Per Diem/Daily Haiku for August 2021: A Year in Lockdown
Per Diem: Daily Haiku for August 2021 features Albert Schepers’ collection on the theme of ‘A Year in Lockdown’. This is what Albert has to say by way of an introduction to this theme:
In the year 1595 Shakespeare is purported to have written A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a year following the devastating pestilence that had spread throughout the land, taking the lives of over 11,000 people in London. To limit the spread, authorities took the following steps: banning large public gatherings, blocking the importation of goods, cancelling large civic events, and closing public theaters. During the Great Plague of 1592 to 1594, theaters experienced their longest closures in history and Shakespeare’s play was a joyous celebration of the release from oppression.
February 2020, or sooner if you count the very first cases of Covid 19 in late 2019, marked the beginning of the current turmoil which afflicts all of us in one way or another. Even for those who have not been directly affected, very few of us—whether simply by listening to the news or in our daily relationships with family, friends, and co-workers—have been untouched. As with other global pandemics over the centuries, there have been a range of government interventions and personal responses, ranging from denial to despondency.
Currently in the depths of summer in August 2021, hopefully we can look back on this past year and a half and be glad to be rid of it and look to the future with hope. For the month of August, I have asked poets to provide their haiku, written over this past year during the pandemic, for publication. These thirty-one haiku capture a range of emotions representing this past year, snapshots of a moment, a day, or week in lockdown, in pursuit of something else. Some directly reference Covid, some the effects of the lockdown or social distancing, and some are just an expression of how the writer felt at that moment. In all cases these haiku were influenced directly or indirectly, by the pandemic and related social restrictions.
Some of the poets you may know and others may be new to you. Selections are based on the diversity of ideas and styles. I hope you enjoy these as much as I had in selecting them for you.
– Albert Schepers
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I loved Sharon Hammond’s haiku with the line “the baby screams ragnarok”.
Some things are so hard you just have to laugh.
Thank you for including mine too.
Bonnie.
Lovely ku.Just wanted to add mine-
covid times
the forevers
uncertain
pandemic
my puppy
now a big
pandemic
my puppy
now a big dog
Congratulations to Albert Schepers for being the August haiku editor, and many thanks for his work towards haiku poetry education.
I especially congratulate him on his posture as a mentor, a teacher, and a humble haiku writer (as we all should be), forever leading and encouraging us to observe and write.
In a world where so many would-be poets write about things they never experienced, Albert is the real deal, writing about everyday life and observation along the track.
I thank him for giving many of his followers a voice on this site, and I only hope at least one of his creations will be shared this month.
Hi Albert, I am looking forward to reading your selection. I can’t remember but did you let me know that you were going to edit this month’s Per Diem? Anyway, congrats on the honor. Fondly, Michael
Radhamani sarma,
Thank you for appreciating my covid series of haikai verses! 🙂
warm regards,
Alan
Dear esteemed poet,
Greetings.
“Eleven is an Even Number: Covid Chronicles” Given below, rich variety of images, friendly cat, windows, birthday cards, all with insightful interest,
quite, unique. Learning process for us haiku lovers.
To Alan Summers
Dear esteemed poet,
My comment has been posted twice; kindly condone the lapse.
restrictions
wedding only
home affair
****
each morning
corona news compile
your bound volume
Dear Radhamani sarma,
The impact emotionally and romantically, as well as the family get togethers, and the wedding businesses too, that marriage gives to so many small, medium, and large businesses has been devastating.
Both your haiku are powerful!
Alan
confinement
the cock’s song
in D minor
Fascinating to read about D minor!
https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/the-chord-of-d-minor/
Interesting about the D-minor chord! I must have read that once but this old brain of mine… Haha!
Back in April 2020 Karen Hoy initiated Writing Through It, the first haikai response to the covid-19 pandemic:
https://www.callofthepage.org/during-covid-19/writing-through-it/
Since then, many of us have written individual pieces or collections, and of course several anthologies.
e.g.
Pandemica’s Clouds
light rain & blackbird sing the distance of harm
breaking cloud cover counting through the strands of pandemic
the childhoodishness of antiseptic be my friend
rain clouds a leaf of i.m. books
the rebus we fish from puzzles washing hands of worship
undulatus asperatus and hole-punch cloud we remember
drifting clouds along an asphalt of ice cream summer roads of longing
Alan Summers
Publication credit:
Pandemica’s Clouds sequence
behind the mask: haiku in the time of Covid-19
Singing Moon Press Pandemic Anthology ed. Margaret Dornaus (2020)
ISBN 9780998211220
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/margaret-dornaus/behind-the-mask-haiku-in-the-time-of-covid-19/paperback/product-g9vpny.html
Eleven is an Even Number: Covid Chronicles
different windows
the movement of the sun
around confinement
house arrest
the plague runner
enters our breath
friendly cat
its owners become
the front line
street applause
we recognise our heroes
are nurses under fire
birthday cards
in their protective casing
the evening shudders
blinkered sun
two metres translated
in wrong numbers
nightzoning
streetlights pick out
the sputum
Easter Quarantine
the daylight sparkles across
yet another nail
Easter Sunday
I fill another hollow
with antiseptic
Easter Internment
moonlight carries a warning
across my backyard
new day rising—
I spread the butter
and talk to my egg
Alan Summers
Publication credits:
Eleven is an Even Number: Covid Chronicles
weird laburnum journal (Easter Monday 13th April 2020)
nightzoning
appeared on twitter journal Horrorku 22nd July 2020
Anthology credits:
Corona Social Distancing: Poets for Humanity
ed. hülya n. yılmaz, Ph.D.
inner child press international 1st Edition: May 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-952081-17-0
Poetry in the Plague Year
Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020
(Poetry Kit publishing)
Thank you Alan, I know there are many, if not all, poets who have written or their writing has been influenced by the effects of covid directly or the social restrictions. Too many to try to gather all in one place.
Dear Albert,
No worries, it’s just traditional for us poets to post on the news post. 🙂
That sequence wasn’t from Writing Through It (designed by Karen Hoy) but a lot of haiku, haibun etc… would have come from that since its inception.
I look forward to the examples each day on Per Diem! 🙂
warm regards,
Alan
Dear esteemed poet,
Greetings.
“Eleven is an Even Number: Covid Chronicles” Given below, rich variety of images, friendly cat, windows, birthday cards, all with insightful interest,
quite, unique. Learning process for us haiku lovers.
Dear Radhamani sarma,
Thank you for your kind words! 🙂
warm regards,
Alan
Thank you for posting this fantastic collection Alan, talking to eggs and looking through different windows sums up the year for me . . . and staying safe amid all the craziness and hyper-vigilance that wears on. I just wrote a haiku about watching the moon for yet another month through my skylight . . . .
“…watching the moon for yet another month through my skylight”
Sounds great! Windows have never been so important for us of us. I tried watching through an attic window but didn’t want to disturb the other wildlife.
warmest regards,
Alan
Good to know, Alan! I will check out the book on lulu. Not sure if you were the first though… MHP Academy did a Corona Crisis Quicky in April 2020 with an uplifting intention. Currently, a selection of the best submissions (about 130 poems with some haiga) is in the finishing stages of being edited and prepared to be published as an eBook. After it is freely distributed in the My Haiku Pond Academy group, I will gladly submit it for the THF Digital Library.
Margaret Dornaus did an incredibly fine book, a really beautifully produced anthology.
I also can’t believe Penny Harter is on the opposite page which was an extra bonus!!! 🙂
Look forward to your anthology migrating to the Digital Library!
Alan