aging

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Haiku by Terri L. French

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments
Ken McMillan - damselfly
Photo: Ken McMillan/Creative Commons/Flickr

Poet Terri L. French talks middle age and damselflies in two beautiful haiku.

winter solstice
middle age
shifts to the right

As the earth and neighboring planets shuffle around the Milky Way, the seasons emerge, according to which parts of the earth are nearest to or farthest from the sun. Read a number line from left to right and notice where the “middle age” years fall. With each moment, each day, each year – and with some wishful thinking – they slouch farther down the line, into the winter of your life, whether or not you’re ready for it.

***

damselfly . . .
let’s become
our own heroes

Outside of storybooks and movies, how many damsels in distress have been rescued by fathers, brothers, or celebrity athletes? With a touch as delicate as a damselfly’s wing, this poem warns us not to wait for the fiercely named dragonfly to bring us securely into our lives. It is a call to action, an invitation to us all to become the people we want to be.

Terri L. French is a writer, editor, and poet. She is a former SE Coordinator of The Haiku Society of American, past editor of Prune Juice Journal of Senryu and Kyoka, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Haiku Foundation.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Haiku by David He

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 1 Comment
yowlong - Chestnut Hill Reservoir at Dusk
Photo: yowlong/Creative Commons/Flickr

Poet David He gives voice to a young girl’s sweet song and an older woman’s early dusk in two beautiful haiku.

a green leaf
between the girl’s lips
her sweet song

I envision a little girl holding a green leaf between her lips and humming a happy tune – maybe that of a nursery song, or maybe a tune she’s making up on the spot. This poem a tight shot on a moment of complete innocence. Maybe the girl doesn’t know anyone sees her with the leaf between her lips or hears her “sweet song.” Or maybe she does know and doesn’t even think to care. The poet’s language is as simple and unburdened as the haiku moment it captures.

***

Mum’s story
in her grey hair…
early dusk

The vivid image of a woman’s grey hair tells only part of the woman’s story. But the “early dusk” in the poem’s third line says it all. This grey-haired woman isn’t exactly old; her hair makes her look older than she is, and – doubly tragic – this in the face of an “early dusk.”

David He has been working as an advanced English teacher for 35 years in a high school. He has had twenty English-language short stories published in anthologies. His haiku have been published in Acorn, The Heron’s Nest, Presence, Rocket bottles, Frogpond, One Hundred Gourds, Shamrock, First Literary Review-East, Modern Haiku, Frozen Butterfly, and elsewhere. He has also had tanka published in Skylark, Ribbons, and Cattails.  

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Poems by dl mattila

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments
pslim - alien cocoon!
Photo: pslim/Creative Commons/Flickr

The private self meets advancing age in two poems by dl mattila.

cocoon . . .
it’s what you don’t see
that defines me

In an age of endless social media confessions, it is important to remember that our selves were not meant to be always – or even ever – broadcast to the world. So often the cocoon is viewed only as a symbol of the butterfly that is to emerge from it. But there is essential beauty in what is inside the cocoon, not just in what is about to come out of it. It commands our respect. If only we’d stop tweeting and blogging long enough to notice.

***

advancing age
in my blind-spot
changing lanes

This sharp little poem leaves us on a cliff-hanger ending, even though Mother Nature has already spoiled the ending for us all. We don’t see age creeping up on ourselves until we try to shift our lives and run smack into it. But even though the younger driver may (really?) have the better reflexes, the older one has potentially more experience, more skill, and, as the character Evelyn Couch noted in the now classic film Fried Green Tomatoes, more insurance.

dl mattila is a lot of things.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Two Senryu by Amy Losak

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 1 Comment
Ines Hegedus-Garcia - another Miami sunset
Photo: Ines Hegedus-Garcia/Creative Commons/Flickr

It’s a visit to a car dealership and with The Golden Girls in two sparkling senryu by Amy Losak.

car salesman
he assures me
there’s no pressure

… as he’s making the high-energy sales pitch. Is there a commercial venue more fraught with the tension of gender dynamics than the car dealership? Salespeople often need to be aggressive, which, in the wrong hands, becomes a close cousin to bullying. And what is the point of telling someone that there’s “no pressure” in the midst of a clearly aggressive sales pitch? Please. Give us some credit.

***

inevitable –
all the Golden Girls
getting younger!

I wonder if television could get away with it today, namely, centering a prime time TV series around four women in their sunset years living together as housemates in Miami. Would anyone in our youth-obsessed culture care? In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, the show was a hit. There is truth in this poem: those “older” ladies do seem to get younger with each passing year. And because there was nothing they could not help each other through, they also seem to grow tougher. They had each other. And cheesecake.

Amy Losak, of Teaneck, NJ, is an experienced publicist specializing in healthcare. She started writing haiku as a tribute to her mother, Sydell Rosenberg. Syd was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America in 1968 and also served as HSA secretary in the 1970’s. Her picture book, H Is For Haiku: A Treasury Of Haiku From A To Z, illustrated by Sawsan Chalabi, will be released on April 10 by Penny Candy Books.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Three Haiku by Jessica Malone Latham

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ Leave a comment
wispy clouds
Photo: Indi Samarajiva/Creative Commons/Flickr

Wispy clouds drift over an intimate moment, a frail woman perseveres on a walk through an ancient forest, and the awe in a father’s heart fill three lovely haiku by U.S. poet Jessica Malone Latham.

cloud wisps
the secrets he whispers
in my hair

This beautiful haiku offers a tight shot on a private moment. Music links the poem’s central aspects by way of the sibilants in “wisps,” “secrets,” and “whispers.” That the secrets are whispered in the poetic speaker’s hair, not ear, suggests the untidy sensuality of a deeply intimate relationship.

***

old-growth forest
the stick that holds
her limp

I imagine an older woman limping with walking stick through an ancient forest. Here, subject and setting are linked by worldly experience, by the suggestion that they share the earthy wisdom that comes with years. And while the forest – nature in one of its grandest expressions – is often portrayed as the setting for frightening supernatural events, in this haiku it is a place of comforting solitude, embracing and supporting a late-life journey ever deeper through time.

***

the look in his eyes
as the children fall asleep
night blooming jasmine

Even in dark of night, some flowers blossom. The father figure implied in this lovely haiku is entranced by, and in awe of, his sweetly sleeping children – that, even while asleep, they will grow, blossom, flourish, as will his dreams for them. The poetic speaker observes this moment and shares it with the reader, pulling back the curtain on a domestic scene full of love and wonder.

Jessica Malone Latham, M.A. is a poet, writer, translator, and educator. Her haiku, haibun, senryu, and tanka have appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Sakura Award (2017), a semi-finalist for the Art of Haiku contest, (May 2017) and runner-up for the Haiku Calendar Competition, where two of her poems were included (2017). She has published three collections: cricket song: Haiku and Short Poems from a Mother’s Heart (Red Moon Press) and chapbooks, clouds of light (wooden nickel press) and all this bowing (buddha baby press).