Haiku Windows

Haiku Windows: storm window

 

Haiku Windows

In the book Haiku: The Art of the Short Poem, editors Yamaguchi and Brooks quote David Lanoue:  “A haiku is a window”…

In the following weeks we will look at (or through?) the many possibilities raised by this thought – and you’re invited to join in the fun! Submit an original unpublished poem (or poems) via our Contact Form by Sunday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence. I will select from these for the column, and add commentary.

 

next week’s theme:  ticket wicket

Drive-through window, bank teller, toll booth – a window for giving and receiving… and this has nothing to do with cricket…

I look forward to reading your submissions.

 

Haiku Windows:  storm window

 

her black eye
hidden under makeup –
storm windows

Amy Losak

Here the poet takes the idea of a storm in a new direction, away from the storm window, and yet, aren’t the eyes the windows to the soul? Makeup covers the bruise, the way the storm window covers the window proper… a complex and interesting take on the theme…

 

funeral week
we put up storm windows
for mother

Marilyn Appl Walker

In this poem, each line provides specific information to tell most of a story, still leaving the ‘gap’ for the reader to complete the poem – whose funeral was it? for example…

 

a sea of storm windows
all along
the evacuation route

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY, USA

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have never personally experienced a flood, have probably seen the footage on the news of other places in the world… this is an extremely powerful poem because of the calm, detached description of a scene of destruction and devastation – the reader is not instructed how to feel…

 

Here are the rest of my selections for this week:

 

storm window
the continuous knock
of hailstones

Adjei Agyei-Baah
Kumasi, Ghana

 

storm window
a new shelter
for the ants

Angiola Inglese

 

This subtle
Secret smile…
Her storm window

Anna Goluba

 

storm window
I no longer
feel the sun

Ardelle Hollis Ray
Las Vegas, NV

 

storm window –
an empty catamaran
bobs ashore

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

swallow’s nest…
storm window remains
in place

Astrid Egger

 

typhoon alert
wooden storm windows
rattle Okinawa

Carmen Sterba

 

she asks about
storm windows
for her dollhouse

Carol Raisfeld

 

storm windows
between the shadows
a little bird seeks comfort

Celestine Nudanu

 

storm windows reflect
approaching tornado
child running, screaming

Charles Harmon
Los Angeles, California, USA

 

reflections
insects hit
the storm window

Christina Chin

 

protecting us only
from what’s outside
storm window

Christina Sng

 

storm window
the little white lies
she learns to tell

Claire Vogel Camargo

 

battered storm windows –
remembering the day
he installed them

Corine Timmer

 

a crack
widens overnight
storm window

Debbi Antebi

 

an angry wind storm window

Deborah P Kolodji
Temple City, California

 

storm window…
the way the rain
drums on the sill

Diana Teneva

 

ombré
my wheelchair without me
by the storm window

Engin Gülez
Ankara, Turkey

 

storm window
the glare of the rainbow
after rain

Eufemia Griffo

 

arguing
through the clouds the sun
and the hail on the window

Giovanna Restuccia

 

storm window
the last raindrop
on my reflection

Guliz Mutlu

 

war of roses
the storm windows
closed

Helga Stania
Switzerland

 

storm window
deepening
the inner darkness

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

 

storm window
the dusty print
of two wings

Joanne van Helvoort

 

storm windows
the reflection of molten lava
at sunset

Karen Conrads Wibell

 

psychological
storm windows
his many moods

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California

 

sealed windows
keeping the storm
inside

Ken Olson
Yakima WA, US

 

storm window
waiting for blue skies
to return

Lori Zajkowski

 

putting up
the storm windows
her lack of boundaries

Lucy Whitehead
Essex, UK

 

storm window…
my eyes too
double glazed

Madhuri Pillai

 

behind
a storm window –
stolen moments

Margherita Petriccione

 

old farm house
only the storm window
stays straight

Marta Chocilowska

 

Storm window –
dead bee somehow between
it and the screen

michael ceraolo

 

storm windows
the weather channel
twenty four seven

Michael Henry Lee

 

anger management –
she discovers a crack
in the storm window

Michael H. Lester
Los Angeles CA USA

 

apology –
I return the storms
to the garage

Michele L. Harvey

 

outer windows up…
stormy bickering inside
unbroken

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

storm window
in your eyes
an icy look

Olivier Schopfer
Geneva, Switzerland

 

summer’s end
a layer of dust
on the storm windows

Rachel Sutcliffe

 

storm window
heart-shaped
her dark glasses

Radostina Dragostinova

 

storm window
the white curtain
still trembles

Ramlawt Dinpuia

 

this May
storm windows
still up

Rehn Kovacic

 

color of our argument…
stuck in the storm window
a red ribbon

Réka Nyitrai

 

storm window
my son lifts it
with a smile

Roberta Beary
County Mayo, Ireland

 

storm window –
her silence foreshadows
the tempest

robyn brooks
usa

 

lashing rain
storm windows creak
with the pirate story

Ron C. Moss
Tasmania, Australia

 

old storm windows
numbered from back to front
their best days behind them

Ron Scully

 

cheap storm window
no guarantee…
her restraining order

Ronald K. Craig

 

on the storm window –
snowflakes
dancing in the wind

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore

 

prolonged winter
I decide to take off
the storm windows

Serhiy Shpychenko
Kyiv, Ukraine

 

storm windows
hung in January
neighbors tsk tsk

Shandon Land

 

hurricane took away
the roof of our house –
the storm windows remain

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

 

winter sun
the storm window
cleans itself

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi

 

Zen retreat
taking down the storm windows
one by one

Stephen A. Peters

 

reflection
in the storm window
her bruised face

Susan Mallernee

 

the heat
in her eyes
storm windows

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA, USA

 

replacing storm windows
all the ladybugs that never
made it home

Terri French

 

storm windows
we move
into separate rooms

Tia Haynes
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA

 

pealing thunders…
lightning lights up
apple flowers

Tsanka Shishkova

 

fall colors…
storm windows and coats
come out of storage

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

storm window
I lip read the couple
fighting outside

Vandana Parashar

 

thunder
your storm window is down
mine is up

Vessislava Savova

 

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 recently co-edited an anthology of crime-themed haiku called Body of Evidence: a collection of killer ’ku.

 

This Post Has 37 Comments

  3. Thanks, Kathy! Not only is “windows” a lot of fun each week, but it’s challenging and a great learning experience.

  4. What a lov-el-y bunch of haiku! I enjoyed every single one. Thank you, wonderful poets! And thank you too, for choosing mine for commentary, Kathy.
    You have made Wednesday’s one of the most exciting days of the week!
    Marilyn

  5. I just want to say how much I’m enjoying reading the whole window series. The storm windows poems this week make for such excellent reading. Congratulations to all the poets.

  9. So many fine haiku! Enjoyed reading and rereading…
    Thank you for including mine, Kathy.

    1. Dear Valentina,
      .
      I will have to disagree with you. 🙂
      .
      .
      fall colors…
      storm windows and coats
      come out of storage
      .
      Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
      Fairlawn, Ohio USA
      .
      .
      I love how it’s almost as if the special windows, and the coats, both decide to come out, and enjoy the new season. It reminds me of magical films such as Mary Poppins (the semi-animated Disney original). It’s a strong seasonal haiku, and I can enjoy adding another dimension too! 🙂
      .
      warm regards,
      Alan

    2. I agree with Alan, Valentina – there are many approaches, different directions & moods in this column every week – & they all have value!

  11. Thank you so much Kathy for featuring my storm window haiku! Last week we had a tornado right here in my town and it was scary so the storm window theme was much on my mind. I also was especially struck by Arvinder Kaur’s, Carmen Sterba’s and Slobodan Pupovac’s haiku. It is interesting all the varied directions people go with the same theme.

    1. thanks for sharing this, Sari – & I agree, it is great to see where one theme can go…

  12. Beautiful selection of haiku!
    Thanks so much for including mine, Kathy!

  13. Excellent choice, KJ, of Amy Losak’s, and I also loved Carol Raisfeld’s, Christina Sng’s and Debbi Antebi’s, all in a similar space ….

