Haiku Dialogue

Haiku Dialogue: What’s at Hand Week 20

 

 

Welcome to Haiku Dialogue — What’s at Hand Week 20 with Guest Editor Craig Kittner.

Let’s talk about haiku! Through June 26 we will see what 21 common objects can inspire.

Our theme for June 19 is a broken shell.

Immerse yourself in the theme, then submit one original, unpublished haiku via our Contact Form. Please submit by Saturday, June 15 at 6:00 pm eastern time. Include your name as you would like it to appear and your place of residence.

By submitting you agree that your work may appear in the column — neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent.

I will select haiku that make good use of the theme and that are likely to generate lively discussions. I’ll add some thoughts below each week’s selections to get the conversation started.

Here are my selections for a glass bottle.

worm moon
dipped in the puddle
a glass bottle

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

bottle on the sidewalk-
glass étude
performed by the wind

Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

 

through the bottom
of the first bottle
sunset

Ann K. Schwader
Westminster, CO

 

a bit of sunset
in every shard –
broken bottle

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh,India

 

early morning sun
colored glass bottles
collecting light

Billy Antonio

 

the squallsong . . .
a bottle and bag
on the beach

C.R. Harper

 

holding sunlight
her little glass bottle
filled with sea

Carol Raisfeld

 

sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining

Christine G
Delisle, SK

 

sun’s reflection
on a glass bottle and
the mouse is saved

Dubravka Šćukanec
Zagreb, Croatia

 

raising the mast
of the ship in a bottle
spring clouds unfurl

Edward Cody Huddleston

 

last resting place
for a ship that never saw
the ocean

Franjo Ordanić

 

Empty bottle…
I escape the flood
Of memories

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo
Ghana

 

Champagne toasts
a truckload of empties
rattles down the road

Garry Eaton

 

first flush
of sour cherries
gran eyes the brandy bottle

Ingrid Baluchi,
Cambridge, UK

 

origami stars
all my deferred dreams
in a glass bottle

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

wine bottles
become candle holders
faces glowing

Jo El
North Carolina

 

broken blue bottle
the evening in Paris
he promised me

joanb
NY

 

Sunday morning—
I sweep the bottle shards
off the sidewalk

John Green

 

Paris air
bringing home
a readymade sample

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

wind skimming the valley
song of a breath
across a bottle

Laurie Greer
Washington DC

 

wind storm –
the last words of a migrant
in a glass bottle

Maria Teresa Piras

 

the truth —
perhaps at the bottom
of the next bottle?

Mark Meyer

 

end of summer
listening to the sea
in a glass bottle

Marta Chocilowska
Poland

 

beach glass
the countless messages
I’ve never sent

Michele L. Harvey

 

winter morning
the light through
a blue glass bottle

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

dawn
the scavenger’s sack
rattles with empties

Pat Davis
NH, USA

 

bottle of milk
warmed to body temperature
his second childhood

paul geiger
Sebastopol CA

 

sea glass
shaped by the tides…
the summer we first met

Polona Oblak
Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

placidity moon
the scattered warmth of fireflies
in a glass bottle

pratima balabhadrapathruni

 

our past drifting back sea glass

Rich Schilling
Webster Groves, MO

 

widower
the champagne bottle
covered in dust

Roberta Beary
Co Mayo, Ireland

 

magniloquence
in politics
bottle of gin

Ronald K. Craig
Batavia, OH, USA

 

little boys
with a glass bottle
brew giants’ pee

Ruth Powell

 

sunlight refracting
from a glass bottle
a snail’s pace

Sam Reddick

 

I offer the waves
the last of the genever
the world this haiku

simonj
UK

 

a glass bottle
crossing the seas
without a message

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

behind a bush
kissing open mouth
two beer bottles

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

 

last call
the emptiness in the bottle
in me

Stephen A. Peters

 

empty
like a broken promise
your wine bottle

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA USA

 

in the morning
a glass bottle at my doorsill
no message

Vessislava Savova

 

a clinking bottle
moon down
at the dump

Vicki Miko

 

How many bottles have passed through your hands? They’re everywhere, but even the most common — if observed under the right circumstances — can transport you.

