THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 13th February 2025. Alice Wanderer, featured poet

hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman & Vidya Shankar

mentor: Lorraine Haig

A Thursday Feature

13th February 2025

This month we have the pleasure of celebrating the work of Alice Wanderer. 

Alice Wanderer has been dabbling in haiku for decades but only became excited about haibun in 2018 or so after reading work produced by Kala Ramesh and her students on Facebook. Alice's book of translations of the haiku of Sugita Hisajo, Lips Licked Clean (Red Moon Press) won a Touchstone Award in 2021. Her first chapbook, Flow, deals with the rivers and beaches of her local place and indigenous dispossession. Her second, She Wants to See Birds and Flowers, will be appearing on the Snapshot Press website in the spring of 2025. 

Here's the third haibun in the series where we showcase Alice's work.

Alice Wanderer

Migration: Afternoon on the bridge of dreams 

I sit on the edge of the newly refurbished pier, legs strung through the back of a bench, and gaze shoreward. Picnicking people are coloured blobs–vague pyramidal shapes in adult and child sizes. The white feathers of waiting seagulls incongruously bright. The sun warms my back. I compare this felt sense with summer’s heat, lingering on sensation like a wine taster. A few swallows climb, swoop and skim over the water. Three men are diving off the pier behind me. 

A wet hand is placed on rough human wood. We barely share a language but I soon realise that he wants to dive from here, the highest part of the bench. I smile and nod my consent. He gestures to warn me of the splash. Probably he wants me out of the picture. One of his friends has the phone camera ready.

a circle

of dissipating foam

clouds in fish heaven

I take my seat again and two preteens approach. They also want the elevation of the bench. The tallest jumps, bobs up, cries out his wonder at the cold. Then swims for the ladder to do it all again. Again and again and again and again. As though to locate a precious memory.

weightlessness…

fetal limbs bud 

and lengthen

Source: extracted from Flow, page 17

On the importance of a haiku, Alice suggests,  'Haiku is important. I don’t usually start with a haiku, though. I have no set approach to writing one. I wrote one almost everyday (mostly quite poor quality) for a number of years. I read other people’s haiku ( at least 3 poems) every day and inevitably get ideas and insights from that. I write about all sorts of things. Last year I wrote a haibun chapbook about my relationship with my mother. It will be coming out on the Snapshot Press website in the English spring of next year. The year before I wrote a chapbook, Flow, about rivers and beaches in my immediate area.'

Alice further spoke about her experience of reading Japanese writers, 'I wrote my PhD on Sugita Hisajo. I am particularly interested in the women of the Taisho era. I’m also interested in haiku written by Japanese children like Kobayashi Rin and the juvenile work of Sakanishi Atsuko. Recently I have enjoyed reading Janine Beichman’s translations of Ishigaki Rin and Nadine Willems translations of Genzo Sarashina - two twentieth century free verse poets.  Decades ago I was very taken by the writing of Mishima Yukio. Like DH Lawrence, he is a fantastic writer with an intense but somewhat embarrassing vision. I still spend time with the classical haikai poets.'

Prompt:

This week, we invite you to reflect over a word in your favourite language. What sort of experiences does it provoke in your life? How has the word made its way into your daily routine or most unqiue memory?

PLEASE NOTE:

1. Only two haibun per poet per prompt.

2. Share your best-polished pieces.

3. Please do not post something in a hurry or something you have just written.

    Let it simmer for a while.

4. Post your final edited version on top of your original verse.

5. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.

We are delighted to open the comment thread for you to share your unpublished haibun (within 300 words) to be considered for inclusion in haikuKATHA monthly journal.

Important: Since we're swamped with submissions, and our editors are only human, mistakes can happen. Please, please, remember to put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions. It helps our editors; they won't have to type it in, saving them from potential typos. Thanks a ton!