hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
mentor: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature
6th March 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY MARCH 2025 LORRAINE HAIG
Week 1.
The old rooster crows . . .
Out of the mist come the rocks
and the twisted pine
O Mabson Southard.
Where the River Goes, edited by Alan Burns.
This haiku was written in 1965. The poet was a keen observer of nature and had a close relationship with the natural world. It’s dawn and probably spring. It seems as if the rooster’s crow has signalled the rocks and the pine to emerge from the mist. There’s yugen (depth and mystery) here.
Use the essence of this haiku to write a haibun. It doesn’t necessarily have to be based in nature. It might be a view you look at each day. Use keen observations and create your own depth and mystery.
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Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.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…
#1
Mid-Morning Haze
I stare out shuffling my papers. The rain fills the sky with a darkness that pulls every last drop of light from the world. The beech hedge around the garden and the the silver birch are cloaked in splinters of shadow.
My focus then shifts to the apples that have fallen onto the lawn. One blackbird pecks slowly at the core then zips back into the cover of the hedge. Dudgeons poke their heads out of the leafy shelter, fluttering to catch the table seed and any fallen crumbs from the fat-ball. A pigeon lands in the water tray and scatters the smaller birds away. I look down at the paper and clutch my pen,…