THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 15th May 2025. Linda Papanicolaou - Guest Editor

hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman, Vidya Shankar, Firdaus Parvez and Kala Ramesh

mentor: Lorraine Haig

A Thursday Feature

15th May 2025

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW

THE HAIBUN GALLERY  May 2025 - Linda Papanicolaou 

Prompt 1- 3rd week

PROMPTS for MAY 2025

Linda Papanicolaou, US

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes you’ll see the linking of prose and haiku in haibun called “renku-like.” I first learned of it from Bruce Ross’ 2001 essay "Narratives of the Heart". Immediately intrigued, I set out to study renku linking.

Too often you’ll see it said that haibun prose and poem should “scent link” (Basho’s way). I’ve never been satisfied with vague directives that leave you on your own to figure it out. Intuition is certainly important, but I’ve come to believe that a good part of linking is a craft that can be learned. One article I found invaluable was Tadashi Kondo and William B Higginson‘s “Link and Shift: A Practical Guide to Renku Composition”, online at Renku Home. In their section “Types of Linking,” the authors survey verse linking from its early days to its development by Basho and his followers. Most—even all—of these ways of linking can also be used for prose/poem linking in haibun.

This month, our weekly prompts will be skill-building exercises based on a selection of the “Manners of Linking” described by Kondo and Higginson. As you write, explore different solutions to the problem. When you post your final version, please also include a short explanation of your decision process. Also, when giving feedback to others, please focus on the linking.

MAY 15

This week we’ll experiment with linking on person (sono hito). The advice we are generally given is that haibun prose is generally written in first person from a point of view of the author, narrating personal experience in present tense. My experience with an alternative approach came in 2010 when Margaret Chula was invited guest speaker to the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society’s annual retreat. Her book co-authored with Cathy Erickson, What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps had come out in 2009 so she gave us a workshop on persona haibun. She began by handing out photo portraits of ordinary people in their everyday lives and instructed us to fictionalize, writing in the voice of that character. At sharing time, some of the results were amazing. For me, the approach was the icebreaker for an idea that had been stuck in my computer for three years. I have written a few persona haibun since then; one example, “The Bone Flute,” is in the Hundred Gourds archive at The Haiku Foundation.

The week’s exercise is to write a persona haibun centered on a fictional literary or historical character of your choice. Put yourself in that person’s head and write in their voice. For linking method, use person (sono hito). When you post your persona haibun, please tell us how you chose that character, and how this manner of linking worked for you.

******** Linda,

Too good.  

Thank you so much for giving us such good prompts.

We'll all try to write according to your guidelines. 

Thank you so much.

_kala

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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: 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…