Prompt #354 – Hiareth

Have you ever had the experience of hearing a new and unusual word for the first time and vowing to remember it? I remember the first time I heard the word gobsmacked. My former professor and long-time mentor and friend, Charles DeFanti, introduced me to that word, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve used it since (i.e., I was gobsmacked when I read Eliot’s “Little Gidding” for the first time).

I recently came across the word hiraeth, a Welsh word with no exact translation into English, which generally means “homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.” Words typically used to try to explain it are homesickness, yearning, and longing. However, there is greater depth and suggested meaning to hiraeth than in any of those words on their own.

Just the sound of the word resonated for me and, then, when I looked it up, I couldn’t help but relate it to pre- and post-pandemic life—how much things have changed, and how much most of us long to have our lives back—our yearning and homesickness for life as it was. With so much uncertainty about when or if that will happen, I thought it might be interesting to use the word hiraeth as a kind of jumping off word for a poem about how life has changed since Covid-19, how we feel about what’s happened, and whether or not we think things will ever be the same as they were before Covid.

Can a poem begin with a single word even if that word doesn’t appear in the poem? 

It's may seem a little strange at first but, of course, it can!

There are many poems being written right now about Covid-19 and its collision with personal and global life. Many of the poems are insightful and profoundly meaningful. I recommend reading several before you begin writing, and here’s a place where you’ll find some:

Click Here to Read Pandemic Poems

 

Some Things to Think about before Writing:

• What was your life like before Covid-19 (personal, national, or global)?

• How has the virus affected your family life, friendships, work life, and social life?

• What do you miss most about life before Covid? What are you “homesick” for?

• When was the last time you hugged someone who isn’t a member of your immediate family?

• When was the last time you shook a stranger’s hand?

• When was the last time you attended a religious service in a filled house of worship? Attended a wedding or a funeral where there were no restrictions? 

• How does it feel not to be able to go to a restaurant with family members or friends and sit down together (inside the restaurant) to enjoy a meal together?

• How does social distancing change the dynamic of being part of any group?

• What’s it like for you to wear a mask when grocery shopping, going to a doctor, or walking in a park?

• How long do you think this will all go on?

• What things do you fear may never change back to what they were before Covid? Do you think there are some irrevocable changes?

Guidelines:

1. Keep the word hiareth in mind (not the word itself but what the word suggests to you), then relate its meaning to what you feel about the pandemic and its personal impact on your life.

2. You might want to start by making a list of the ways in which the pandemic has changed your life.

3. Remember: you don’t have to use the word hiareth in your poem—that’s not required—but try to evoke the word’s feeling in images.

4. Write about family changes, work changes, travel changes, social changes.

5. Write about fear—your personal fears and how fear has impacted your life.

6. Write about friends or co-workers who have contracted the virus.

7. Write about those who have not survived.

8. This is a personal poem, so don’t be afraid to show how the virus has directly affected your life.

9. Importantly, think in terms of the nostalgia for things of your pre-Covid life—what do you long for, what real or metaphorical "homesickness" are you experiencing? 

10. Whatever you write, don't be afraid to interject a note of hope.

Tips:

1. Try to write in the active, not the passive, voice. To do that, it can be helpful to remove “ing” endings and to write in the present tense (this will also create a greater sense of immediacy).

2. Be on the lookout for prepositional phrases that you might remove (articles & conjunctions too).

3. The great author Mark Twain once wrote, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.” This is especially true in poetry. So ... as you work on a poem, think about adjectives and which ones your poem can live without. (Often the concept is already in the noun, and you don’t need a lot of adjectives to convey your meaning.)

4. Avoid clichés (and, while you’re at it, stay away from abstractions and sentimentality).

5. Show, don’t tell—through striking imagery, a strong emotional center, and an integrated whole of language, form and meaning.

6. Challenge the ordinary, connect, reveal, surprise! And … remember that a poem should mean more than the words it contains. Think about surface and underlying meanings.

7. Create a new resonance for your readers, a lit spark that doesn’t go out when the poem is “over.”

8. If you take a risk, make it a big one; if your poem is edgy, take it all the way to the farthest edge.

9. Understand that overstatement and the obvious are deadly when it comes to writing poetry. Don’t ramble on, and don’t try to explain everything. Think about this: a poem with only five great lines should be five lines long.