Light through glass is a good basis for haiku. To this Ann K. Schwader adds anticipation of the oncoming night, through the juxtaposition of “the first bottle” and “sunset.” The nature of the anticipation is artfully left for the reader to intuit.

The play of sunlight on glass is insubstantial and ephemeral. Dubravka Šćukanec gives us a moment where such a transient thing changes the fate of another being. We’re left with the mystery of how the mouse was saved, but a sense of interconnection between light, life, and us.

Franjo Ordanić makes clever use of this week’s prompt in his eloquent and slightly sad poem. Though not mentioned, given the context, his ship’s bottle is strongly present.

I was charmed by Kath Abela Wilson’s homage to Duchamp. I like to think he would’ve been too. With his readymades, Duchamp elevated common objects to the status of art through the act of selection. Many a haiku does the same. https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/marcel-duchamp/50-cc-of-paris-air/

Naturally, sea glass and messages in bottles were subjects in several poems this week. Michele L. Harvey nicely combines them with a poignant self observation.

You won’t need bottles to send messages to us. Just insert them into the comment section below.

 

Guest Editor Craig Kittner lives near the banks of the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina. He has worked as a gallery director in Washington, DC, and a program director for the Kentucky Arts Council. He took second prize in the North Carolina Poetry Society Bloodroot Haiku Award for 2019.

 

Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada and an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets. She co-edited an anthology of crime-themed haiku called Body of Evidence: a collection of killer ’ku.

After several years of moves, Craig Kittner has put down roots in the sandy soil of Eastern North Carolina. There the sunshine is clear. The climate gives rise to riotous growths of wildflowers. Birds abound, and the sky is alive with ocean breezes. Craig is content to walk the forests and beaches, gathering imagery for his poems. His work has been published in Frogpond, Chrysanthemum, Failed Haiku, bottle rockets, and the Autumn Moon Haiku Journal. In 2018, he had two poems selected as judges' favorites in the 5th Annual Golden Haiku Competition, and one poem selected for the Winston Salem Writers' Poetry in Plain Sight project. His first chapbook, Time's Sweet Savor, was published in 2016 by New Books on Front Street, an imprint of Old Books on Front Street in downtown Wilmington.

This Post Has 59 Comments

  1. Thank you, Craig, for including my verse.
    As always I appreciate all the verses here, some bringing back old memories, like the bottle of Evening in Paris perfume:
    .
    broken blue bottle
    the evening in Paris
    he promised me
    joanb
    .
    Thanks also to Alan for your comments. I chose a wine bottle, as wine implies a celebration. On his way to celebrate something and had a few before? In this case the celebration has been cut short.

    1. Hi Christine! 🙂
      .
      You said:
      “Thanks also to Alan for your comments. I chose a wine bottle,
      as wine implies a celebration.
      .
      On his way to celebrate something and had a few before?
      In this case the celebration has been cut short.”
      .
      .
      Yes, wine, can be celebratory or something to lose ourselves into as a solitary act. We can certainly draw a great range of interpretations, which is the rich vein of monoku sometimes.
      .
      .

      sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining
      .
      Christine G
      Delisle, SK
      .
      Alan said:
      .
      “The act of a bottle “slowly” draining is an excellent observation whether this is an aircraft downed, or drunk driving.”

      1. I debated for awhile before doing this in one line. I remember your comment about how, if it should be a monoku, it just doesn’t sound right divided into three lines. And that’s how I felt about this one, when I tried it.

        1. There are always exceptions of course, and it’s always interesting to sit with a few versions, which I’ve just tried, but feel the monoku was the best decision.

  2. Thank you Craig for including my haiku!
    There were so many I enjoyed…especially Arvinder Kaur’s

    a bit of sunset
    in every shard-
    broken bottle

    and Kath Abela Wilson’s

    Paris air
    bringing home
    a readymade sample

  3. Thanks Craig for including my poem! I am a little late in posting my comments as my mama is terribly sick. Today its time to send out new ones. But I did get to see the blog with such incredible responses one cannot help but wait eagerly for this feature each week. All poems are gorgeous, mentioning a few

    origami stars by Jackie Chou , beach glass by Michele L Harvey , what a poignant poem Michele ! magniloquence by Ronald Craig!
    Looking forward to the next week!

