THE HAIBUN GALLERY: 1st May 2025. Linda Papanicolaou - Guest Editor

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

mentor: Lorraine Haig

A Thursday Feature

24th April 2025

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW

THE HAIBUN GALLERY  May 2025 - Linda Papanicolaou 

Prompt 1- 1st week

PROMPTS for MAY 2025

Linda Papanicolaou, US

INTRODUCTION (to be posted each week)

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 1

For our first week’s exercise, let’s explore linking on season (jisetsu), or time of day (jibun). Think of our different emotional responses to the seasons of the year, or the moods we associate with dawn, midday, sunset, etc. Assuming a simple haibun with a prose passage that by itself has no specific time of year, capping it with a seasonal haiku can color the mood of the whole. An example from my own haibun might be “Google,” posted here last year (Triveni Haibun Gallery, June 2024). In this haibun I was playing with season. The non-seasonal process seems to be setting up for a summery haiku, though the twist is that the haiku winter.

For this week, compose a haibun with a prose passage that has no specified season or time of day. Cap it with a haiku that brings either or both. Try swapping in different seasons/times of day to see how they change the meaning. When you post your final version, tell us how it works for you and why.

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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…