haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 22nd February 2025

haikaiTALKS: haikuWALL | a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Srinivasa Sambangi

22nd February 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Srinivas Sambangi

haikuWALL

This week’s topic is inspired by Kala’s wonderful project haikuWALL. You may see further details of her work in the link provided and you can google for her interviews. Let’s focus on a little part of what she has done and expand the idea.

Many of us live in cities. In our daily commute we find lot of empty walls on either side of the road. To me, it looks like they are inviting us to write something on them, write something to educate the city dwellers on what they are doing and what they have to do. A lot of cities face the issues like pollution, water scarcity, garbage handling, traffic jams, power outages, life style diseases, drug addiction, illegal constructions etc.

This week write a few haiku/senryu on the issues your city faces that can make people aware of their role in handling those issues. What you write must be proper haiku/senryu and no prescriptive statements please. You can also explore for the haiku/senryu of other poets which are fit to be written on your city walls and post them.

Examples:

bridge traffic

yet my day flowing

with the river

      Minal Sarosh

working from home. . .

my child asks if she can

study from home

       Ramesh Anand

hospital window

more concrete

than sky

     M.R.Defibaugh

town landfill

exhaust vents

painted green

      Wonja Brucker

Reference:

https://www.haikuchronicles.com/podcasts/e31-haikuwall-india

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KIGO WORDS

Shall we please try to include a kigo word in all the poems we share here?

Give the season and the word—under your poem. 

I'm quoting Lev Hart's request here: "This week’s goal is to compose two verses with toriawase, blending wabi, sabi, karumi, mono no aware, and/or yugen. Tell us which aesthetic concepts you mean to express in a line below the verse. Strive for originality. Avoid stock phrases and shopworn images."

For seasonal references, please check these lists:

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

**

Thank you for this post, Srinivas.

I hope our poets take the challenge and create a haiku on these lines!

Dear Members,

If you can paint haiku on your compound wall or on your society's compound wall, how fascinating it would be.

Why don't you try to do it?

You can send your pictures of your haikuWALL here!

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_

We are continuing haikaiTALKS in a grand way!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala