senryu

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Stella Pierides

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 5 Comments

land hermit crab

Photo: Vanessa Pike-Russell/Creative Commons/Flickr

Laughing babies meet hermit crabs in two haiku by Stella Pierides in today’s feature of the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

juggling
a pen and a feeding spoon –
the baby’s laughter

This senryu captures a moment of the happy chaos babies bring with them everywhere.  The baby is probably laughing because he or she feels secure and happy in the presence of a familiar care taker.  But what about this whimsical possibility: The baby laughs along with us at the humorous image of the parent “juggling” pen and feeding spoon?  In any event, this laughing baby, like all laughing babies, gets the last laugh – from us.

***

hermit crab –
while ironing she dreams
of other lives

Confined to its shell, the hermit crab rarely, if ever, leaves its home.  What if the woman in this haiku could leave her shell and leave behind her domestic chores?  Would the “other lives” of which she dreams live up to her fantasies and justify sacrificing the security of her status quo?  Maybe what the woman really wishes for is simply to know she has the freedom to choose a different path and define herself anew.

Stella Pierides was born in Athens, Greece and now divides her time between Neusäss, Germany, and London, England.  She is the author of Of This World (Red Moon Press, 2017); In the Garden of Absence (Fruit Dove Press, 2012), for which she received a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award; and Feeding the Doves (Fruit Dove Press, 2013), among others.  Stella serves on The Haiku Foundation board of directors and project manages the Per Diem: Daily Haiku feature for the Foundation. She enjoys reading, gardening, film, music, food, and working long hours.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Martha Magenta

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

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Photo: Mo Barger/Creative Commons/Flickr

Martha Magenta turns mammogram shadows upside down and sees dignity in dementia in today’s feature of the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

mammogram
my shadow
leads the way

Shadows usually follow us, not lead us.  Magenta’s turning that truth on its head is wonderfully playful – or would be, if the shadow in question weren’t the shadow on the mammogram image that every woman dreads.

***

knitting a shawl
grandmother folds
into the fog

This poem is a rich and dignified picture of generational role reversal.  The verb “folds” so gently unites the knitting work-in-progress with the grandmother who is fading into the fog of sleepiness or dementia – or both.  Was it perhaps the grandmother who taught the poetic speaker to knit?  If so, then those stitches weave the speaker and the grandmother together through the DNA of a beautiful handicraft passed down through generations.

Martha Magenta lives in England, UK. Her poetry has appeared in The Reverie Journal, Cafe Aphra, and Beaux Cooper; her haiku and senryu have been published in Modern Haiku, Presence, and Chrysanthemum, among others; her tanka in The Bamboo Hut, and Ribbons. She is owner of POETS community on G+. She collects her published work on a blog: https://marthamagenta.com/.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Michael Dylan Welch

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 1 Comment

Cedar Forest

Photo: Jerry Meaden/Creative Commons/Flickr

Michael Dylan Welch writes of cedars and doilies in today’s feature in the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

rust in the cedars –
we gather again
at her favourite spot

Whose favorite spot?  A grandmother’s?  A sister’s?  A friend’s?  We don’t know, but the “rust in the cedars” and the ritual (“again”) gathering suggest the remembrance of someone now gone.  This poem rings with music: The musical sibilants in the first line – “rust in the cedars” – open the poem with a reverential whispering.  The assonance of the hard G’s on both accented syllables in the second line – “we gather again” – is a gently percussive counterbalance to the hushed first line.  There seems to be a stillness at this gathering, a moment in which to contemplate the imponderable realities of interconnection and the cycle of life.

***

lazy day at granny’s –
the doily imprint
on my daughter’s cheek

There’s an entire world in the 11 words of this senryu.  This granny with her doilies – you can see her furniture, you can hear the creak of her floors.  And the filigreed imprint of the doily on the girl’s cheek connects the girl with that family home, a sanctuary of complete and total safety.  The assonance and swung rhythm of “lazy day” intertwines seamlessly with the alliteration of “day,” “doily,” and “daughter,” uniting musically the people, time, place, and mood of a moment of simple yet profound family joy.

