete blocks the unfolding of water street
Joshua St. Claire
York County, PA
sunlit terrain –
a shadow walks
aloneVijay Prasad
Patna, India
taking stairs
to a backstage void
between actsSarang Bhand
Navi Mumbai, India
my mind leapfrogs
between childhood games and pain
analyst’s couchJenny Shepherd
London, UK
Sleeping Beauty
the growing greyness
of her blonde hairChen Xiaoou
Kunming, China
fallen leaves
travelers disappearing
in a shattered voiceTeiichi Suzuki
Japan
childhood memories_
barbarian holding the sky
facing an octopusFatma Zohra Habis
Algeria
a lonely forest walk
the high heeled boots are foreign
to my fleeting thoughtsYvonne Waern
Linköping, Sweden
still smiling
in the boutique’s backyard
broken mannequinsMilan Rajkumar
Imphal, Manipur, India
spirale …
il ricordo di un sogno
che non ricordospiral …
the memory of a dream
that I don’t rememberAngiola Inglese
Italia
hunter’s moon
antlers end the story
i startedDaya Bhat
India
her hips
the landscape
of my desirePris Campbell
U.S.
a full moon
sailing across
the seaDan Campbell
Virginia
equinox
the duck-rabbit
of the man in the moonLaurie Greer
Washington, DC
what the daybed took from me shapeshifting
Sharon Ferrante
Florida, USA
eons before the stream of consciousness streams
Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh India
mindscape…
dismembered emotions
fill dark spacesNeena Singh
Chandigarh India
fishnet stockings
a rainbow trout
gasping for airOrense Nicod
Paris, France
black dog blotting
out the sun eating
trout without a forkMark Gilbert
UK
Ophelia sinking into the therapist’s couch
Alex Fyffe
Houston, Texas
bronze butterfly
clangs its wings in rage
on my steel cocoonPeter Larsen
Lake View Terrace, CA
lip twitch
of an old musician—
walking bassoonJulie Bloss Kelsey
Germantown, Maryland, USA
couch surfing
every therapist talks about
her Cinderella complexAdele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut
she leaves nothing but a shoe
and a gap-toothed smile…
bombshellTracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK
as they bottle it
she sneaks away
into the nightMelissa Dennison
UK
a thousand tiny deaths dreamscape
Jenn Ryan-Jauregui
Tucson Arizona USA
alter ego wrapped in someone else’s arms
Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California
cold space
outside the station
I lend Neptune a lightBiswajit Mishra
Canada
eretica notte –
a cavallo dello struzzo
i desideriheretical night –
riding the ostrich
desiresGiuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italy)
unbuilding the home before my childhood home
Pippa Phillips
Greensboro, NC
autumn leaves
an artist speed paints
the soft slipsJagajit Salam
Imphal, India
red lipstick
pieces of me
smeared across the floorKimberly Kuchar
Austin, Texas
sofa with red plush –
jumping figures
on the night stairsMinko Tanev
Bulgaria
being both
dead and alive
tree stump fungiTony Williams
Scotland, UK
turning ‘red’ to ‘read’ mind renovation
Madhuri Pillai
Australia
on the road not taken
a rusty old kettle
offers me a wishLori Kiefer
UK
cold hazy night
rising walls battle with light
within and withoutPadma Priya
India
the wind scatters the shapes and size of my mindset autumn
Lakshmi Iyer
India
all the world’s
a stage
. . . with teethMarion Clarke
Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland
sandy path –
the wind smells of thyme
from heated meadowsKrzysztof Kokot
Poland
half the moon
inside my pocket—
stars scatterNalini Shetty
Mumbai, India
hypnagogia
pieces of my dream
tangled in her hairBryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA
dream therapy
my shrink doodles
what she thinks I saidMargaret Tau
New Bern, NC
renovating our house mother’s yawn
Richa Sharma
India
clouds unravel
as the hills dissolve slowly –
no horizon leftC.X. Turner
UK
oat juice orgy
my eccentric guests
eat the pianoMircea Moldovan
România
in the eye of a cyclops Sauron
Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD
mind-melding
with a surrealist . . .
the twilight zoneValentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA
chalk lines—
h(a)unting the wild things
of childhoodJonathan English
Washington, DC
asleep in the Hunter moon
under the second moon’s shadow
Orion’s belt(Note: We are experiencing a second moon which officially entered Earth’s orbit. Although it’s being called a “mini-moon,” the object is actually an asteroid named 2024 PT5. It has been temporarily captured by Earth’s gravitational pull.)