  14. .
    thunder
    your storm window is down
    mine is up
    .
    Vessislava Savova
    .
    First of all, a deep bow of thanks for your wonderful book of rengay called Whimsies, with Dilyana Georgieva, and your lovely note to Karen and myself. 🙂
    .
    Secondly, a neat way of making human couples like storm windows as a metaphor! 🙂
    .
    .
    I love the cinematic feel of this one!
    .
    .
    storm window
    I lip read the couple
    fighting outside
    .
    Vandana Parashar
    .
    .
    I can hear the torrent of rain, and a film scene of real people arguing and getting frantically soaked through with rain.
    .
    .

    There are too many fine haiku to list them all with comments. When I’ve done that before it was an entire day, so please forgive me for just mentioning a handful this time.
    .
    .
    storm window
    deepening
    the inner darkness
    .
    Hifsa Ashraf
    .
    .
    Hifsa’s haiku with its effectively emotive ‘deepening’ partnered with ‘the inner darkness’ by a storm window, and perhaps it’s black with deep night, and a solid threat of something awfully big about to hurl itself at us, is very powerful.
    .
    .
    The metaphorical possibilities of storm window have come alive on this page, and in this one:
    .
    .
    storm window
    the little white lies
    she learns to tell
    .
    Claire Vogel Camargo
    .
    .
    This haiku may be quite innocent, and of a very young girl wanting to copy the adult version of a house:
    .
    .
    she asks about
    storm windows
    for her dollhouse
    .
    Carol Raisfeld
    .
    .
    But I can also see another reading where the child is wanting to protect her house, her dollhouse, herself, and her parents, from the stormy arguments they are starting to have that are escalating.
    .
    Perhaps it’s not intended, but the worldly wise and combined naivety of the little girl very indirectly suggesting and asking that her parents cease their personal stormy relationship makes this an additional and intensely powerful choice of interpretation.
    .
    .
    Amy, Marliyn’s, and Sari’s haiku are amazing too.
    .
    I’ll partly pick on Sari, as evacuation routes makes me think of domestic terrorism in Britain and the USA, as well as our unfortunate interfering in countries outside our borders which creates havoc for good people who become refugees from their own country.
    .
    .

    a sea of storm windows
    all along
    the evacuation route
    .
    Sari Grandstaff
    Saugerties, NY, USA
    .
    .

    That is a very powerful middle line for me, with its two simple words:
    “all along” as all along we constantly embrace wars (mostly for profit) and embrace guns and firing them for fun, revenge, and cowardly attacks on friends, neighbours, family, school or work colleagues. I can see a very long metaphorical line of refugees and human protectors acting as storm windows, from teachers to responsible police officers, and wonderful civilians who don’t bring guns, but practical things like food and blankets, and a safe refuge.
    .
    .
    I came across this early haiku, written during many flash floods in Queensland, Australia:
    .
    .

    sudden rainstorm
    the pattern of rain strikes
    through the window blinds
    .
    Alan Summers
    HI no. 29 (Tokyo, Japan, October 1997)
    .
    .

    1. Thank you Alan. I had not thought of war refugees evacuating at all. I love your comments. I was thinking much more literally. Here along the low-lying shores of the east coast of the U.S. there are blue and white evacuation route signs for when they mandate evacuations from hurricanes, floods, tropical storms, etc. Seeking refuge from one of nature’s storms by putting up storm windows was what I had in mind but yes, your metaphorical interpretation of war as a storm and the protectors acting as storm windows – wow! I do have a haiku online in the March 25, 2018 New Verse News about the gun violence type of storm.

      1. I thought so, but it’s great that haikai verses can be re-interpretated, for instance Basho’s hokku verse was simply commemorating a famous battlefield, sadly overgrown when I was there in 2001.
        .
        I remember a storm coming up fast in Malibu where I was working on a sound studio, and nailing everything down fast before it hit. 🙂
        .
        I remember being greatly moved by students eloquently protesting against the gun invasions of US schools on a regular basis, so this verse from you was very strong all over again:
        https://newversenews.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/enough-haiku.html
        .
        warm regards,
        Alan

    2. thank you Alan. 🙂 certain fears that are related to the inner darkness.

    3. thanks so much for sharing your comments, Alan, & inspiring all these new comments – these conversations are so valuable – thanks to you all!

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