Per Diem News

Haiku Tribute Challenge May 21

For May’s Per Diem feature on The Haiku Foundation website Carlos Colón has selected poems written as tributes to fellow haiku poets, but without indicating who the recipient of the tribute is. We challenge you to identify the poet being honored today, May 21. Read the Per Diem poem, then send us the name of who you think is the honoree in the comment box below. All recipients, and identifiers, will be revealed at the end of the month. Good luck!

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. If you are responding for the May 22 challenge (the poem by Paul O. Williams), see the May 22 Challenge Link.

    The poem, indeed, was written for Nick Virgilio.

  2. This challenge for May 21 is actually for Johnny Baranski’s poem, which Michael Dylan Welch correctly identified (in the May 20 challenge) as being written for Lorraine Harr.

    dragonfly
    where have you flown off to
    first frost

    Johnny Baranski for Lorraine Harr (Tombo)
    Frogpond 36:2 (2013)

  3. Gene, you’re right, and since Virgilio died in 1989, haiku poets all over North America and some other countries would have known of his death by the grapevine and the various haiku journals, including Frogpond and Modern Haiku.

  5. perhaps I should have included this copy in my last post?

    gone from the woods
    the bird I knew
    by song alone
    – Paul O. Williams

  6. Carlos, this haiku is just too well-known. I expect Californian Williams never met Nick Virgilio from New Jersey. We didn’t have conferences like HNA back then but he heard the bird song… I met Paul several times, but Nick died before I found my way in haiku.

    – Paul MacNeil

  7. .

    This haikai verse always makes me sad and tearful:

    dragonfly hunter
    how far has he traveled
    today I wonder?

    蜻蛉釣り今日はどこまで行ったやら
    tombo-tsuri kyoo wa doko made itta yara

    Original haikai verse by Chiyo-jo千代女 (Chiyo-Ni)

    (English version by Jane Reichhold)

    Johnny Baranski does a marvellous and poignant tribute to her, and the death of her only son:

    dragonfly
    where have you flown off to
    first frost

    – Johnny Baranski

    .

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