10. Bring your poem to closure with a memorable dismount. (Be careful not to undercut your poem’s “authority” by ending with trivia or a “so what” line.)

NOTE: Think about making your poem unusual, edgy, different in some way. Try a prose poem, dip into the surreal, be satirical, try a haibun or a haiku sequence, perhaps a limerick.

Whatever you write, and whatever form you choose,

go for Ezra Pound’s classic dictum,” Make it new!”

Examples:

 

On Breathing
By Alicia Jo Rabins

I’m OK during the day, but at night I get scared,
Which makes it hard to breathe, which is a symptom
Of the pandemic, which is what scares me.
Well played, anxiety, my old friend. You’ve always
Warned me something like this might happen.
You’re a gift from my ancestors who survived plagues,
And worse. They wove you into my DNA to warn me,
So that I too might survive. Now that it’s happening,
Anxiety, I don’t need you any more. I need
The ones who gave you to me. So hear me, ancestors
Who lived though danger times: I’m ready for you now.
All these years I’ve carried your worries in my bones.
Now I need your love, your thousand-year view.
Tell me it’s going to be OK, remind me you made it
Through and we will too. Teach me to breathe. 

(Source: https://aliciajo.com/pandemicpoems/

Reprinted by permission of the author.)

Coronavirus, One Month Later
     By Nancy Lubarsky
    

Outside, streets are vacant

except for delivery trucks

and half-mast flags. There

are fewer places where I can

walk. As the parks empty, my

head is crowded with lost

people­—artists, legends, and

ordinary folk who spent their

lives making ends meet or

keeping us safe. There is less

music now, less poetry, fewer

pictures. I mourn for the people

I don’t know of, and the ones

I do—my colleague’s 90 year

old mother, our synagogue’s

past president, a friend’s

musician pal. As I learn about

their lives, I try to make them

comfortable in my mind’s

multiple rooms. My hope is

they’ll be there a long time.


(First Published in Frost Meadow Review)

_________________________

Two-Day Diary     

     By Penny Harter

mid-morning heat—
humidity already
a mask

late afternoon
a heavy rain cleanses
the dense air

steam rises
from hot pavement—
sirens somewhere

sudden thunder—
distant rumbles echo
in its wake

just a minor
accident—spilling beans
from a torn bag

supper again—
knife, fork, plate
and TV

bedtime—memories
of childhood flicker at
the edge of sleep

midnight waking—
try to reenter my
lingering dream

eyes closed—
another landscape opens
inside me

clearing night—
even through the roof
starlight

hazy morning—
stirring daily collagen
into my tea 


(Copyright © 2020 by Penny Harter)

_________________________

Sheltered in Place

     By Adele Kenny

Working from home—

anthills appear

on the driveway.

     I spray the mail with Lysol,

     then wash my hands 

     again.

Sheltered in place,

I lose track 

of the date.

     Below my window,

     a man on the street 

     sings behind his mask.

Memories of childhood—

wishing for last year 

or any year before.

     Peonies begin to bloom—

     I long for the way

     things were.

(Copyright © 2020 by Adele Kenny)

_________________________

Stay safe and be well, dear friends!

Prompt #292 – "From Here to There" by Guest Prompter Penny Harter

As you know, I like to offer you prompts and poetry-related posts written by poets other than me.  Back on August 2, 2014, poet Penny Harter wrote a guest prompt that dealt with haibun and the spiral image. I’m very happy to post, with my sincerest thanks, another prompt, "From Here to There," that Penny recently wrote for us.

____________________________

  

Earlier, at Adele’s invitation, I sent her the following paragraph for her blog about the various ways we poets end our poems. I’d like to expand on that with some suggestions and sample poems:

"How I end a poem is not usually a conscious decision. However, I do know that I want my poems to take a turn toward (or at) the end, similar to the turn in a good haiku. At the heart of haiku is the juxtaposition of two images or ideas across a kind of "spark gap". And these images connect in a way that both startles and seems inevitable. When I look back at poems I wrote some years ago—or even at occasional recent work—I find myself saying, "Well, I like the imagery, or the sound, rhythm, theme, etc., but if I reach the poem's end and it hasn't gone anywhere, hasn't taken me from here to there (wherever here and there are), it doesn't satisfy me." For me, writing a nice representational poem doesn't feel like enough anymore."

As poets, we know that all things are connected, one way or another. But sometimes those “connections” within our poem are like quantum leaps—the path of our writing suddenly taking an unexpected turn. For this to happen, we have to be open to where the words may be leading us.

