hosts: Kala Ramesh & Firdaus Parvez
mentor: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature 9th January, 2025
HAPPY 2025! HAPPY 2025!
HAPPY 2025!
The Super Power of Lipstick
My mother wore only one color of lipstick: pink. She kept a tube of fire-engine red for emergencies. Like funerals. Mom said peekaboo pink was perfect for bridge at the clubhouse. Deep-dive pink was perfect for lounging by the pool. Bubble-gum pink was perfect for watching Law & Order reruns in her condo, with the AC off. The dead air used to bother me when I visited Florida. Today, I leave the air off, like she might walk in any second.
empty unit
sunlight warms the windowsill
starfish
My mother’s closets are filled with designer-wear, which she hid when her mooch of a sister showed up uninvited. I plan on donating them to Home for Domestic Violence. Not because I’m a good person. But because I know it’ll drive my aunt crazy when I pick her up for the funeral.
inside a thin-lipped smile boozy peppermint
It’s not that I’m ungenerous. I give my aunt Mom’s brand new lipsticks, still in the little brown shopping bag. She says, “I prefer lipgloss.” But doesn’t hand them back. The whole drive she goes on about how Mom promised her the condo, while sampling shades of pink lipstick on her elbow. When we get to the church, she orders me to drop her off out front. What the hell is she up to? It takes me a few minutes after that to find a spot in the shade.
open casket
the unnatural blush
of her lips
I dig inside my pocket for Mom’s fire-engine red. Perform an emergency swipe, blot, swipe, blot. Afterwards, everyone says my mother looks beautiful. A few weeks later, I’m sitting in the lawyer’s office. He hands me the eviction notice against my aunt. I take out my mirror and lipstick. Fire engine red. Swipe, blot, swipe, blot. Then sign on the dotted line.
Roberta Beary
MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 17: 29th January 2023
Challenge:
In haiku, have you heard of ICHIBUTSUJITATE (single-theme haiku)?
Just for your information, ichibutsujitate (一物仕立て) is a word combined with three meanings:
Ichi(one) butsu(thing = kigo) jitate(tailoring)
一 物 仕立て
We did this exercise on haikaiTALKS, led by Lev Hart, and this is what Keiko Izawa has to say about this nuance:
Traditional Japanese haiku are based on two fundamental techniques: toriawase and ichibutsujitate.
In toriawase, a haiku is composed by combining a kigo and a “haiku seed” that has nothing to do with the kigo.
On the other hand, in ichibutsujitate, the haiku is written about a kigo, focusing only on it.
Can we extend this aesthetic nuance practised in haiku, to haibun? Please note: Roberta Beary's haibun, The Super Power of Lipstick, is all about the lipstick!
Throughout the haibun, she has stuck to her title, which has become her theme.
Challenging?
It's the New Year—start afresh!
Try something new!
Have fun!
Please remember that the haiku needs to be strong and a stand-alone poem in a haibun. A weak haiku eats into your haibun's strength.
Even haibun outside this prompt can be shared.
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 300/250 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!
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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.
#1
9-Jan-2025
Feedback welcome
The point of it
Cluttered table, crumpled pages, clammy hands!
He writes as if trying to manifest something, each entry mirrors the last. On close look, it reads like gibberish.
Why strive so hard to give chaos a form?
in each ink stain the shape of a thought
A wonderful haibun with a great lesson and prompt. Thank you.
#1 - 9/1/25
Wildflower
We are rehoming Uma on behalf of the local Animal Rescue. She had been returned to the center three times but she can’t stay there due to her tendency to create chaos among the new puppies. "Try not to fall in love," my husband’s voice trails off as he leaves for a work trip.
the detour
to avoid thistles
wet meadow
I’d take Uma on long walks; she romps alongside rice fields where farmers wave, calling out her name. Today, we go on the loop road which meanders through a village and across a ravine. When we get home, Uma makes a mad dash up and down the stairs.
in the shade