thinkALONG! 3 October

A TUESDAY FEATURE

hosts: Muskaan Ahuja, Lakshmi Iyer

guest editor: Daipayan Nair

Please note:

Only the unpublished poems (that are never published on any social media platform/journals/anthologies) posted here for each prompt will be considered for Triveni Haikai India's monthly journal -- haikuKATHA, each month.

Poets are requested to post poems that adhere to the prompts/exercises given.

Only 1 poem to be posted in 24 hours. Total 2 poems per poet are allowed each week (numbered 1,2). So, revise your poems till 'words obey your call'.

If a poet wants feedback, then the poet must mention 'feedback welcome' below each poem that is being posted.

Responses are usually a mixture of grain and chaff. The poet has to be discerning about what to take for the final version of the poem or the unedited version will be picked up for the journal.

The final version should be on top of the original version for selection.

Poetry is a serious business. Give you best attempt to feature in haikuKATHA !!

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"Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves"

– Matsuo Basho

I have always believed there's music even in silence. The fading ripples have a melody of their own. The habit of listening, understanding and becoming one with these inaudible notes is one way of writing haiku.

Let those weekend afternoons spent in leisure sitting by the window show you more than a speeding car or a cawing crow, or even a buzzing bee. Staying calm and patient enough to decipher the sounds within sounds is the key. Alliteration and Assonance in haiku writing cannot be forced. The sequence of sounds in the form of words must flow in one's mind as naturally and effortlessly as a waterfall.

Reading your haiku loud after writing it is one of the techniques to explore alliteration and assonance. The sound within sounds is an enlightenment when discovered both by the poet and the reader as in the haiku below:

long afternoon

a glossy drongo

whoops me out

--- Neena Singh

I would invite you all to write a haiku using the sound alliteration and make us all hear the unsung notes!