hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman & Vidya Shankar
A Thursday Feature.
poet of the month: Dru Philippou
22nd February 2024
This month we have the pleasure of featuring Dru Philippou, a multiple award winning writer with a strong and unique voice.
Dru Philippou was born on the island of Cyprus, raised in London and currently lives in northern New Mexico, USA. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado. She writes haiku, tanka, haibun, and tanka prose. An award winning poet, her work is widely published and anthologised. She has also written two featured creative essays regarding haiku "Haiku Geometry" and "HaikuHolograms" Her haibun "Afterlife" won first place in the Haiku Society of America’s 2021 Haibun Awards. Also, her haibun "Pilgrimage" won first place in 2023 in the same contest. In 2022, she published her first collection of poetry, A Place to Land, a memoir written entirely in tanka prose.
Dru Philippou
Afterlife
I always take good care of them, removing the laces and brushing off the dirt with a soft bristle brush. Applying beeswax paste with the back of a spoon, I smooth it into the leather cracks until their espresso color revives. I give the gusseted tongue special attention, reaching those hidden places, and opening the boots fully to air.
resting
under a bristlecone pine . . .
weighing my options
I wear them after the traction is gone, trying to beat out a few more miles although I can feel every rock, every stick through the rubber. On rainy days, the mud sucks them off my feet. The paleness at the toes reminds me of all those steps kicked into the slopes. They are holey, misshapen, speckled with guano, but I don’t want to let them go. At one point, I even re-glue the parting sole.
boot planter
the heavenly blue
of rambling lobelia
*Won first place the Haiku Society of America Awards 2021
Source: Afterlife
SP: Given your wide participation and spectacular wins in many contests, can you share any advice on how you conceptualise, prepare, choose work for a contest?
DP: It’s important to let your poems sit for months or even longer. The poet then revisits the work with a fresh perspective, polishing it further. I cannot gauge what will be a winner. The haibun I imagine will win often do not, and I’m surprised by the ones that do win. I think judges like something that is innovative and creative.
Prompt: ‘Sepia is the colour of love’. I have often felt drawn to things that embody the scruffiness of age and the weathering of time. Write about a much loved item or place, something ordinary, not exotic.
Haibun outside this prompt is welcome too
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!
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PLEASE NOTE:
1. Only two haibun per poet per prompt. Please put your name and country of residence under your poem, it makes the editors' work easier. Thanks.
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. When poets give suggestions and if you agree to them - post your final edited version on top of your original version.
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 the haikuKATHA monthly journal.
29.03.2024
#2
Moving on
People say, one should move on from things that do not bring in any positive outcome. Is this always easy? Well, the answer is obvious. It's easier to discard objects that are not useful anymore. But it's not easy to discard feelings, beliefs and faiths. You stay hopeful against hopelessness. You hold fast on to it as it provides a kind of completeness even when it's not concrete.
flock in flight
this vagabond heart
takes rest in a tent
Kalyanee Arandhara
Assam, India
Feedback most welcome
Post #2
27.2.24
Revised thanks to Susan:
Pedigree
He says he loves old watches…the ones that had to be wound again and again. “They make me aware of the life grandpa built for us ."
winter stars --
we name the brightest
after our forefathers
Feedback appreciated :)
Revised thanks to Shalini:
Pedigree
He says he loves old watches…the ones that had to be wound again and again. “They make me aware of the life grandpa built for us ” he says. He now wears his grandfather’s watches with aplomb amongst his peers.
winter stars --
we name the brightest
after our forefathers
Feedback appreciated:)
Pedigree
He says he loves old watches…the ones that had to be wound again and…
28.06.2024
#1
Revised with gratitude to Kala Ma'am and Shalinj Pattabiraman
Inseparable
Like several other objects I cannot part with, the rolling board, a stainless-steel-coated iron-plate that my mother ordered from Muradabad has become a part of my life or rather I have become a part of its journey although life changed its course.
full moon
i name two stars
after theirs
Kalyanee Arandhara
Assam, India
Feedback most welcome
26.02.2024
#1
Revised with thanks to Kala Ma'am
Inseparable
The remains of my mother's home after it was dismantled, post my parents' deaths, have become my own. Like several other objects, I cannot part with the rolling board, a stainless steel coated iron plate that my mother ordered from Muradabad. I…
Post #1
25.2.24
Dhyāna
I sit alone in the balcony of my apartment on the 32nd floor. There is no one in the house and my phone is off. A summer zephyr caresses my tired skin. I sip a glass of water slowly, relishing the tasteless life giving liquid and watch the sun gradually set into the horizon.
koi pond--
a golden carp makes friends
with the moon
Feedback appreciated:)
Mona Bedi
India
#1 Edited version(based on ShalinI's suggestion)
Hill Temple
I have often spotted the blue butterfly, but not once have I seen it resting on a flower or settling on a branch. Almost the size of a small bird, and somewhat difficult to miss, it has always eluded the frame of my lens, 'gone again' within moments of its appearance.
on the trail again...
my legs remember
the stream
Hill temple
I have seen the blue butterfly several times but not even once resting on a flower or branch. You don't even see it hovering over a flower, unlike a purple sunbird for example.. The blue butterfly has always eluded me. You suddenly see one flitting around, and you will definitel…