Speaking of connections reminds me of a time in my life when I didn’t know what I was going to do about a difficult relationship. I wasn’t even writing about it; perhaps, I was afraid to do so. After a poetry reading when I told a poet friend about my dilemma, she asked me, “Where is your life in your writing? Your poems will know what you are going to do before you do!” And the shock of her question gave me permission to begin writing about it. Once that door was open, I wrote so many that the poems became a book—and discovered my solution in the process.

Just as what we write often reveals to us aspects of ourselves we didn’t know were surfacing, so, too, the turn in a poem can reveal to us an aspect of our poem it didn’t know it had. We won’t know where it’s going until it gets there.  

Example:

Here’s one of mine that leaps toward the end:

When I Taught Her to Tie Her Shoes

A revelation, this student

already in high school who didn’t know

how to tie her shoes.

I took her into the book-room, knowing

what I needed to teach was perhaps more

important than Shakespeare or grammar,

guided her hands through the looping,

the pulling of the ends. After several

tries, she got it, walked out of there

empowered. How many things are like

that—skills never mastered in childhood,

simple tasks ignored, let go for years?

In the Zen tradition, When the student is ready,

the teacher appears. Perhaps that is why this

morning, my head bald from chemotherapy,

my feet somewhat farther away than they

used to be as I bend to my own shoes, that

student returns to teach me the meaning

of life: not to peel my potato, though that,

too, counts, but to simply tie my shoes and

walk out of myself into this sunny winter day.

Copyright © 2016, Hospital Drive, http://hospitaldrive.org/2016/12/when-i-taught-her-how-to-tie-her-shoes/

This poem was triggered by my reminiscing about years of teaching high school English. I suddenly remembered the surprise (and irony) of the sophomore girl whose shoelaces were dragging, and how when I suggested she tie her shoes before she tripped, she said she didn’t know how.

I started writing about that, and suddenly, my being in the midst of a course of chemotherapy after a cancer diagnosis, which I hadn’t wanted to write about...yet...thrust itself into the poem.  I named it right then and there with, “Perhaps that is why...” , and the connection fell into place. In the process, I found myself affirming that I was going to "walk out of myself" into a sunny day" (versus a dark night of despair).

Guidelines:

1. Think of a memory that has stayed with you. It need not be a "big moment". Sometimes the most simple and ordinary moments are redolent with meaning for us. On the other hand, you may recall a challenging or sorrowful memory, or a very happy one.

2. Jot down as many images and feelings associated with that memory as you can. Make sure to list both nouns and verbs, as well as short phrases. Try to avoid tried and true emotional judgmental words like "beautiful, exciting, sad, scary," etc. Be as specific as you are able, and your reader will  "get it" without being told.

3. Start free-writing your poem. It may come out in verse or prose format. That doesn't matter in the beginning.

4. At various points throughout your draft, ask yourself, "What else does this remind me of?" Or, "How does this connect with my present life?" If you can answer either or both of those, your poem can make a turn right there. A poem can make more than one turn, sometimes earlier within it as well as at the end.

5. Decide whether you want to break up lines from a prose format into verse, or leave your piece a prose poem.

6. Look at your stanzas or prose blocks and see what you can do without. I often find I delete the first verse, or even more. Sometimes the engine of a poem has to rev a bit before you find the real poem several lines or verses into it. Also see whether you might want to rearrange your stanzas or blocks of prose. Sometimes a middle or final verse can work as a powerful beginning.

7. When you think you have finished your draft ask yourself whether you have ended up somewhere different, found an unexpected destination or revelation. Assess whether your poem goes beyond merely painting a pretty word-picture, taking both you and the reader somewhere new.

8. Keep writing :)!

About Penny Harter:

Penny Harter's poetry and prose has been published widely in journals and anthologies, and her literary autobiography appears as an extended essay in Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Volume 28, as well as in Contemporary Authors, Volume 172. Her essays and poems also appear in the writing guides Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, The Crafty Poet I: A Portable Workshop, and The Crafty Poet II.

Penny’s most recent books include The Resonance Around Us (Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013); One Bowl (prizewinning e-chapbook, 2011); Recycling Starlight (2010); and The Night Marsh (2008). A Dodge poet, Penny was a featured reader at the 2010 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. She has won three poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Arts Council, as well as awards from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Mary Carolyn Davies Award from the Poetry Society of America, the first William O. Douglas Nature Writing Award, and two fellowships from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA).

