hosts: Kala Ramesh & Firdaus Parvez
A Thursday Feature.
Mentor: Lorraine Haig
poet of the month: Cynthia Anderson
9 May 2024
Cynthia Anderson
Cynthia Anderson has published 13 poetry collections, most recently The Far Mountain (Wise Owl Publications, 2024), Arrival (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), and Full Circle (Cholla Needles Press, 2022). Her poems appear frequently in journals and anthologies, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Touchstone Awards. Cynthia is co-editor of the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens. She has lived in California for over 40 years.
Cynthia grew up in Connecticut and attended the University of Pennsylvania in 1974-75 as a Benjamin Franklin Scholar. She completed her B.A. in Literature at the College of Creative Studies, UC Santa Barbara, with an emphasis in poetry. Her senior honors thesis explored the poet George Oppen’s final book, Primitive. She spent her career as an editor and publications coordinator, retiring in 2015. After a lifetime of writing long form free verse, she took up short form poetry in earnest in 2020 and since then has garnered over 600 publication credits for her haiku, senryu, cherita, tanka, and haibun. Two of her haibun appeared in the Red Moon Contemporary Haibun anthologies: “Formerly Known as Ion” in Vol. 17 and “Facing the Music” in Vol. 19. Two of her haiku appeared in the Red Moon haiku anthologies for 2021 and 2023. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com
< < < < < > > > > >
Next Services 100 Miles
From nowhere to nowhere:
a straight ribbon of road, aimed
east and west through geologic
time. Rocks once under water.
Sand once solid rock. The rise
and fall of dust devils.
beigeness
blasting jazz funk
to stay awake
Distant horizons, unforgiving
and unforgiven. On a tall pole,
hand-lettered signs tell how far
to Gallup, Anza, Kalamazoo.
Parallel to asphalt, long lines
of abandoned boxcars.
rite of passage
names spelled in stones
by the tracks
Come afternoon, a flood
of petrichor over creosote flats.
Clouds pile up, then let go,
clumps of graphite rain
streaking down, the runoff
dousing roadside datura.
black and white
the turkey vultures
circling
Prune Juice #41, December 2023
< < < < < > > > > >
We are delighted to share Cynthia's haibun and grateful for her time and effort in answering our questions.
THG: How do you translate experience into writing?
Cynthia: Any memory, dream, or experience that persists in my thoughts becomes a candidate for my writing. The same is true of anything in the news or in conversation with others that catches my attention. I’ve learned that if I find myself thinking about something over and over, it wants to be written about.
Prompt for members:
Once again, Cynthia mesmerizes us with her vivid descriptions of the landscape as the narrator moves through it. I can see the dust devils and the circling vultures. I can hear the jazz as the harsh scenery rushes past. The 'beigeness' beckons. Here's the prompt word for the week: JOURNEY. Interpret it as you like. Have fun!
Haibun outside this prompt can also be posted!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.