HAIKU DIALOGUE – The Language of Flowers – Sowing Seeds: Literally and Metaphorically & Introduction to Literary Devices

The Language of Flowers: A Global Perspective with Guest Editor Carole MacRury & Introduction to Literary Devices

Thank you Guest Editor Carole MacRury for two months of inspiring photography & poetry, & now welcome back Alex Fyffe, who returns for the next few weeks… happy writing!

Introduction to Literary Devices with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe

For this series, I’d like to focus on the use of various literary devices in haiku. We tend to think of these techniques as applicable to longer lyric poetry – haiku is often taught to be a form without literary trappings, a simple breath of a poem, honest and straightforward, without ornament. Of course, this is a misconception, as the best haiku tend to be very carefully crafted, with one good poem often going through several revisions. And just like their longer cousins, haiku are capable of tackling metaphor, simile (despite what you might have heard), personification, symbolism, allusion, and any number of other techniques. Each week, we will take an in-depth look at a different technique and apply it to our haiku.

next week’s theme: the flashback

For now, we will focus on the flashback, a literary technique used in prose and poetry in which an author steps away from the current narrative to inform readers about events that happened earlier, usually to shed more light on the present. Novelists are able to take their time setting up present events before delving into a deep flashback, but haiku’s brevity doesn’t provide us this luxury; we must cut to the chase, quickly connecting something happening now with a memory, bringing past and present together in a single breath.

indigestion
the frog dragging home
its broken legs

When I was young, I caught a frog behind the house, and something in me possessed me to hurt the poor creature. After damaging it horribly, I started to feel sick about what I was doing, and I let the little fellow go, watching him barely limp away into the woods. It still comes up in my writing to this day, a stupid, harmful action that I continue to carry with regret. The indigestion I was feeling the morning I wrote this haiku reminded me of a frog, and that brought the flashback once again.

For the flashback prompt, consider a vivid moment from your past and how it connects to something happening in your life or your world now.

The deadline is midnight Central Daylight Time, Saturday July 09, 2022.

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. A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week. 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.

below is Carole’s commentary for Sowing Seeds:  Literally and Metaphorically:

It was a privilege to read each of your poems on what sowing seeds meant or suggested to you. As always, there were a few multiple submissions (beyond two) that I could not consider for the sake of fairness to those who submitted the maximum of two poems. Also, there were many poems on similar themes, such as dandelion seeds and heritage seeds. I chose those that most appealed to me as pertains to my own haiku aesthetics. Many poems not chosen I am sure will find a home. Wherever possible I researched unfamiliar terms to better understand a poem that lies outside of my own culture. But many of these poems stood alone despite my interest in knowing more. I’ve always maintained that a good poem communicates itself, despite its cultural source, and in fact unites us through universal experience. I’ve selected a few poems for commentary that represent a diverse response to the theme. The longer list contains many excellent haiku that deserve mention too, which I hope many of you will point out as your favorites. It’s been a joy to act as Guest Editor for Haiku Dialogue these past two months and I appreciate your kindness and continued support of The Haiku Foundation and this most excellent prompt site that serves not only to excite the muse of our more experienced writers, but through examples, inspire poets who are early on in their haiku journey. Here’s to seeding your muse and planting poems that will find a home here and among many of our journals.

too many seeds
the garden and I
grow wild

Susan Burch
Hagerstown, MD

I appreciated the exuberance of this poem. Can we plant too many seeds? Can we live with an overplanted riotous garden? I think so! I so love the way the poet responds to an overabundance of blossoms. But then, as a poet, I’ve always appreciated the wild side of a garden over a formally cultivated one. Don’t we all wish to sometimes, ‘grow wild?’ The sense of letting go and the sense of acceptance work well in this delightful haiku.

night sowing
on the balcony–
galaxy

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

This was one of my favorite responses to the theme of seeds. It begins with a focused moment: a person steps out onto their balcony one evening. Something we can all relate to, especially if living in a city. Perhaps the night is seeded with stars. And as poets, so many of us search the night sky for answers. Or we send our questions out to the universe. Our forever expanding universe! This image opens from a private moment of reflection to the stupendous idea of something so much bigger than us – the galaxy, with all its flickering stars, planets, and meteors. I am quite sure all of us partake of ‘night sowing,’ but never has this been expressed so poetically with the galaxy as juxtaposition.

tree shadows the seeds I didn’t intend to plant

Anette Chaney
Harrison, Arkansas

A poem can be enriched through careful word choices, and in this case, ‘tree shadows’ evokes a tree that has grown tall enough to cast a shadow, yet also asks us to consider the shadows within our own lives. On the surface, you have trees the poet did not plant yet grew large enough to cast a shadow. Does this suggest that our lives too contain shadows, things that happened that we didn’t intend to happen? I’m reminded of every tree my children brought home and were told to plant, yet after many moves, they never saw the results of their plantings as adults. This poem is grounded in fact yet opens up to metaphoric readings for those sensitive to mining the depths of a haiku.