    1. I really enjoyed your haiku…I could just see the colors of sunset in the pieces of glass!
      I hope your mom feels better soon!

  5. Thank you so much, Craig Kittner, for posting my haiku.
    Every poem has feeling!

    My notes:

    our past drifting back sea glass
    *
    Rich Schilling
    Webster Groves, MO
    *
    I loved thinking about Rich’s poem, “drifting” back to the very first time I saw “sea glass”. Well… it really wasn’t the sea, it was Lake Superior. At six years old, the lake looked bigger than the sea and every stone was a keeper.

    —

    early morning sun
    colored glass bottles
    collecting light
    *
    Billy Antonio
    *
    Billy’s poem also brings back another vivid memory. A street sculptor who made beautiful water fountains out of cement. They were inlaid with the bottoms of “colored glass bottles”. His stash of bottles, waiting to be cut, lined up in the “early morning sun”, “collecting light”.

    —

    broken blue bottle
    the evening in Paris
    he promised me
    *
    joanb
    NY
    *
    joanb’s melancholy poem brings a more happy memory to me. That tear-drop shaped deep blue bottle sat on my mom’s vanity, forever. She never dabbed it on though, it was never used. More a decoration, I think.

    —

    dawn
    the scavenger’s sack
    rattles with empties
    *
    Pat Davis
    NH, USA
    *
    Nice! Thinking about the story behind Pat’s poem could be comical or sad, depending. I like the way our poems kind of fit in that way, too. Perhaps as …the day after the night before 😊.

    —

    wind storm –
    the last words of a migrant
    in a glass bottle
    *
    Maria Teresa Piras
    *
    Maria Teresa’s poem in so few words (!!), is chilling as the “wind storm”!

    —

    last resting place
    for a ship that never saw
    the ocean
    *
    Franjo Ordanić
    *
    This poem seems to reveal Franjo’s passion for the craft of building a “ship” in a bottle. Or maybe a passionate tribute to a deeper story in there somewhere, “for a ship that never saw / the ocean”. Without a mention of a bottle, we know it’s the ship’s “last resting place”.

    1. Thanks, Vicki, for connecting with my poem. Your poem and mine both use the sense of sound to add to the image and feeling!

  6. Thanks, Ronald, for appreciating my poem. Also, thanks for adding a new word to my vocabulary through your clever senryu!

  7. Thank you so much, Craig, for including my poem in this inspiring collection, and, as usual, for your thoughtful comments on those that caught your particular attention.

  8. Here are my favorites for this week:
    .
    .
    empty
    like a broken promise
    your wine bottle
    Susan Rogers
    .
    Nice first line to set the stage, Susan. Both lines 1 and 2 and lines 2 and 3 fit together nicely to show the sadness of the experience.
    .
    last call
    the emptiness in the bottle
    in me
    Stephen A. Peters
    .
    Emptiness serves two meanings. Well-written image, Stephen!
    .
    a glass bottle
    crossing the seas
    without a message
    Slobodan Pupovac
    .
    To me this poem signifies all glass bottles that end up as trash in our oceans! There may be no message in the bottle but the bottle is the message. We do not recycle!
    .
    widower
    the champagne bottle
    covered in dust
    Roberta Beary
    .
    In this situation there is nothing left to celebrate. Sad but true.
    .
    sea glass
    shaped by the tides . . .
    the summer we first met
    Polona Oblak
    .
    It’s unclear if this relationship lasted, but clearly we are shaped by first meetings and first impressions. Relationships polish our personality like water shapes glass.
    .
    dawn
    the scavenger’s sack
    rattles with empties
    Pat Davis
    .
    I can hear this person coming down the street at the break of dawn. S/he is hoping to make enough change to survive another day!
    .
    the truth –
    perhaps at the bottom
    of the next bottle?
    Mark Meyer
    .
    I like this one a lot! The word “perhaps” is so fitting and the question mark is absolutely necessary to convey the feeling: haven’t found it yet. Will we find it in the next bottle? Well, there’s always another one!
    .
    Empty bottle . . .
    I escape the flood
    Of memories
    Gabriel Awuah
    .
    The drink floods the mind and soul and has a way of washing away the bad times which would overwhelm us otherwise!
    .
    holding sunlight
    her little glass bottle
    filled with sea
    Carol Raiasfeld
    .
    To me this has to be a child experiencing the wonders of capturing a “little” bit of the sea! And, it glistens! Neat! My favorite!
    .
    a bit of sunset
    in every shard –
    broken bottle
    arvinder kaur
    .
    Broken bottles wash ashore. The salt water creates sea glass over time. I can visualize all the colors of the sunset gleaming off a beach. Nice poem, arvinder.
    .
    Many others have been commented on (below) or deserve comment by others.
    Ron
    .