Be sure to visit Penny online at the follow websites:

www.2hweb.net/penhart

http://penhart.wordpress.com

To order Penny's books:

https://www.amazon.com/Penny-Harter/e/B000APKTNS

Prompt #194 – Circling the Pine: Haibun and the Spiral Image by Guest Blogger Penny Harter

Following Ken Ronkowitz's guest blog on “ronka” (July 12, 2014), I'm happy to introduce you to Penny Harter, a distinguished poet whose work in haiku-related forms is internationally known. Penny has been widely published in journals and anthologies throughout the U.S. and abroad, and she has been awarded three poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, as well as awards from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Mary Carolyn Davies Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the first William O. Douglas Nature Writing Award, and a fellowship from VCCA for a residency in 2011. She visits schools for the New Jersey Writers Project of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This week, Penny leads us through a detailed understanding of the Japanese poetry form called haibun. I hope you'll  enjoy writing some haibun of your own, and I hope you'll visit Penny online: Penny's Website, Penny's Blog, Penny's Books at Amazon.com.

From Penny:

Although I write free-verse poems, prose poems, short stories and mini-stories, reviews, essays and educational articles, in recent months I have increasingly fallen under the spell of haibun. Haibun, with its mix of prose and poetry fascinates me. Originally conceived by Basho in his Narrow Road to the Deep North as a travel journal—and still sometimes written as one—haibun in the west can also capture an interior, spiritual and /or emotional journey.

The Haiku Society of America defines haibun as follows: “A haibun is a terse, relatively short prose poem in the haikai [all haiku-related literature] style, usually including both lightly humorous and more serious elements. A haibun usually ends with a haiku.

  

“Notes: Most haibun range from well under 100 words to 200 or 300. Some longer haibun may contain a few haiku interspersed between sections of prose. In haibun the connections between the prose and any included haiku may not be immediately obvious, or the haiku may deepen the tone, or take the work in a new direction, recasting the meaning of the foregoing prose, much as a stanza in a linked-verse poem revises the meaning of the previous verse . . . .” (HSA Definitions).          

In our book, The Haiku Handbook, my late husband, William J. (Bill) Higginson, reflects on haibun written in the West: “Like haiku, haibun begins in the everyday events of the author’s life. These events occur as minute particulars of object, person, place, action. The author recognizes that these events connect with others in the fabric of time and literature, and weaves a pattern demonstrating this connection. And if this writing is to be truly haibun, the author does this with a striking economy of language, without any unnecessary grammar, so that each word carries rich layers of meaning.”  (221) Bill goes on to say: Bringing the spareness of haiku poetry to prose gives us the best of autobiography and familiar essay—the actions, events, people, places, and recollections of life lived—without weighing them down with sentimentality, perhaps the greatest enemy of art and life.” (221)

  

What haiku contribute to haibun prose feels akin to the process of linking in the communal poetry called renku. I've always enjoyed writing renku—a process that requires one to come up with verses that turn a corner—”move away”—with respect to each preceding verse, but still connect in mood, tone, image, or theme. In renku-writing, this is often referred to as “link and shift.” If the haiku in a haibun work well, they both anchor the piece and let it go. Or, they simultaneously frame it and break the frame.

I deliberately decided to experiment with writing haibun in three ways: writing original haibun, shifting longer narrative poems into haibun, and turning prose poems into haibun. Hopefully, sharing my process with you will encourage you to experiment in similar ways.

I. Writing Original Haibun

I wrote the following two poems as haibun. My husband, died in October of 2008. While writing my way through grief into healing, I often found myself using haibun. Here’s a piece from December of 2008, only a few months after Bill’s death. It’s now published in Recycling Starlight, my chapbook of poems processing grief. I was seeking light and had heard that there was going to be a huge moon that December:

Moon-Seeking Soup

      

Last night when the December moon was closer to the Earth than it had been in years, huge on the horizon, blazing hills and craters, I saw it too late, too high in the sky. Still, I could almost count the peaks that held the sun.

Tonight, after slicing red  potatoes, yams, carrots, onions, and garlic into a base of chicken broth; after shaking a delicate rain of basil and tarragon onto the surface and stirring those sweet spices in—while the soup simmered, I threw on a jacket over my nightclothes and ran out to look for the moon. My slippered feet were cold as I searched the sky, wanting to raise my face into white light.