sunrise …
grandpa’s hands
sprinkle gold

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

This poem appealed to me on the strength of the word ‘gold.’ I see a hardworking grandpa rising early to sow seeds that will bring wealth to the family. Gold has many connotations as a color and a metal within the Indian culture, but I can still relate to this poem within the restraints of my own culture. Gold certainly suggests something valuable, and for sure I can feel the personal love and value of this elderly grandpa through his rising early to sow seeds of gold, be they golden flax or some other seeds. A lovely image that offers a metaphoric reading as well.

my wild oats
and then my ashes –
scattered in the wind

Dan Campbell
Virginia

This is a superb death poem reminiscent of the old masters yet still speaks to the theme of sowing seeds. It’s an entire life in three lines: sowing one’s wild oats, scattering one’s ashes. Yes, surely in retrospect this represents the fleetingness of life.

moving day the lilacs that never bloomed

Allyson Whipple
St. Louis, MO

I appreciate the subtle metaphor in this lovely haiku. On the surface, it’s the simple fact that one is moving away knowing that the lilacs they planted never bloomed. We all know of these disappointments. On the metaphoric side, one feels that moving day suggests that more than the lilacs didn’t bloom and that perhaps there remains a bit of hope in moving elsewhere where the possibility of seeds taking root are more promising.

& here are the rest of the selections:

wildflower seeds
all the thoughts
I keep to myself

Lori Kiefer
London, UK

 

dandelion fluff
blown with the wind
all my wishes

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

sowing…
day and night
my muse

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

sowing seeds of misery inarticulate moon

Surashree Joshi
Pune, India

 

tank tracks…
sunflower seeds driven deep
into the motherland

Jonathan Aylett
Liverpool UK

 

dandelion seed
this desire to start
all over again

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

the size
of a seed packet
first library card

Mariel Herbert
California, USA

 

sowing
seeds of resistance . . .
sunflowers

Margaret Dornaus
Ozark, Arkansas

 

starry night seeding my dreams

Sharon Martin
Warrenville, IL

 

nibbled by moonlight
broad bean seeds
unearthed

Sheila Barksdale
United Kingdom

 

seed
my thought a
sapling

Chittaluri Satyanarayana
Hyderabad, India

 

scattered seeds
above the uranium mine
some of my hope lingers

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

a firefly in the seed of now

Richa Sharma
India

 

garden compost
the reincarnation
of a rotten tomato

Terri French
AL

 

her laughter
planting smiles
in the breeze

matsuo belūshi
united states

 

are you sure
you want to marry?
sowing seeds of doubt

Seretta Martin
California, USA

 

lost
in its own germination
a seed

Vijay Prasad
Patna, India

 

dandelion seeds…
my gray-haired mother
urges me to dance

Jackie Chou
United States

 

An effort
of a tiny ant – just
one more seed

Dejan Ivanovic
Lazarevac, Serbia

 

my student’s funeral
the seeds
that didn’t take

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

potato farmer
his gravestone reads—
he’s gone to seed

Bonnie Scherer
Palmer, Alaska USA

 

sowing wheat
the farmer dreams with open eyes
for tomorrow’s bread

Vasile Moldovan
Bucharest, Romania

 

Summer continues –
the seeds planted last year
wait for the first rain

hema ravi
Chennai, India

 

fresh-cut roses
from grandma’s old garden
heirlooms both

Curt Linderman
Seattle

 

wind seeds I blew it again

Adrian Bouter
The Netherlands

 

unsown
i allow the wild creeper
to connect

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

in the jack pines
fire means life
seeds among cinders

Matt Robison
Ohio, USA

 

seeking courage
a dandelion seed
stuck to my lapel

Robert Kingston
Chelmsford, United Kingdom

 

free
to a good home. . .
wildflowers

Carol Jones
Wales UK

 

seedless dates
mother worries who’ll
marry me

Vandana Parashar
India

 

war ruins —
daring poppies
push through

Mariangela Canzi
Italy

 

my skirt
plays its part
burdock

Luciana Moretto
Treviso, Italy

 

the power of nature –
seeds
on the move

Danijela Grbelja
Sibenik, Croatia

 

hitchhiking
a beggar-ticks seeks
home for itself

Chen Xiaoou
Kunming, China

 

pictureless packet
what will grow
will grow

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

childhood perfume in a jar with basil seeds

profumo d’infanzia in un vaso semi di basilico

Maria Teresa Piras
Sardinia – Italy

 

