HAIKUsutradhar: 12th April 2024 Sankara Jayanth

A FRIDAY FEATURE

Host: Gauri Dixit Prompter for April: Sankara Jayanth

OUR MISSION

1. To provide a new poetry workshop each Friday, along with a prompt.

2. To select haiku, senryu, and haiga each month for the journal, haikuKATHA. Each issue will select poems that were posted in this forum from the 3rd of the previous month to the 2nd of the current month.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. Post a maximum of two verses per week, from Friday to Friday, numbered 1 & 2. Post only one haiku in a day, in 24 hours.

2. Only post unpublished verses --- nothing that has appeared in peer-reviewed or edited journals, anthologies, your webpage, social media, etc.

3. Only post original verses.

4. For each poem you post, comment on one other person’s poem.

5. Give feedback only to those poets who have requested it.

6. Do not post a variety of drafts, along with a request for readers to choose which they like most. Only one poem is to appear in each original post.

7. Post each revision, if you have any, above the original. The top version will be your submission to haikuKATHA. Do not delete the original post.

8. Do not submit found poetry or split sequences.

9. Do not post photos, except for haiga.

10. haikuKATHA will only consider haiga that showcase original artwork or photos. Post details re: the source of the visual image. If you team up with an artist or photographer, make sure that it’s their original work and that they are not restricted by other publications to share it. We won't be responsible for any copyright issues.

11. Put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions.

Poems that do not follow the guidelines may be deleted.

Founder/Managing Editor of haikuKATHA Monthly Journal: Kala Ramesh

Associate Editors: Ashish Narain Firdaus Parvez Priti Aisola Sanjuktaa Asopa Shalini Pattabiraman Suraja Menon Roychowdhury Vandana Parashar Vidya Shankar

Our poets in RED MOON ANTHOLOGY 2024:

       1) Susan Burch, vegetables, Issue 19 (haibun)

       2) Lorraine Haig, Tasmania . . . Issue 17 (haibun)

       3) Lakshmi Iyer,  autumn's . . . Issue 18 (haiku)

       4) Linda Papanicoloau, stamp . . . Issue 16 (haiku)

       5) Padma Rajeswari, ancestral . . . Issue 24  (haiku)

Hearty congratulations to all our poets.

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PROMPT:

12th April

How many of us live in urban jungles? How many of us are increasingly becoming discontent with this fact of us becoming, likely without our choice or control, increasingly detached from the natural world. In this age of technology, it is often an unsaid truth that perhaps we as a species have sort of lost it in terms of what it means to live a life in a world full of it. Far from our species coming together to save our own kind, we destroy everything in the path to our hollow goals as the dominant species on the planet. Given this state of human & world affairs, it is incredible how the haikai transform our lives, our perspectives on the natural world, our place in it and every existential dialogue that can fill the space within - all with a tenderness towards life. I try to capture these emotions, thoughts and observations in my artworks in the simplest way I can. I hope they can act as a starting point for you to explore your relationship with the natural world in the weeks to come and write haiku & senryu from your observations and explorations.

~

Week 2: crabs welcoming crashing waves

Can you believe that I haven't been to a beach nor have I listened to the mantra of the ocean nor the joy of watching scuttling crabs nor have I felt the touch of a wet seashell washed ashore by a suspiciously strong wave until my mid-twenties? I can't. I rued the fact for a while, but now is always the time if we chose to make it so. I love going to my wife's city and going to the beach there. In fact, the deep unsettled feeling of urban life became too strong for me after I first visited the beaches in Vizag, and I asked myself, "How can I live in an urban dystopia all my life?" When it comes to the nitty gritty, yes, cities provide for all the comforts and facilities. But I keep thinking, dreaming, what my daily life would be if I could hear the ocean in the background everyday. There is something about being near something immense, like oceans, canyons and so on, that begs us to slow down our mind and reflect. While there is so much 'I' in all of these desires, in this case, it is perhaps a desire to lose the 'I' that drives my thoughts.

This artwork is me capturing my own joy of watching waves crash on rocks. Perhaps the crabs too feel that, perhaps they are the ones orchestrating the splashes and crashes of waves with their limb waving. Take the essence of the artwork and explore your own ideas and experiences to write your poem, it need not be about the image or the subjects in it. 

A poem from the Japanese masters to inspire us all: 

his quick nap

is just pretend...

hermit crab

Kobayashi Issa

translated by David G. Lanoue

~

Looking forward to reading your haiku.

Write on! Gauri