hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh
mentor: Lorraine Haig
A Thursday Feature
13th March 2025
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW
THE HAIBUN GALLERY MARCH 2025 LORRAINE HAIG
Week 2.
if only I knew
you were going forever
I would have met
your dark eyes longer
with that last goodbye
André Surridge
Five pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart, edited by M. Kei.
Saying goodbye is almost never easy. In this tanka we don’t know the circumstances of the parting. We don’t know the relationship of the two people. It is left to our imagination and possibly our own circumstances to form a conclusion. There is deep sadness expressed here, also longing and regret.
Write a haibun expressing the emotions you find in this tanka.
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.
Please Note: No haibun will be picked up from here for haikuKATHA, issue 43, May 2025. See the notice below for submission details. The workshopping will continue. The workshopping at the Haibun Gallery will continue to function the way it has been since November 2021.
Please read the Announcement completely, till the end :)) If you have doubts, write to us here, on this thread. Your ONE HAIBUN Submission can be from the haibun you have posted here.
Choose your best!
We nominate your poems for Contemporary Haibun Anthology brought out by Red Moon Press and Touchstone Haibun Contest. Help us to make this new format successful.
This is your home, to create any haibun you want and share with all our poets.
Have fun!
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT from Kala: NOTICE
NOTICE
Dear Haibuneers
Starting from March 2025, we at haikuKATHA are moving on to a new submissions format for haibun submissions. (Only for haibun, please note!)
Writers are invited to submit one unpublished haibun per submission window.
Kindly note the submissions calendar.
1-20 March, to be considered for publication in May
1-20 June, to be considered for publication in August
1-20 September, to be considered for publication in November
1-20 December, to be considered for publication in February
All accepted submissions will receive an email to confirm their acceptance by the 5th day of the publication month.
Your unpublished (only one) haibun should be sent to: https://forms.gle/xUEiiDR9wd2dgqtR9 only during the submission period.
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The Haibun Gallery continues as is.
We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing…
#2 Gembun
stars to the horizon
coffee
stains the bench
of an all-night diner
Lorraine Haig, Aust.
Feedback welcome.
17/3/25 #2 gembun
Revised (thank you, Kala):
a final gust empties the field
a snail’s shell
light in my palm
ebb tide
C.X. Turner, UK
(feedback welcome)
Original:
a final gust empties the field
ebb tide
a snail’s shell
light in my palm
C.X. Turner, UK
(feedback welcome)
#2 gembun----17Mar25
a rash of radish sprouts
among her sorrows
three abortions
---Billie Dee, New Mexico, USA
(feedback welcome)
#2 - 18/03/25 Gembun
your smile
some leaves
hold on
in autumn breeze
Kanjini Devi, NZ
feedback welcome
Post #2
18.3.25
The road less traveled
He sits at the same spot everyday. Autumns have passed, winters have come and gone but he is always there with all his belongings safe in a battered suitcase.
I pass by him everyday and we exchange something of a smile. I have forged an unsaid bond with the old man siting under the banyan. They say his family abandoned him years ago. Youngsters come and talk to him and he tells them of a life he led in a house full of children. He speaks English fluently and shares anecdotes from his youth. Nobody could ever find his home or his relatives. But he lives on with a faith a that someday…