HAIKUsutradhar. weekly prompts
A FRIDAY FEATURE
18th August
Host: Kala Ramesh
Group Mentor: Lev Hart
Prompter for August: Sangita Kalarickal
OUR MISSION:
1) To provide a new poetry workshop each Friday, along with a prompt.
2) To select haiku, senryu, and haiga each month for the journal, haikuKATHA. Each issue will select poems that were posted in this forum from the 3rd of the previous month to the 2nd of the current month.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
1) Post a maximum of two verses per week, numbered 1 & 2.
2) Only post unpublished verses --- nothing that has appeared in peer-reviewed or edited journals, anthologies, your webpage, social media, etc.
3) Only post original verses.
4) For each poem you post, comment on one other person’s poem.
5) Give feedback only to those poets who have requested it.
6) Do not post a variety of drafts, along with a request for readers to choose which they like most. Only one poem is to appear in each original post.
7) Post each revision, if you have any, above the original. The top version will be your submission to haikuKATHA. Do not delete the original post.
8) Do not submit found poetry or split sequences.
9) Do not post photos, except for haiga.
10) With haiga, post details re: the source of the visual image.
Poems that do not follow the guidelines may be deleted.
Founder/Managing Editor of haikuKATHA Monthly Journal: Kala Ramesh
Associate Editors:
Ashish Narain
Firdaus Parvez
Hemapriya Chellappan
Priti Aisola
Sanjuktaa Asopa
Shalini Pattabiraman
Suraja Menon Roychowdhury
Vandana Parashar
Vidya Shankar
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PROMPT:
August Week 3
Every time I face writer’s block, I feel that my muse has run away into my little garden. So, this month, come walk with me down my garden path. The idea that flowers depict various human traits is quite ancient, but recently we have been reminded of it at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral where her son chose relevant flowers, for example, adding rosemary representing remembrance or oak to symbolize strength.
Let’s delve into the language of flowers and more importantly what it means for the haijin. We will combine floriography with cultural and seasonal references. Each week I will add a photo from my garden, of the relevant flowers but this is not an ekphrastic prompt. Please think about the particular flowers, what they stand for in your particular culture, the season they represent. Thus we have chrysanthemums in their full glory in autumn or the Sakura blooms scream spring.
For your reference here are a couple of links for some saijiki:
This week we will let the marigold inspire us, this flower, is ubiquitous in all Indian celebrations and rituals. The Marigold symbolizes purity, auspiciousness, and the divine. The seasons are mid to late summer, sometimes early autumn, and monsoon season. What does marigold signify to you? And this emotion, these seasons, can they speak specifically through your poetry? This photo is of a bumblebee enjoying the marigold in my garden which spreads its goodness to all our herbs, vegetables and life.
Have fun!
Sangita Kalarickal