A FRIDAY FEATURE
Host: Gauri Dixit
Prompter for March: Patricia McGuire
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, from Friday to Friday, numbered 1 & 2. Post only one haiku in a day, in 24 hours.
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 Only post unpublished verses --- nothing that has appeared in peer-reviewed or edited journals, anthologies, your webpage, social media, etc.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. haikuKATHA will only consider haiga that showcase original artwork or photos. Post details re: the source of the visual image. If you team up with an artist or photographer, make sure that it’s their original work and that they are not restricted by other publications to share it. We won't be responsible for any copyright issues.
11. Put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions.
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 Priti Aisola Sanjuktaa Asopa Shalini Pattabiraman Suraja Menon Roychowdhury Vandana Parashar Vidya Shankar
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PROMPT:
22nd March.
Prompt : Walking in the shoes of the masters: Shiki
It is quite possible that Shiki does not get enough credit for what he did for haiku. He is the poet credited as the father of haiku, the poet from whom all modern strands of haiku poetry emanate and yet how many of his poems do you know? Today in honour of Shiki we are not going to take a walk, we are going to rest. Return to your bed, lie down, ideally in sight of a window. For did not Shiki spend a number of years confined to close quarters? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you see? Look around your room, look out your window.Perhaps you have a taste in your mouth? If you run your hands along your bed, what does it feel like? Perhaps just lying there, you relive a memory that you can write about?
Write a sketch from life, but create something that will resonate with your reader, for this resonance will elevate your poem. One thing to be wary of, overt manipulation of your readers’ emotions. Use your words carefully, suggest emotion, let your reader consider your words and think what they will.
As you lay your body down to rest, have a think about these poems, what emotions do you feel when you read Shiki’s words, perhaps think about why you feel as you do.
spring day
a long line of footprints
on the sandy beach
Shiki, trs Yuzuru Miura
after killing a spider
how lonely I feel
in the cold of night!
Shiki trs Makoto Ueda
Patricia McGuire (writing name Bisshie), host of The Poetry Pea Podcast, available whereveryou get your podcasts and YouTube. Managing Editor of The Poetry Pea Journal. Please check out our website, poetrypea.com, and join us for Japanese inspired short form poetry, maybe even write some for us.
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Nothing inspires poetry as much as being one with your environment. Lie down in your bed in silence, look around the room, even out of your window, and you will find many haiku. Perhaps as many as the master himself!
Write on! Gauri