haikaiTALKS: a Saturday gathering! 8th February 2025

haikaiTALKS: Pastoral Haiku| a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

host: Srinivasa Sambangi

8th February 2025

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering under the banyan tree

Your host for haikaiTALKS: Srinivas Sambangi

Pastoral Haiku

Every year I follow the tradition of visiting my native village for Makara Sankranti which occurs in January. This year as usual, my morning walks in the village extended to agricultural fields. I’m amazed to find a few machines which I never imagined in such a remote village. I curiously learnt what each machine does. All the decades old manual activities like sowing seeds, planting the seedlings, harvesting with sickles and winnowing which remained as fresh images in my mind are replaced by these machines. Keeping the productivity levels aside, I refused to accept the progress we made and deeply reflected upon what I lost.

A lot of haiku on rural setting were written by masters and their contemporaries. We have grown as haiku poets reading the poems with kigo like scarecrow, tilling a field, planting seeds, rainbow, harvest moon etc., How many of us are writing on this very important and our life saving subject?

This week, let’s write a few pastoral haiku. You may choose any kigo but do not deviate from a traditional village atmosphere. You may also post any good haiku you come across, written by others.

Examples:

the beginning of all art —

in the deep north

a rice planting song

--- Basho (tr by David Barnhill)

for rice planting woman

there is nothing left unsoiled

but their song

--- Konishi Raizan

cyclonic rains —

a battered scarecrow

turns to a new direction

  --- Kala Ramesh

apple harvest ...

the tips of the branches

let go of the light

       --- Francine Banwarth

KIGO WORDS

Shall we please try to include a kigo word in all the poems we share here?

Give the season and the word—under your poem. 

Please refer to the following links for kigo

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/d22bc15ada2b14fa309f849c3fddab5f.pdf

I'm quoting Lev Hart's request here: "This week’s goal is to compose two verses with toriawase, blending wabi, sabi, karumi, mono no aware, and/or yugen. Tell us which aesthetic concepts you mean to express in a line below the verse. Strive for originality. Avoid stock phrases and shopworn images."

For seasonal references, please check these lists:

“A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods,” by Jane Reichhold:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7fb6654a1dfd1afef97369da920530f8.pdf

indian subcontinent SAIJIKI:

https://www.trivenihaikai.in/indian-saijiki

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words:

http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html

The World Kigo Database:

https://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com/

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List:

https://yths.org/season-word-list/

**

Thank you for this post, Srinivas.

I hope our poets take the challenge and create a haiku on these lines!

Poets,

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_

We are continuing haikaiTALKS on a grand scale!

Keep writing and commenting! _kala