But there was no moon, no glow over the apartment roofs to say it was rising, so I came back in and stirred my soup, raising the ladle to my lips to taste again and again the dark fruits of the Earth.

   

        moon-seeking soup—

        my own face reflected

        in the broth

I wanted to see that light after two months of deep mourning, wanted to be lifted up and out of myself into that sky. But I was also deeply involved with the “fruits of the Earth” as I stirred my soup—and that’s why I listed all its ingredients. The final haiku came as I bent over the cauldron of soup—although I didn’t actually see my face. Instead, I realized that I was still bound to the Earth, and that rather than escape into the sky, I needed to stay in the place I was, grieving and healing. This haiku is more closely related to the main narrative than those in many haibun, though it does jump to “my own face.”

Interestingly, a year later, having moved and begun a new life, I found myself again writing a December haibun, this time reflecting the kindness of a neighbor who brought me light:

  

Winter Stars

   

My neighbor fills her winter garden with oaktag cut-outs of red and yellow stars—hangs them from her bird feeder or glues them atop the planting sticks she's left in the dirt between withered blooms. Yesterday, she knocked on my door, and I opened it to find her hands overflowing with stars—each hole-punched and threaded with yarn—a new constellation for these days of early dark.

      

“These are for you to hang places,” she said simply, knowing of my need for joy this Christmas season. As we smiled and hugged one another, I received them in my cupped hands. Now stars dangle from my doorknobs and brighten shadowed corners—an unexpected gift of light.

      

     moon splinters

     on the river—the glint

     of ice floes

Here, the haiku is also both literal and metaphorical, and it does shift farther from the narrative than the haiku in the preceding example. I live near a river, and there had been ice floes floating in it. The river’s current that winter seemed akin to my process of healing—my encountering more and more glints of light—as in my neighbor’s kindness. The haiku does not focus on her and the gift she brought, yet it connects in mood and theme.

II. Shifting a Narrative Poem Into a Haibun

When one takes a narrative poem and transforms it into a haibun, something quite different happens to the original poem. A good poem may already reverberate in several directions, ripple with associations. But recasting that poem into poetic prose and adding haiku opens it up even further—precisely because the haiku shift the focus enough that it becomes a different work. They expand upon the original perception. In the following two examples, you can see how my original narrative poems changed when I translated them into haibun. The following poem felt unfinished, lacking enough “punch” to capture the experience”

    Estell Manor State Park

      

    That gray day, wind soughed in the pines,

    and oaks arced full over trails that faded

    into green or snaked into a density

    of swamp and lichened trunks.

   

    We walked a narrow road around

    the wooded heart, wondering which trail

    would claim us first until the wind

    caught a dead limb and tossed it

    down before us—the loud crack

    fusing with its swift descent.

      

    We said the usual things: what if

    we’d been a few yards further along,

    or a car had been there—then cautiously

    pressed on, although we stopped

    to drag the heavy branch aside

    before we left the loop road for a trail

    that led us deeper in.

The haibun version, for me, has more power because of the haiku framing it:

             Estell Manor State Park

     

    turkey buzzard—

    red beak into its own

    black wing          

           

That gray day, wind soughed in the pines, and oaks arced full over trails that faded into green or snaked into a density of swamp and lichened trunks.

   

We walked a narrow road around the wooded heart, wondering which trail would claim us first until the wind caught a dead limb and tossed that full weight down before us—the loud crack fused with its swift descent.

   

We said the usual things: what if we’d been a few yards further along . . . or if a car . . . then cautiously pressed on, although we stopped to drag the heavy branch aside before we left the loop road for a trail.   

  

    night thoughts—

    my heartbeat quickens

    in this dark

In first draft, this haibun included only the last haiku. However, a friend suggested it needed something more at the beginning. I added the opening haiku because I did see that turkey buzzard in the park, and the irony of the fact that it usually sinks its red beak into carrion struck me at the time. Thinking about how close my friend and I had come to being seriously injured, or even killed, it seemed a fitting intro to the mood and content of the haibun. The closing haiku, though amplifying the earlier fear, can also be a universal experience. We all know about those thoughts that can visit us in the pre-dawn hours.