Seretta Martin
San Diego, CA USA
Alice
smoking out
the iddusty fae
Miami, FL
adrift searching
imaginary fainting couch
splits metaphorSigrid Saradunn
Bar Harbor, Maine
the spiral
of my thoughts
reflux glassAja Rhianna
Greensboro, North Carolina
the psychiatrist’s couch…
fragments of memories
not fitting into one frameDebbie Scheving
Bremerton WA USA
nightmares caused
by hair trapped in an eyelash
visions of bretonCurt Linderman
Seattle
Join us next week for Lafcadio’s commentary on additional poems…
Guest 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 Threads @lafcadio2.0
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.
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 Credits:
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.
Comments (43)
Comments are closed.


Thank you, Lafcadio for including me. Such a great variety of poems. The following two particularly are my favorites
being both
dead and alive
tree stump fungi
Tony Williams
Scotland, UK
on the road not taken
a rusty old kettle
offers me a wish
Lori Kiefer
UK
You’re well come…it was a pleasure to read them!
Thanks for your comments on my haiku. Where was the painting some of you mentioned? I only saw the book cover of the musician. Was that it? Who knew? Anyway, if was an interesting, imaginative collection.
Last week, Lafcadio provided a link to the artwork, “Landscape” by Andre Breton and 3 others. You can go still find it there.
If this isn’t what you meant, my apologies.
Seretta,
the prompt was given the week before.
The artwork for these poems is here:
https://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Andre-Breton-Landscape-1933-Image-via-arthistoryprojectcom.jpg
Thank you so much for the wonderful prompt dear Lafcadio, surrealism is one of my favourites! Thanks for the inclusion and to team haiku dialogue for all the work that goes into this weekly feature 😇
Enjoying reading them all!
Thank you for submitting! Thhere were so many wonderful poems, including yours!
Thank you Lafcadio. An interesting batch of verses! Many striking:
eretica notte –
a cavallo dello struzzo
i desideri
heretical night –
riding the ostrich
desires
Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italy)
Thank you Keith. I was surprised at the variety of responses. Thank you for submitting!
Delighted to be part of the cohort. Wonderful interpretations of the painting. The one that stood out to me in particular was :
hypnagogia
pieces of my dream
tangled in her hair
Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA
Congratulations to all! And thanks to Lafcadio for considering my work. Cheers!
That is a great one. Thank you for submitting!
not escaping
the box…
smoke and mirrors
.
Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio
.
Sometimes the person was never in the box in a magical illusion and it was done with smoke and mirrors. What is real and what is not real in a magical illusion? What is real and not real in life?
Thanks, Valentina, for finding something I hadn’t considered. Congrats on yours about the twilight zone where everything is possible and yet…
It is always a pleasure when my haiku is selected for publication in this column. Thank-you to Lafcadio, Kathy, Lori, and the Haiku Foundation.
Our pleasure…I loved your poem!
Lafcadio, I am so glad you liked my poem.
Thanks for this selection! Each haiku helped me see a part of the painting I had not noticed or understood!
A few of them that struck me:
all the world’s
a stage
. . . with teeth
Marion Clarke
as they bottle it
she sneaks away
into the night
Melissa Dennison
Ophelia sinking into the therapist’s couch
Alex Fyffe
what the daybed took from me shapeshifting
Sharon Ferrante
fold in
fold out
float away
Ruth Happel
It’s true…my interpretation of the picture totally changed after reading all the submissions.