Michael Dylan Welch recently served two terms as poet laureate for Redmond, Washington, where he also curates two poetry reading series and directs the annual Poets in the Park festival. He runs National Haiku Writing Month (www.nahaiwrimo.com), and is a director of the biennial Haiku North America conference. Michael’s haiku, tanka, longer poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, and one of his translations appeared on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps. His personal website is graceguts.com. Michael lives with his wife and two children in Sammamish, Washington.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Shloka Shankar

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

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Photo: Michael Koolman/Creative Commons/Flickr

Shloka Shankar writes of goddesses and Rorschach tests in today’s feature of the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

omniscient narrator the goddess in me awakes

The poetic speaker’s mind generates a metanarrative of the population of her inner landscape.  At once, she is narrator and goddess and all of those other characters who live in her soul.

***

Rorschach test
the side you choose
to ignore

This poem lays bare the reality of our human hypocrisy.  We believe what we want to believe.  Especially about ourselves.

Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from Bangalore, India.  She has happily found her niche in found poetry and Japanese short-forms alike.  Her work has appeared in close to 200 print and online venues of repute.  She co-edited naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary world haiku (Vishwakarma Publications, 2016) and is a Best of the Net nominee.  Shloka is the founding editor of the literary & arts journal Sonic Boom.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Haiku by Willie R. Bongcaron

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

The moon

Photo: Laurie Shaull/Creative Commons/Flickr

The International Women’s Haiku Festival continues with a lovely haiku about solitude by Willie R. Bongcaron.

full moon
she stands alone
not so lonely

This poem gives graceful voice to a vexing issue.  Traditionally, women have been defined – and often still are defined – by their relationships with the men in their lives.  In the West, at least, daughters take their father’s last names, and traditionally, women take their husband’s last names.  When a woman is unattached, and in particular, not married to a man, does the world accept her as the complete human being she is, or does she tend to be viewed simply as someone who lacks a spouse?

In Bongcaron’s poem, the moon reflects the radiance of a woman comfortable in her solitude, a woman who stands on her own two feet, well at ease.

Willie Ropelos Bongcaron is a haijin by choice.  He has adopted a pen named AoSuzume, or the blue sparrow, with the help of Ms. Gabi Greve.  He is an adherent of short poetry forms like haiku, senryu, tanka, haiga, free verse, etc, but has been particularly addicted to haiku and senryu for 5 or more years now.  He resides in Sampaloc, Manila, the Philippines with his family; and is a government employee, having worked with the light rail transit system (LRTA) since 1985.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Terri L. French

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 3 Comments

dark alley

Photo: Renee McGurk/Creative Commons/Flickr

Terri L. French talks homelessness, lip service, and tampons in today’s feature in the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

curses–
a homeless teen
stealing tampons

The Curse, that monthly guest, joins up with the dreaded curse of homelessness and all the woes that fly out from its Pandora’s box.  French captures the desperation of the impoverished young woman with a boldness and directness that hits you in the gut and makes you weep for the world.

***

lip service
her voice falling
on deaf ears

The phenomenon of what I call disenvoicement – the unjust silencing of an individual on real or perceived threat of devastating consequences for speaking out – is a sinister reality in the lives of women.  In so many ways a woman’s voice falls on “deaf ears” – the physically or emotionally abused woman or girl is afraid to speak out against her abuser, the professional woman is afraid to speak from her unique perspective in a meeting full of male colleagues, the silenced woman who, in some cultures, is viewed as a being without basic human dignity simply by virtue of her sex – the list goes on.  This tragedy plays out on the social and individual levels; how much worse off the world is when deprived of these voices!  French’s poem aptly gives voice to a grave wrong in women’s experience that has gone on far too long.

Terri L. French is a writer/editor and award winning haiku poet living in Huntsville, Alabama. She is past Southeast Coordinator of the Haiku Society of America, former editor of the senryu and kyoka journal Prune Juice, and current secretary for The Haiku Foundation.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Roberta Beary

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 2 Comments

Lucky Strike

Photo: Scott Hudson/Creative Commons/Flickr

Roberta Beary gets real about marriage, divorce, and domestic violence in today’s feature of the International Women’s Haiku Festival.

relentless rain
the lengthening arc
of his fist

In this harrowing poem, Beary juxtaposes the relentless pounding of rain with an unthinkable, yet all too common, act of violence.

***

mother of the bride
dressed head to toe
in black

Beary’s poem recasts a wedding as a funeral and, in the poem’s gut-wrenching final line, enshrouds the mother of the bride – and by implication the bride herself – in the permanent darkness of the loss of life.

***

moving day
the kids pack up
my first marriage

Here, the home doesn’t just turn into an empty nest; it all but vanishes as material belongings, the absent spouse, and grown children pack up and move on.