III. Turning a Prose-poem into a Haibun

The same reverberating circles of meaning can happen when haiku are added to open up a prose-poem. Since I felt the original needed more punch, I shifted the following prose-poem into a haibun. In the process, I even changed the title:

No Other Place

   

Two hawks circle far above, afternoon sunlight gilding their wings as their shadows swiftly cross the road before me. In red canyons of the West, ravens ride the thermals, their harsh calls dark as the storm clouds that shadow the ridges.

   

There is no other place but here where the gas burner spurts blue, steam hisses from the kettle, and a clock on the wall keeps time above a granite counter-top chilled by mountain winds.

   

Here where hawks prey on the living, ravens descend on the dead. Between my palm a cup of black tea deepens.

And now, the haibun version:

Keeping Time

   

Two hawks circle far above, afternoon sunlight gilding their wings as their shadows swiftly cross the road before me.

In red canyons of the West, ravens ride the thermals, their harsh calls dark as the storm clouds that shadow the ridges.

    again that dream

    of refuge in a cave

    above the river

       

There is no other place but here where the gas burner spurts blue, steam hisses from the kettle, and a clock on the wall keeps time above a granite counter-top chilled by mountain winds.

   

Hawks prey on the living, ravens descend on the dead. Between my palm a cup of black tea deepens.

    squatting beneath

    the hammock, a child

    digs a hole to China

The title change happened because I felt the entire piece was, as is much of my work, about the mystery of time passing vs. the eternal present—perhaps feeling both are one. The first haibun emerged from memories of caves seen in the walls of several red-rock canyons of the West, and the desire for safety from any kind of storm. And the second haiku, from a childhood memory of me doing just that—as well as an association between the tea “deepening” and the deepening hole I, the child, believed I could dig in the dirt.

   

For me, the basis of all poetry writing begins in synthesis—like Indra’s web. One can pluck the web of one’s experience at any node, and the whole thing vibrates. A good poem connects the thing perceived with the perceiver, as does a good haiku. Basho is reputed to have said, “To write of the pine, go to the pine.” But in a good haibun, we go to the pine—and then through the haiku we follow the pine’s roots, or needles and cones as they fall—spiraling farther and farther afield while still orbiting the pine—still linked to the original image.

I encourage you to try writing haibun in any of the ways I’ve shared. You may also fall under haibun’s spell. It can be an exciting and rewarding process.

IV. Tips for Writing Haibun

1.  A haibun is not a short story. A haibun relates a journey, whether the travel is a physical exploration of the world or an internal journey of spiritual and/or emotional discovery. It should take the reader somewhere—from here to there.

2. Both the prose and haiku should be image-centered. Trim the language in the prose section to its essence. The prose portion can be written in sentence fragments or complete sentences.

3. The haibun prose should be more akin to a prose-poem. And rather than in paragraph format, the prose is usually presented in blocks. Some contemporary haibun are even in verse form with haiku indented before and between stanzas, or at the poem’s end.

4. There is no set length to a haibun. It can be one paragraph with one haiku, or several pages with haiku interspersed throughout.

5. Many haibun are simply narratives of special moments in a person’s life. Like haiku, haibun often begin in everyday events—minute particulars of object, person, place, and/or action. Haibun are usually autobiographical and personal, and most often written in present tense.

6. However, some haibun published in contemporary journals also recount actual travels,  memories, dreams, and fantasies.

7. The haibun’s haiku do connect to the prose, but in the best haibun, the haiku do not directly continue the narrative. Instead, they relate in theme, mood, or tone. Inserting the haiku into the haibun is like throwing a stone into a pond—causing ripples of association.

8. If you google “journals that publish haibun” you will find plenty of examples on-line.

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Works Cited

The Haiku Handbook. Tokyo, Japan:  Kodansha International: Penny Harter co-author with William J. Higginson. 25th anniversary edition 2010, non-fiction. Kodansha USA, 2013. 

Recycling Starlight.

Eugene, Oregon: Mountains and Rivers Press, 2010, poems. 

One Bowl. Ormskirk, United Kingdom: Snapshot Press, 2012, poems (prizewinning e-book of haibun). 

The Resonance Around Us. Eugene, Oregon: Mountains and Rivers Press, 2013, poems and  haibun.

Special Thanks and Acknowledgment

Thanks to Wiggerman, Scott and David Meischen for permission to quote portions of my essay “Circling the Pine: Haibun and the Spiral Web” from Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry.  Austin Texas, Dos Gatos Press, 2011. 

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Thank you, Penny!