Thanks to Lafcadio for including mine too … I had a hard time writing it, I couldn’t find the right form.
A very interesting selection!
You wrote a great poem…thank you for submitting!
Congratulations to all the poets for these thoughtful, intriguing haiku (surreku?). Reading through them I was transported back, remembering the various elements of the painting. I am thrilled to have had one included in the mix. Thanks Lafcadio. Picking out favorites is impossible because there is so much variety. Dare I say it? Reading them was surreal.
Ha! It was a pleasant break from reality to immerse myself in all the poems. Glad you submitted!
This is a fantastic theme. Thank you for including my poem, Lafcadio.
I enjoyed reading these and seeing the different approaches. These are some of the poems that stood out to me:
holding up
the sleep of mermaids
her long hair
Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA
chalk lines—
h(a)unting the wild things
of childhood
Jonathan English
Washington, DC
hypnagogia
pieces of my dream
tangled in her hair
Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA
taking stairs
to a backstage void
between acts
Sarang Bhand
Navi Mumbai, India
Ophelia sinking into the therapist’s couch
Alex Fyffe
Houston, Texas
Oh my goodness, thanks, Kimberly! I loved your poem and all of these too. So much to enjoy.
I’m glad we worked out the technical issues so we could publish your poem! Thank you for submitting.
Oh, what fun it was to read your selections, Lafcadio! Thank you for including mine. There was so much to luxuriate within, and it was exciting to see so many friends stretch their surrealist muscles.
I was really struck by this poem’s allusion to the great Gertrude Stein:
still motion: what is seen is what is seen and what else seen
John Zheng
Mississippi
It also serves as an apt description of the wide variety of interpretations of this first piece of art.
That’s very true! So glad you enjoyed the poems!
I liked the poem you mentioned, but I didn’t immediately get the allusion. Thank you for pointing it out.
The poet may not have even have intended it, but isn’t that was surrealism is all about, the subconscious?
These are all wonderful and beautiful!!! 🖼 I had writer’s block. I don’t know how you all did it but I am enjoying looking at the painting again while reading your haiku. 📝
⤵️ Seretta! I love this. I had no idea. And we share the same sky. I shall look for our mini-moon… because as my name suggests… the moon captures me…
⤵️
asleep in the Hunter moon
under the second moon’s shadow
Orion’s belt
(Note: We are experiencing a second moon which officially entered Earth’s orbit. Although it’s being called a “mini-moon,” the object is actually an asteroid named 2024 PT5. It has been temporarily captured by Earth’s gravitational pull.)
Seretta Martin
San Diego, CA USA
We have a second prompt coming up soon. Hope your writer’s block clears by then :)
Thank you Lafcadio! I hope so too! :) I will give it a go for sure!
An interesting variety of approaches. Some ekphrastic descriptions of the art, some were more like reactions to it. I especially liked Emil Karla’s
the sky
above scattered
impedimenta
Yes definitely a variety! I loved that there were both kinds. Thank you for submitting!
That one is great.
I like yours, too, but I’m not sure if I get it.
What I meant was that I love the Imagery, and it’s fascinating, but I feel like I’m missing something deeper. Sorry If I sounded rude at all.
It was imagery from a dream, either influenced by or suggestive of this week’s image. I find surrealistic images really interesting.
Oh thank you, Mark!
Yours has a striking imagery: I can almost picture a corresponding painting, and I love the mystery of the missing fork. Makes me think of the famous surrealist description: “The Knife Without a Blade That Lacks a Handle”.
A couple that stood out for me.
in the eye of a cyclops Sauron
Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD
the psychiatrist’s couch…
fragments of memories
not fitting into one frame
Debbie Scheving
Bremerton WA USA
Yours was lovely.
I agree. Robert’s poem is beautiful.
I enjoyed those too. Thank you for reading the selections!
Thank you, Robert, for the mention.