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Per Diem for April 2020: Connection

 

Per Diem: Daily Haiku for April 2020 features Caroline Skanne’s collection on the theme of ‘Connection’. This is what Caroline has to say by way of an introduction to this theme:

CONNECTION: from Latin connectere, from con- ‘together’ + nectere ‘bind’ (Lexico.com)

For this month I invite you to discover and explore the different types of connections in 30 haiku/senryu from poets writing in the English language around the world. Each one has something slightly different to offer; perhaps a deep connection with the subject matter, a subtle connection between images, or maybe the connection happens with the reader. Other times the connection is no connection… The list is as endless as the possibilities of the poem. And, this is just what this selection will explore—the connections found in haiku and their possibilities.

– Caroline Skanne

This Post Has 24 Comments

  1. Today’s wonderful haiku! 🙂
    .
    .
    just in case—
    brushing the fresh snow
    from the windowsill
    .
    Th Vandergrau
    .
    .
    As one haiku can connect and remind you of others, I was reminded of these two by myself:
    .
    .

    light snowdrift

    a golden retriever blinks

    thru the café window
    .
    Alan Summers
    Blithe Spirit, December 2011
    .
    I can recall which place it was, and before my mother became seriously ill.
    .
    .
    This next haiku, again about window sills, allowed me to feel I could actually write haiku:
    .
    .

    an attic window sill
    a wasp curls
    into its own dust
    .
    Alan Summers
    .
    .
    This haiku was adamantly defended by someone I had greatly respected long before I ever got to meet him! 🙂
    .
    And another Japanese poet planned a surprise for me while I was in Tokyo on my birthday! 🙂
    .
    .

    Haiku of Merit: Ginko & Kukai event, London, England with Professor Hoshino Tsunehiko (1997)
    ‘
    Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan (for my birthday, September 16th 2002)
    .
    Because of Professor Hoshino Tsunehiko’s faith in my haiku it also went on to garner other credits:
    .
    .
    Award credit:
    Highly Commended, Haiku Collection Competition, Snapshot Press (1998); Joint 7th Best of Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)
    .
    Publication credits:
    Woodpecker Special Issue, Extra Shuttle Issue (1997); Snapshots Four (1998); Swot, arts & literature magazine, Bath Spa University (2007); tinywords (2002); Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002, Part 2 (Akita International Haiku Network, Japan 2010)
    ‘
    .
    Anthologies:
    First Australian Online Haiku Anthology (1999); Haiku International 2000 Anthology (Japan 2000); The Omnibus Anthology, Haiku and Senryu, Hub Editions (2001); The New Haiku, Snapshot Press (2002); Raku Teapot: Haiku Book and CD, Raku Teapot Press in association with White Owl Publishing Book (2003); First Australian Haiku Anthology (Paper Wasp 2003)
    .
    Feature/Showcase:
    Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S. “Daily Haiku” poet (October 2001)
    .
    Japanese newspaper article:
    Yomiuri Shimbun Go-Shichi-Go On-Line Language Lab (Japan, 2005)
    .
    iPad/iPhone/iTunes:
    The Haiku Foundation haiku 2012 app
    .
    Education:
    HaikuOz Information Kit HaikuOz, the Australian Haiku Society Getting Started With Haiku.
    .
    .
    Although the Professor never got to know the progress of this haiku and its various publications, he had faith in it and that spurred me on to promote haiku by others that might not have the immediate support they deserved.
    .
    Connections are wonderful in haiku! 🙂
    .

    1. Thanks for sharing your haiku here Alan! Isn’t it just lovely how a haiku can spark not just memories, but memories of memories? This haiku by the Swedish poet th. vandergrau is in the current issue of ‘hedgerow’ btw (I liked it so much I asked permission to use it here). Both snow & windowsills (funnily enough!) bring back so many memories from my own childhood…

      Yes indeed Alan, connections are wonderful in haiku… 🙂

  2. Hi Hazel, thanks for sharing your poems on the theme. I like how they engage so many different senses… interesting connections here to explore.

    all best,
    Caroline

  3. Hi Caroline

    Thanks for the inspiration. I’d like to offer these two.
    Hoping you are all safe and well.

