hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
mentor: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature
20th March 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY MARCH 2025 LORRAINE HAIG
Week 3
light skates
along this spider’s strand . . .
how is it possible
for something so fragile
to hold the summer sun?
Jenny Fraser
A Temple Bell Sounds: 108 Tanka from the first twenty-one issues of Eucalypt, edited by Beverley George.
Here the poet is captivated by the light skating along a spider’s strand. How easy it would be to overlook this small wonder. There is almost a childlike fascination here. In the last line we see the bigger picture, a spider’s strand holding the summer sun. How magical!
Write a haibun that captures the miraculous in the ordinary. As this tanka shows the first words are very important. Make them count and engage your reader.
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.
Please Note: No haibun will be picked up from here for haikuKATHA, issue 43, May 2025. See the notice below for submission details. The workshopping will continue. The workshopping at the Haibun Gallery will continue to function the way it has been since November 2021.
Please read the Announcement completely, till the end :)) If you have doubts, write to us here, on this thread. Your ONE HAIBUN Submission can be from the haibun you have posted here.
Choose your best!
We nominate your poems for Contemporary Haibun Anthology brought out by Red Moon Press and Touchstone Haibun Contest. Help us to make this new format successful.
This is your home, to create any haibun you want and share with all our poets.
Have fun!
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT from Kala: NOTICE
NOTICE
Dear Haibuneers
Starting from March 2025, we at haikuKATHA are moving on to a new submissions format for haibun submissions. (Only for haibun, please note!)
Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.
Kindly note the submissions calendar.
1-20 March, to be considered for publication in May
1-20 June, to be considered for publication in August
1-20 September, to be considered for publication in November
1-20 December, to be considered for publication in February
All accepted submissions will receive an email to confirm their acceptance by the 5th day of the publication month.
Your unpublished (only one) haibun should be sent to: https://forms.gle/xUEiiDR9wd2dgqtR9 only during the submission period.
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The Haibun Gallery continues as is.
We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing…
#2
Today everything is less vibrant as clouds move in
As I place a few plants from a nearby shelf to the now brighter, mid-year window ledge, I notice a man wearing a completely black outfit with black backpack, sunglasses and beanie, walking a black bulldog with a black leash.
the procession
through the graveyard
springtime doesn't mourn
Alfred Booth
Lyon, France
(feedback welcome)
#2
Rising
I am entranced by the play of light within the glass. The vase is empty and yet… rainbows dance from the incoming sunbeams. I feel the warmth upon my face. A light rain begins to splatter on the window. I pick up the smooth shape in my hands. There is a delicate pattern etched on the sides. Stems too stretch to the openness outside the window. I feel no cut flowers are needed within. All the colour of the morning now fills my gaze.
morning coffee
the first notes
of a stonechat
Joanna Ashwell
UK
Feedback welcome
#2
Emptiness
I am entranced by the play of light within the glass. …
Breathtaking tanka from
Jenny!
Post #1
21.3.25
Lone Warrior
She bends over the newly blooming petunias. Her hand trembles as she clips a dead leaf. Shifting her attention to the dahlias she slowly caresses the white florets. Her nurse calls out “Madam ji, don’t bend. You will have pain.”
She smiles and says “Bimla, these flowers keep me going. Without them I am as good as dead. You know in two days another chemotherapy is waiting at the hospice. Let me talk to my babies till then.”
she sews together
pieces of her memory
patchwork quilt
Mona Bedi
India
Feedback appreciated:)
#1
Farther from the horizon
Three times a week I go to the plateau, climbing through the hillside park on irregular steps carved into the slope. A week ago, there was only a tiny swelling at the end of winter's claim on tree branches. Midweek, with spring sunlight's valiance, the outlines of buds was clearly visible. Yesterday, they whisper that leaf power returns in just a matter of days. The first to open will not necessarily be those closest to the new seasonal warmth. Each tree's sap has its own whys and wherefores.
sun-rippling
from dead leaves to green grass
tree canopies
Alfred Booth
Lyon, France
(feedback welcome)