    1. thanks for the mention, Ron, and yes, the relationship lasted almost 30 years, that is until his death a little less than two years ago.

      1. Also very interesting word in your poem. Certainly an addition ! lovely poem

  9. Another nice mix this week.
    .
    raising the mast
    of the ship in a bottle
    spring clouds unfurl
    .
    Edward Cody Huddleston
    .
    I enjoyed the images of the white sail and spring clouds.
    .
    magniloquence
    in politics
    bottle of gin
    .
    Ronald K. Craig
    .
    Now that I’ve learned what that word means, this made me smile.

    1. Glad you’re smiling, Debbie. Today’s political language often makes me scowl. Ron

  10. Thanks for appreciating my haiku, Marta. It is based on memories of children and adults in the city collecting empty bottles to cash them in for extra money way back in the 1950’s. I’d like to say “ditto” to Alan’s remarks about your “end of summer” ku – well-done!

  11. widower
    the champagne bottle
    covered in dust
    .
    Roberta Beary
    Co Mayo, Ireland
    .
    sad and sweet

  12. origami stars
    all my deferred dreams
    in a glass bottle
    .
    Jackie Chou
    Pico Rivera, CA USA
    .
    This one has a haunting quality to it since those dreams may never come true.

  13. behind a bush
    kissing open mouth
    two beer bottles
    .
    Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
    .
    A clever, and enjoyable pay-off.

  14. What a great collection! I’m glad all these haiku weren’t left bottled up.

    There are some true gems as noted above. Humor side by side with poignancy.

  15. broken blue bottle
    the evening in Paris
    he promised me

    joanb
    NY
    fine haiku…joan
    loved the cobolt blue bottle i associate with my favorite teenage perfume, both the colour, and the scent, brought memories back to me.

    2. Oh yes, Wendy, I have touching memories about the bottle on my mom’s vanity, but ya know, I can’t recall the fragrance. Mom never used it, and I think the time I did take a whiff of it, it had turned a bit alcoholly strong :-O

    3. correction: cobalt blue…not cobolt blue.

      Vikki….yes, it was strong even when fresh! highly flammable

    1. origami stars
      all my deferred dreams
      in a glass bottle
      .
      Jackie Chou
      Pico Rivera, CA USA
      .
      .
      I loved the unusual opening line, which at first I thought you were saying the stars were like origami, but they must actually be origami! 🙂
      .
      Origami, of course, can make us think of the original Bladerunner movie, where the idea of origami creations being left at a scene etc… are very much emulated.
      .
      Choosing when to keep or leave out certain favourite words is always a challenge. When do we decide over the baby, bathwater, or the bath itself?
      .
      The key word for me is “all” which could have all to easily have been removed in the final crafted version, but thank goodness it was kept! The whole haiku revolves around ‘all’.
      .
      Brilliant! 🙂

  19. As usual, a lot of great responses to the prompt, and I hope the accumulated comments help cover all the poems.

    .
    .

