THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 24th October 2024. Billie Dee, featured poet

hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman & Vidya Shankar

mentor: Lorraine Haig

A Thursday Feature

24th October 2024

This month we have the pleasure of celebrating the work of Billie Dee. 

Billie Dee is the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. National Library Service. A retired health care worker, she earned her doctorate at U.C. Irvine, completed post-graduate training at U.C. San Diego. Although she writes in a variety of genres, her primary focus is Japaniform poetry. A native Californian, she now lives in the Chihuahuan Desert with her family and a betta fish named Ramon. Billie publishes both online and off.

You can access Billie’s blog in the link attached below. 

Website: www.billie-dee-haiku.blogspot.com

Billie Dee

Ozone

      —somewhere near Weatherford, Texas–1951

dry lightning

my arm hairs

stand on end

Rows of folding chairs are lined up in the sawdust as we enter the dimly lit

tent. Someone has parked a battered pump organ to the right of the

microphone stand.

I notice all the lean men in western boots clutching Stetsons in one hand,

tattered hymnals in the other. Their women wear flour-sack ginghams with

a crescent of damp under each arm.

Now, the leather-faced preacher strides in and loosens his bolo tie. He raises

his arms with a shrill HOWehLOOya—then, with a flourish, opens his Bible

and gets right down to business.

A frizz-headed woman moans amen. My father slowly shakes his head, clasps

my shoulder with his soft Lutheran hand and gives me a little squeeze.

The organ kicks in.

Local folks sway with the music. An older guy waves his blue bandana

and babbles some kind of gibberish. The wife beside him passes out. Tears

of fear roll down my cheeks.

Quietly, Daddy picks me up and walks us out into the steamy twilight. The air

behind us throbs with hymn as we make a beeline for our car parked

in a pasture thick with cow pies.

I recall how tenderly he spreads his handkerchief over the hot passenger seat;

how he cranks the ignition, slams the Studebaker into reverse, raising a dusty

rooster tail as we light out for the horizon.

between drizzle

and downpour—roof gutters

speaking in tongues

Honorable Mention, San Francisco International Haibun Contest, 2023 

Source: https://www.hpnc.org/2023-1

SP: What role does haiku writing play in developing the craft of writing a haibun?

BD: I often save my best haikai for haibun; in fact, I keep a folder of these goodies, regularly sift through them for inspiration. If the verse is weak, the entire poem suffers, leaving the reader unfulfilled. It should be the gemstone in the setting of this jewel-like genre.

SP: Specifically, what inspired “Ozone”? 

BD: Most of my artwork is rooted in direct personal experience and emotional memory, embellished by a lifetime of curiosity, observation, travel, and omnivorous reading. In all my narrative writing, whatever genre, I’m especially interested in voice and persona, often incorporating regional dialect in my work. Clemens, Faulkner and Steinbeck had a big influence on me in this respect. 

“Ozone” is based on the summer I turned five. I wrote this poem after a vivid dream recollecting the event. I don’t remember how or why we were in a revivalist tent meeting, only that these potent images and feelings were underscored by my protective father’s tenderness, his careful attention to my well-being. I particularly treasure this special reverie.

between drizzle

and downpour—roof gutters

speaking in tongues

Prompt: 

This week, we will respond to the liminal space between dream, reality and imagination. 

Task: Focus on an emotionally rich and charged experience gathered from observing either a religious event of significance; or the rituals surrounding an unexpected phenomenon that is about to take place, or has already taken place; or any event that questions your understanding and sense of reality. Take the most arresting memory, or sensory feeling, or emotional perception from this experience and put it inside a speculative world. See where this writing takes you. 

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!