THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 13th November 2025. Neena Singh - Guest Poet

host: Rupa Anand

editors on haikuKATHA: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh

Lorraine Haig has stepped down from being a mentor for this forum. Triveni Haikai India and The Haibun Gallery are grateful for her exceptional feedback and responses over the last few years.

Guest Poet: Neena Singheena Singh

A Thursday Feature 13th November

Introduction:

Walking the Line Between Prose and Poem

The haibun is a quiet miracle of form—a blend of prose and haiku that invites us to pause, notice, and reflect. It offers the intimacy of memoir, the compression of poetry, and the tension of what’s left unsaid. As Bashō, the master of haibun, once wrote: “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” In that spirit, I invite you this month to bring your journeys—outer and inner—onto the haibun path.

Through prompts, I offer you to explore moments of silence, memory, transition, and displacement. Each prompt is a door—open it with curiosity, and let your prose wander, then pause… and let the haiku breathe.

Your writing can be raw or refined, grounded in the present or drawn from the depths of memory. What matters is the authenticity of your voice and the integrity of the experience. And remember—sometimes what you leave unsaid is just as important as what you write.

Week 2: Found Objects — small things that hold large stories

Prompt: Choose a seemingly trivial object—a broken button, a feather, a garment and trace the memory or meaning it holds for you. Let the object reveal a larger story. It can lead to layered storytelling, where the concrete details of a single item unlock metaphor, memory, and emotion.

Examples by Terri Hale French

The Red Sweater It’s the holiday season. I’m wandering around the mall in a daze. The music is too loud, the lights too bright, the displays festively garish. And the people. In and out of the stores ladened with shopping bags, up and down the escalators, standing in line to plop squalling children onto Santa’s lap. I go into one department store and head to the clearance rack. A red sweater catches my eye. It’s 10-percent off the already discounted price. I buy it without trying it on and  quickly make my way to the parking lot. Fresh, cold air hits my face, wakes me up to why I was here in the first place. Just to get away. Just to be in the midst of the sensory overload of Christmas. I didn’t want to think about what my son had told me over the phone this morning. That his best friend had died from an overdose in his kitchen as he’d sat on the floor holding him. Later, I’ll try on this red sweater, seeing in the mirror the look on my face that says “It could have been him.”

child’s birthday party one boy huffing helium balloons 

Presence, issue #72, 2021

This particular haibun is easier to share now than when I wrote it four years ago. I remember the day I “found” the red sweater. I’d gone to the shopping mall to escape my own thoughts. The cacophony of holiday shoppers was just the over-stimulation I needed at the time. The color red represents a wide range of emotions and ideas, both positive and negative—love, passion, energy, danger, anger, pain. I bought the sweater in the hope that it would pull me from my depression. Having a loved one suffering with addiction can be an all-consuming thing to deal with. But, when I put on the sweater, and looked at my reflection in the mirror, all I felt was pain. I say this poem is easier to share now because i can say, with pride, my son is now over three months sober. I keep the red sweater as a reminder of the love that I believe helped pull him through. My heart goes out to all those who suffer from and with this terrible disease. Never lose hope.

  **

The bookmark

slips out of a dusty paperback of poetry pulled from the shelf and falls to the tile floor upside down, sliding a ways on the glazed surface. I bend to pick it up. Flipping it over, I see it’s my father’s laminated obituary, clipped from the newspaper ten years ago. I don’t remember sticking it in this book or why. Was it marking a favorite verse? Or perhaps, this is just where I left off.

skipping the epilogue

some stories better

without conclusions

- unpublished 

  ***

Rock Solid

Again it finds its way from my pocket to between my thumb and index finger. Rubbing it in circles, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, before resting my thumb in the divot, I feel a pulse. Perhaps we are in synch— it too has known trauma. The crunch of a boot, the tread of a tire. More than once shat upon by a dog. Yet, long after I am gone, it will remain, holding tight to all my worries.

surviving the journey

another broken chunk of moon

- unpublished 

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 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: 

The Google link will be given in this space soon. This form will only be available during the submission period. 

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The Haibun Gallery continues as is.

We will be having editors and prompts, and your sharing…