Editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Billie Dee Host: Srinivas Sambangi Featured Poet: Emily Dickinson Introduction This five-part series explores haibun written in response to poems from the Western tradition. I think of this pairing as a kind of literary ekphrasis, not commentary, exactly, but entering a canonical field, listening, and answering back. A Thursday Feature 30th April 2026 I have saved the mo

Editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Billie Dee Host: Srinivas Sambangi Featured Poet: Robert Hass Introduction This five-part series explores haibun written in response to poems from the Western tradition. I think of this pairing as a kind of literary ekphrasis, not commentary, exactly, but entering a canonical field, listening, and answering back. A Thursday Feature 23rd April 2026 This week, we turn to R

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Billie Dee Host: Srinivas Sambangi Featured Poet : W alt Whitman Introduction This five-part series explores haibun written in response to poems from the Western tradition. I think of this pairing as a kind of literary ekphrasis, not commentary, exactly, but entering a canonical field, listening, and answering back. A Thursday Feature 16th April 2026 This week, we tu

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Billie Dee Host: Srinivas Sambangi Featured Poet : Rainer Maria Rilke Introduction This five-part series explores haibun written in response to poems from the Western tradition. I think of this pairing as a kind of literary ekphrasis, not commentary, exactly, but entering a canonical field, listening, and answering back. A Thursday Feature 9th April 2026 This week, w

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Billie Dee Host: Srinivas Sambangi Featured Poet : William Stafford Introduction: English-language haibun has moved well beyond the travel-journal model associated with Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Deep North.* It can hold lyric prose, lineation, concrete play, and newer experimental forms that refuse neat labels. This five-part series explores haibun written in respons

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Linda Papanicolaou Featured Poet : J. Zimmerman Host: Srinivas Sambangi A Thursday Feature 26th March 2026 Missing Man J. Zimmerman Mid-November after I rake the leaves I stand at Central and First, holding the Stars and Bars. All of them died in Nam — my brother Joe, my cousin Freddy, mom's youngest brother Jack. Sometimes I just have to come out on the streets and s

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Linda Papanicolaou Featured Poet : Michael Rehling Host: Srinivas Sambangi A Thursday Feature 19th March 2026 in my mind i still need a place to go Michael Rehling casual as the moon. my mind wanders through the big dipper and into countless stars. as i gather myself deep into old age and the sky seems to have a strange pull. wondering where will i go when this body c

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Linda Papanicolaou Featured Poet : Patricia J. Machmiller Host: Srinivas Sambangi A Thursday Feature 12th March 2026 In the thick of it . . . Patricia J. Machmiller This morning a dense fog muffles the sound of breakers. It rolls shoreward, rises curling lightly, passing around and over the house. A hawk on the hunt flies low over the dunes. Today’s news arrives sheat

Editors on haikuKATHA : Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh Guest Editor: Linda Papanicolaou Featured Poet : Carol MacRury Host: Srinivas Sambangi A Thursday Feature 5th March 2026 New Year’s Eve Carol MacRury The clock leans toward midnight, and the room hums with borrowed joy. Someone laughs too loudly, someone else pretends they aren’t crying. Still, I lift my glass. Hope is a stubborn thing, and even sadness softens when the world count