Roberta Beary (USA and Ireland) is the 2017 Roving Ambassador for The Haiku Foundation and the haibun editor for Modern Haiku. She identifies as gender-expansive, and writes to connect with the disenfranchised, to let them know they are not alone. Her haiku collection The Unworn Necklace, named a William Carlos Williams finalist by the Poetry Society of America, is in its fourth printing. Her work is featured in A Companion to Poetic Genre (John Wiley & Sons, 2011) and Haiku In English: The First Hundred Years (W.W. Norton, 2013). Her book Deflection (Accents Publishing, 2015), a collection of haibun and haiku sequences on loss and grief, named an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, received a Touchstone Award Honorable Mention and won a Haiku Society of America prize. Poet and playwright Grace Cavalieri says, “In Deflection she extends her reach with some of the most searingly truthful work I’ve seen this year.” Beary tweets her photoku on Twitter @shortpoemz.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

International Women’s Haiku Festival: Poems by Agnes Eva Savich

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ 1 Comment

Summer Fades Away [244/366]

Photo: Tim Sackton/Creative Commons/Flickr

This month, in celebration of National Women’s History Month, Inner Voices is hosting the International Women’s Haiku Festival. Throughout the month of March, you will find here haiku about women, women’s experience, and women’s unique contributions, written by poets from around the world.

Launching the festival today are two haiku by Agnes Eva Savich.

rosy cheeks
she picks a fistful
of cherry tomatoes

This poem captures a double moment of joy: that of harvesting the juicy treasures of the vine, and that which the poetic speaker – perhaps in the role of mother or grandmother – experiences in watching the rosy-cheeked girl’s moment of discovery.  The mirror imagery of the rosy cheeks and the rosy roundness of the cherry tomatoes in the girl’s fist is delightful.

***

breast cancer
sprinklers on full blast
across a church lawn

Here, the “sprinklers on full blast” are a darkly clever amplification of a chemo drip.  That those sprinklers are flooding the lawn of a church emphasizes the depths of the fear that extends from the devastating diagnosis to the possibility that, in times of human desperation, even divine power has its limits.

Agnes Eva Savich lives near Austin, TX with her husband, two kids, and four cats. She has been writing poetry since she was 12. Her haiku are published in many modern haiku journals and have been translated into five languages. She has an early collection of poetry, The Watcher: Poems (Cedar Leaf Press, 2009) and is working on her first haiku collection.

Find more information about the International Women’s Haiku Festival and submit your work at this link.

Nicholas Klacsanzky’s Commentary on My ‘Deployment’ Haiku

~ Jennifer Hambrick ~ Leave a comment
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Photo: Bobistraveling/Creative Commons/Flickr

I am extremely honored and delighted that poet, editor, and blogger Nicholas Klacsanzky has selected my ‘deployment’ haiku (which was first published in Modern Haiku, 47.3, and which I blogged about in December) for his thoughtful commentary on his Haiku Commentary blog today. You can read his post and my original poem here.

The son of the pioneering American haikuist George Klacsanzky, Nicholas Klacsanzky follows in his father’s footsteps with his own esteemed poetry in the Japanese short forms and through Haiku Commentary, where he uncovers the inner workings of present-day examples of what he calls “perhaps the smallest style of poetry.”

Of my ‘deployment’ haiku Klacsansky writes, “This haiku has a lot of energy to it. It has an immediacy and freshness that most haiku do not have.” His insights into the “energy” of the em dash, the “immediacy” of not naming the type of tree that so quickly drops its leaves in the poem, and the “melancholy” and “stark” effects of the vowels are fascinating to me as the poet.

But I am most struck by what Klacsanzky has to say about the last line of the poem: “The pacing of the haiku is powerful, especially with how the last line comes. Not only is the punctuation used for a significant emotional end, but also the last line (without tricks) is palpable and alarming.”

Of course, I planned none of these effects, per se.  But I’m glad the poem has them, and that Klacsanzky’s extremely thoughtful commentary has laid them bare. And I’m glad the poem is, in its own way, “alarming.” The finality of the end of a single human life, much less of the legions who perish at war, should stop us cold.  The tree in my poem will likely grow new leaves come spring.  The souls lost in battle are gone forever.

If a poet writes a poem and no one reads it, does the poem have meaning?  This question is one for the philosophers.  As a poet, though, I find I reassuring that a reader with Nicholas Klacsanzky’s deep insights into poetry is so committed to sharing them respectfully and unpretentiously for everyone to experience.  Klacsanzky’s Haiku Commentary helps make the world of English-language haiku one of wonder and discovery for all.