HAIKUsutradhar : 2nd August 2024

A FRIDAY FEATURE

Host: Gauri Dixit Prompter for August: Keith Evetts

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 Only post unpublished verses --- nothing that has appeared in peer-reviewed or edited journals, anthologies, your webpage, social media, etc.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

2nd August

Keith Evetts

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Though haiku may be rooted in nature, we are part of nature too. Most of us live urban lives, our houses and apartments are in essence no different from anthills or the nests constructed by birds, the dens furnished by badgers; our behaviour an extension of the behaviour of other animals. This week, focus on your contemporary life, as it happens now, in city or suburb. Or, if you do live in a remote hut, your visits to the city. There are excellent precedents...

On rustic versus urban living:

shitting in the winter turnip field

the distant lights of the city

—Shiki

And:

in town

the whiff of things

summer moon

—Boncho (hokku of the kasen renga, Summer Moon, by Boncho, Bashō, and Kyorai)

To be threadbare may be seen as an aesthetic virtue in haiku, but this month let's try to avoid the worn-out, borrowed themes, memes and clichés that are routinely trotted out in response to prompts, particularly the standard emotional triggers. Unless, that is, you can trump the many verses that went before. Draw on your direct personal experiences where possible, and if there's a fresh way you can present your observations within the spirit of haiku, so much the better. Find your own voice in urban life.

dead of night

the police helicopter

circles a third time

(Blithe Spirit November 2023)

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Looking forward to reading your urban haiku.

Write on! Gauri