    Hazel Hall

    scent of cloves
    a gamelan answers
    the frogs’ chorus

    Presence 66.

    starry night
    he dips his paint brush
    in argent

    Presence 66, 2020

    1. Hi Hazel, thanks for sharing your poems on the theme. I like how they engage so many different senses… interesting connections here to explore.

      all best,
      Caroline

  4. Dear Caroline,

    Congratulations on your appointment and moving theme. I have these haiku/senryu to share on ‘connection’.

    *
    our separate lives
    the zigzagging paths
    of our children

    Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2019 issue

    *

    fishless day
    the fisherman’s shadow
    part of a rock

    Presence Journal, Issue #62

    1. Hi Adjei, thanks for sharing your poems here! re: ‘zigzagging paths’… indeed, so much to explore here in relation to ‘separate lives’. I hope you will enjoy the remaining selection for April.

      all best,
      Caroline

  5. Great theme! 🙂
    I’m not submitting very much this year, but love working on projects and courses for other writers, and even moreso in this difficult time now, and ahead.
    .
    .
    .
    duskfall…

    the moon bumps

    into a paperboat
    .
    Alan Summers
    .
    The Heron’s Nest vol. XXI no. 4 (1st December 2019)

    1. Dear esteemed poet,
      Greetings. your wonderful write, connecting me to my teenage days, during a visit to my hamlet of parental origin, on father’s side, morning visits, when pump sets
      water jutting out of them, to fields etc..
      my comparison is only from my point of view of pumpsets etc.,
      that was my morning viewing sun, now duskfall seeing moon etc.

      duskfall…

      the moon bumps

      into a paperboat
      .

      1. Dear Radhamani sarma,
        .
        Thank you for your words! 🙂
        .
        .
        It’s wonderful that this haiku has made a connection. As you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in India, with a charity, many years ago.
        .
        The haiku is of course a visual one, but it also goes back to an English nursery song, yet feels so Indian in its reflection of our brief lives and of course distinguishing between reality and Maya (illusion).
        .
        Perhaps because someone called Charanand used to quote or sing it! 🙂
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row,_Row,_Row_Your_Boat
        .
        Connections, connections, connections!
        .
        warmest regards,
        Alan

        1. The haiku is also about me as a child, both literally and metaphorically. When I was a very young child we didn’t have spare money to buy expensive toys. I was quite content with making paperboats, playing until ‘dusk fall’ along the gutters of sidewalks (pavements) along our side street.
          .
          RE ‘Maya’:
          .
          “Māyā connotes a “magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem”. It is also a spiritual concept connoting “that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal”, and the “power or the principle that conceals the true character of spiritual reality” WIKIPEDIA
          .
          And also:
          https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)

    2. Good to read your comment & poem here Alan. Yes I’ve noticed you’ve been busy with some interesting haiku projects (congrats!). Re: ‘duskfall’: so many interesting connections here to explore…

      all best,
      Caroline

      1. Dear Caroline,
        .
        It’s a seven days a week occupation, but in our own little way, we are contributing. It’s great to know we are making a difference. It’s emotional but worth it to get some lovely feedback about that.
        .
        I do like to have a lot of connections for anyone stopping by a little longer. 🙂
        .
        kindest regards,
        Alan

  6. Dear Caroline, A wonderful theme and thank you!

    *

    reading memoirs
    and then the view
    outside today

    *

    All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku
    Edited by Robert Epstein
    2019
    Middle Island Press
    West Union WV

    *

    1. Hi Ellen, thanks for popping by to comment, I’m glad you like the theme. Robert’s Epstein’s anthology ‘All the Way Home’ is a wonderful read, thanks for sharing a poem from it. Re ‘reading memoirs’: you make intriguing links here between the past & present as well as the inside & outside.

      all best,
      Caroline

    1. Hi Philip,
      .
      They appear on the top right of the banner, which appears on every type of post on this ‘side’ of The Haiku Foundation.
      .
      If you look top right now, you’ll see a haiku by Michael McClintock, first line ‘spring dream’.
      .
      Enjoy! 🙂
      .
      A few weeks later all poems will be collated here:
      https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/per-diem-archive/
      .
      warm regards,
      Alan
      Call of the Page

  8. A typo – not March but April!
    Per Diem: Daily Haiku for March 2020 features Caroline Skanne’s collection on the theme of ‘Connection’.

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