triveni spotlight: 21st December 2025
- Mohua
- Dec 21, 2025
- 1 min read
triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY hosts: Anju Kishore and Mohua Maulik GUEST EDITOR: Vidya Shankar
21st December 2025
triveni spotlight December 2025
painting the sky with dreams peacock feathers
—Sandip Chauhan
haikuKATHA issue 29
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Ode to the One-line Haiku
Coming from a free verse background, my venture into haiku was with the sole purpose of understanding, learning, and practicing the economy of words to enhance my writing. While the refinement happened, I also found myself drawn to haiku and eventually tried writing more of it. I enjoyed the challenge of having to express my thoughts in about 8 to 12 words spread over three lines, until I stumbled upon monoku. And then, it was no longer about the economy of words. Monoku was more of a dare with its focus on minimalism. The more monoku I read, the more I felt it was a genre unto itself within the larger scope of haikai poetry.
In Spotlight this month, I offer a tribute to monoku, the one-line / single-line poem. My selection of poems range from work of poets who are adept with the form to those who do not consider themselves so but are experimenting with it.
Vidya Shankar
Thank you Vidya. We look forward to signing off this year by learning more about this fascinating form.
Team Triveni Spotlight
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Very visual and sensual. Thank you for this ku!
It’s a joy to find my poem in Triveni Spotlight. Many thanks for the feature, Vidya! 🙏
I love how this stretches the beauty across the line, leaving room for the reader to imagine and see all the colours unfold.
A single leaf
learning the weight of silence
Sandip’s poetry is so undefinable. Intuitive, dreamy, yet spot-on are the words coming to my mind.
In this one-liner, the juxtaposition is surprising.
what is
painting the sky
with dreams . . .
we are
and so are
peacock feathers
in their iredescence
with all the blues
imaginable. . .