    Russian novelist Anton Chekhov once said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
    .
    .
    I recall that when I was younger and might frequent difficult pubs, I’d listen out for glass being broken, in order to defuse an incident, or protect both friends, and anyone vulnerable.
    .
    .
    That makes this one line all the more poignant, as we know alcohol causes more grief than even hard drugs, as unbelievable as that may seem.
    .
    .

     
    sober faces at the crash site a bottle of wine slowly draining
    .
    Christine G
    Delisle, SK
    .
    The act of a bottle “slowly” draining is an excellent observation whether this is an aircraft downed, or drunk driving.
    .
    .

     
     
    first flush
    of sour cherries
    gran eyes the brandy bottle
    .
    Ingrid Baluchi,
    Cambridge, UK
    .
    .
    Love the opening line that then segues into sour cherries. Ah, cherry brandy? Disgusting as it was, we all eyed that bottle, even outside of Christmas.
    .
    .

     
    origami stars
    all my deferred dreams
    in a glass bottle
    .
    Jackie Chou
    Pico Rivera, CA USA
    .
    .
     
    Love that opening line!!! And a poignant 2-line phrase that follows, and how ‘deferred’ isn’t actually redundant, but adds its own sad nuance.
    .
    .
     
    Sunday morning—
    I sweep the bottle shards
    off the sidewalk
    .
    John Green
    .
    .
    You must have had an amazing house party! 🙂
    .
    I’m guessing this is a residential semi-street party, overflowing from a house, rather than the usual city streets. As long as there wasn’t too much blood, and accoutrement of drug-taking.
     .
    Yes, a Sunday morning seems at odds with the after-party aftermath, but sadly too many people are clumsy and wilful drinking in the streets. Even when I’d get really tipsy, I never broke or left any glasses or bottles.
    .
    .
    Paris air
    bringing home
    a readymade sample
    .
    Kath Abela Wilson
    Pasadena, California
    .
    .
    Wasn’t sure if this was a perfume souvenir, or that consumer trick of bottling local air. 🙂 Thanks to Craig, I’m reminded of Duchamp who was as commercial savvy as Picasso!
    .
    .

     
    wind skimming the valley
    song of a breath
    across a bottle
    .
    Laurie Greer
    Washington DC
    .
    .
    A gently beautiful haiku! Love that first line, as well as ‘song of a breath’ both magnificent lines!
    .
    .

     
    wind storm –
    the last words of a migrant
    in a glass bottle
    .
    Maria Teresa Piras
    .
    .
    Deeply poignant. It’s Anne Frank’s birthday anniversary today, with a portrait of her as both a girl and what she might have looked like at 90 years old. Migrants, immigrants, refugees, and other categories, should be seen as human first, but rarely so, it seems. Great haiku!
    .
    .

     

    end of summer
    listening to the sea
    in a glass bottle
    .
    Marta Chocilowska
    Poland
    .
    .
    Great meeting up with you, even if it was mostly in corridors, and no chance to sit down and talk. 🙂
    .
    I love how the present participle which becomes a gerund really works here! I can imagine the end of Summer, or the end of a holiday season, and an empty bottle listening to each other. Wonderful!
    .
    .
     
    beach glass
    the countless messages
    I’ve never sent
    .
    Michele L. Harvey
    .
    .
    I am so guilty of this too! I used to be able to meet most people in person, regardless of country or region, city etc… and my new found sister is someone I should somehow social media talk to more often. Love that opening line, because it really resonates in different ways, including a message in a bottle so long ago, that the contents have gone and the bottle is now beach glass. Brilliant!
    .
    .
     
     
     
     
    magniloquence
    in politics
    bottle of gin
    .
    Ronald K. Craig
    Batavia, OH, USA
    .
    .
    I love the occasional over-long single word that goes against the grain for a haiku! 🙂
    .
    magniloquence: use of high-flown language
    .
    It was recently the anniversary of the great gin painter Hogarth, and now we have the landed gentry doing a new leadership dance in spite of a national crisis of knife-crime, and having one of the world’s greatest child poverty, to such an extreme that Britain is shamefully being investigated by the United Nations. Neat senryu!
    .
    .
     
