hosts: Shalini Pattabiraman & Vidya Shankar
A Thursday Feature.
poet of the month: Dru Philippou
22nd February 2024
This month we have the pleasure of featuring Dru Philippou, a multiple award winning writer with a strong and unique voice.
Dru Philippou was born on the island of Cyprus, raised in London and currently lives in northern New Mexico, USA. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado. She writes haiku, tanka, haibun, and tanka prose. An award winning poet, her work is widely published and anthologised. She has also written two featured creative essays regarding haiku "Haiku Geometry" and "HaikuHolograms" Her haibun "Afterlife" won first place in the Haiku Society of America’s 2021 Haibun Awards. Also, her haibun "Pilgrimage" won first place in 2023 in the same contest. In 2022, she published her first collection of poetry, A Place to Land, a memoir written entirely in tanka prose.
Dru Philippou
Afterlife
I always take good care of them, removing the laces and brushing off the dirt with a soft bristle brush. Applying beeswax paste with the back of a spoon, I smooth it into the leather cracks until their espresso color revives. I give the gusseted tongue special attention, reaching those hidden places, and opening the boots fully to air.
resting
under a bristlecone pine . . .
weighing my options
I wear them after the traction is gone, trying to beat out a few more miles although I can feel every rock, every stick through the rubber. On rainy days, the mud sucks them off my feet. The paleness at the toes reminds me of all those steps kicked into the slopes. They are holey, misshapen, speckled with guano, but I don’t want to let them go. At one point, I even re-glue the parting sole.
boot planter
the heavenly blue
of rambling lobelia
*Won first place the Haiku Society of America Awards 2021
Source: Afterlife
SP: Given your wide participation and spectacular wins in many contests, can you share any advice on how you conceptualise, prepare, choose work for a contest?
DP: It’s important to let your poems sit for months or even longer. The poet then revisits the work with a fresh perspective, polishing it further. I cannot gauge what will be a winner. The haibun I imagine will win often do not, and I’m surprised by the ones that do win. I think judges like something that is innovative and creative.
Prompt: ‘Sepia is the colour of love’. I have often felt drawn to things that embody the scruffiness of age and the weathering of time. Write about a much loved item or place, something ordinary, not exotic.
Haibun outside this prompt is welcome too
Important: Since we're swamped with submissions, and our editors are only human, mistakes can happen. Please, please, remember to put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions. It helps our editors; they won't have to type it in, saving them from potential typos. Thanks a ton!
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PLEASE NOTE:
1. Only two haibun per poet per prompt. Please put your name and country of residence under your poem, it makes the editors' work easier. Thanks.
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. When poets give suggestions and if you agree to them - post your final edited version on top of your original version.
5. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.
We are delighted to open the comment thread for you to share your unpublished haibun (within 300 words) to be considered for inclusion in the haikuKATHA monthly journal.