Wordsworth’s birthday
sowing lines and lines
of tiny seeds

Tony Williams
Scotland, UK

 

gone to seed
both garden and
gardener

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

sowing seeds
in our vegetable garden
attentive sparrows

Rehn Kovacic
Mesa, AZ

 

a field
thick with wildflowers
the school’s rubble gone

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

newly collected
tomato seeds
I update my vita

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

gardening
all the weeds
I did not plant

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

prickly weed
seeding
as I tumble

Jonathan Epstein
Los Angeles, CA

 

grieving widower
his perpetual spinach
goes to seed

Sue Courtney
Orewa, New Zealand

 

for you
I sow seeds
I know will never flower

Margaret Mahony
Australia

 

chasing appoopan thadi …
will I take root
in this alien country

(Appooppan thadi is Indian-milkweed seed, scientifically known as Asclepias eriocarpa.)

Ram Chandran
India

 

threshing
with a dheki –
a bihu song

(A dheki is a traditional agricultural tool used in the rural villages of North Eastern India to separate rice grains from their outer husks. A bihu song is a folksong of the people of Assam, India sung during the rice harvest festival of Bihu celebrated every January.)

Daipayan Nair
Silchar, Assam, India

 

milkweed down…
seeds of wonder
in the baby’s eyes

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

clear night
poplar fluff is invisible
among fireflies

Zelyko Funda
Croatia

 

crossing the river the wonderful seed

Mircea Moldovan
România

 

sowing seeds…
my field
my rules

Danita Brandt
Michigan, USA

 

you still talk to me …
carnation seeds
in a drawer

ancora mi parli … semi di garofano in un cassetto

Lucia Cardillo
Italy

 

pomegranate seeds
another blissful year
together

Elena Malec
Irvine, California

 

raging flames—
an orgasm
of Banksia seeds

(Banksia require bush fire activity to release seeds from the woody capsule.)

wanda amos
Old Bar, Australia

 

now at seventy
I reinvent myself
morning glory

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

harvesting seeds
from milkweed pods
butterfly dream

Wakako Miya Rollinger
Topanga, CA

 

wild violets
hope re-seeds
itself

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

sowing seeds…
whispering a prayer
to get pregnant

Florin C. Ciobica
Romania

 

storm warning
dandelion seeds flying
in all directions

Cristina-Valeria Apetrei
Romania

 

cucumber seeds …
Mom’s last jar of pickles
absent from my shelf

D. M. MacDonald
Sacramento, California

 

marigold seeds …
the sunshine
of my first garden

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

sowing seeds my first fetal sonography

Devoshruti Mandal
India

 

crescent moon
in the eyes of refugees
seeds of hope

Luisa Santoro
Rome

 

nature lesson
generations of children
growing beans in jars

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

 

a hint of green on winter soil the sun in my eyes

Madhuri Pillai
Australia

 

rising mist
a pinecone falls
into the river

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

after this life a poppy seed

Tiffany Shaw-Diaz
Centerville, Ohio, USA

 

buzzing of bees
wildflower meadow
planted by winds

Tsanka Shishkova
Bulgaria

 

Tomato seeds:
sown in spring
salad in summer

Jenny Shepherd
London, UK

 

sowing seeds –
my haiku poem
half ready

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

sowing seeds…
she’s not sure
will bloom in time

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

first day of spring
i sow seeds
of impatiens

Sarah Metzler
United States

 

flax flowers
in our ethno village
grandmother’s seed

cvjetovi lana
u našem Etno selu
bakino sjeme

Zdenka Mlinar
Croatia

 

a shadow moves…
the song of the cricket
from the seeds

Jorge Alberto Giallorenzi
Chivilcoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

first tomato —
he waters the plants
without being told

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
Kolkata, India

 

granelli di senape…
nei solchi di maggio
nuove promesse

mustard grains …
in the furrows of May
new promises

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna Italia

 

shifting home
I leave back
a bit of me

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

….lunaria
the circles
….i keep

P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada

 

the young child
finally cracks a smile
germination

John S Green
Bellingham, WA

 

a palmful of seeds
her apron
by summer’s end

Lorraine A Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

sown early
the seeds
of his sadness

Colette Kern
Southold US

 

my thoughts wander
on a summer breeze
thistle seed

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

talk radio…
sowing seeds
of discontent

Nancy Brady
Ohio, USA

Guest Editor Carole MacRury resides in Point Roberts, Washington, a unique peninsula and border town that inspires her work. Her poems have won awards and been published worldwide, and her photographs have been featured on the covers of numerous poetry journals and anthologies. Her practice of contemplative photography along with an appreciation of haiku aesthetics helps deepen her awareness of the world around her. Both image and written word open her to the interconnectedness of all things; to surprise, mystery and a sense of wonder. She is the author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides (Black Cat Press, 2008, 2nd Printing, 2018) and The Tang of Nasturtiums, an award-winning e-chapbook (Snapshot Press 2012).

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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