     
     
    a clinking bottle
    moon down
    at the dump
    .
    Vicki Miko
    .
    .

    Love sound being prevalent in a haiku! Love that ‘moon down’ and its sister line of ‘at the dump’. So much suggested but never told! Brilliant use of withholding but giving so much at the same time.
    ,
    ,

    I’d just like to share a new post/article by myself, which although addresses one line haiku, it’s as relevant as any other treatment of haiku:
    .
    .
    The layering of meaning beyond the immediate: The “now” in monoku:
    .
    https://area17.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-layering-of-meaning-beyond.html
    .
    .
    p.s. Partly included this wonderful haiku because there’s a typo in Carol’s name, but it’s also a lovely verse too! 🙂
    .
    .
    holding sunlight
    her little glass bottle
    filled with sea
    .
    Carol Raisfeld
    .
    .
    Lovely opening line, bang in straight with the verb, and a charming middle line, and another verb in the last line.
    .
    Although ‘filled’ neatly feels like an adjective e.g. a bottle “filling’ with sea
    and neatly avoids the sometimes distracting ‘ing’ words, as it could have been ‘filling with sea’ which is beautiful, but the opening line might have then been under consideration to alter ‘holding’ which is such a wonderful word with sunlight! 🙂
    .
    .

    1. Dear Alan, I’m so happy that I could meet you and Karen in St. Albans! Maybe someday we can talk longer 🙂
      Thank you for your wonderful comment about my haiku.
      Love
      marta

    2. Thanks, Alan. Just as one takes time to savor the botanicals rolling over the tongue, I found this rather long word, in conjunction with the other lines, rolled off the tongue without difficulty. Glad you enjoyed this gustatory experience! Ron

    3. Thank you, Alan, for your comment on my poem. Each to our own taste, I guess, because I love cherry brandy! Looking out of my kitchen window in Ohrid right now, my neighbour’s sour cherries are ‘blushing’ as spring gradually ripens her tree, and soon Macedonian markets will be brimming over with this impossible-to-eat fruit for people to pop into their gallons of rakia (brandy) to store away and mature, just as my grandmother would do each year. And after the drink was imbibed on special occasions, bringing a flush to the cheeks, the cherry residue would go on to make a delicious jam with which to sweeten black tea poured straight from a bubbling samovar, taking the place of sugar.

      1. No offence meant, I’ve drunk the stuff as a kid, and youngster, and young adult, and possibly off and on at people’s houses, if they offered. 🙂
        .
        I try to avoid sweet liquors now, but we do get a few in for Christmas, and if untouched over December, then the option is revisited in the next year. 😉
        .
        I do like egg nog or Advocaat with lots of cherries though! 🙂

    5. Thank you, Alan! Your reviews are so meaningful. I appreciate and learn from every word. Haiku gives me an endless prompt, that’s the beauty of it. The themed prompts challenge me to my own twist. I love reading all the haiku, too, a delightful way to tap my own memory library.

      Loved further reading some of your beautiful poems with commentary!

      Yes, sometimes those “layers” can come very easy and then again…it can be really hard to get that vision in your head reduced down to a few sweet words 😉

    6. My wife is a professor at a nearby university—a short walk to her office—which is lovely. However, on weekends the students tend to overdue the reveling, leading to a thoughtless/careless act as they walk past our apartment building. As building manager, I must tidy up after the nastiness!

  20. Thank you, Craig, for publishing my haiku!
    A beautiful collection. I particularly appreciated these three:

    the truth —
    perhaps at the bottom
    of the next bottle?
    Mark Meyer

    beach glass
    the countless messages
    I’ve never sent
    Michele L. Harvey

    end of summer
    listening to the sea
    in a glass bottle
    Marta Chocilowska

  22. Thank you very much, Craig, for publishing my haiku!
    So lovely collection! I especially like these two:
    *
    winter morning
    the light through
    a blue glass bottle

    Olivier Schopfer
    *
    dawn
    the scavenger’s sack
    rattles with empties

    Pat Davis

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