triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY! hosts: Teji Sethi and Kala Ramesh GUEST EDITOR: Michael Dylan Welch
first frost
one puddle frozen
the size of my skate
Kimberly Cortner
Woodnotes #11, Winter 1991
About the poem:
This is a poem of desire and anticipation. It feels like a memory from childhood, capturing an eagerness to go ice-skating when the season is yet young. The person in the poem is surely young too, filled with longing beyond just the desire to go skating. The author was also my girlfriend for many years, thus a young adult, but the poem’s perspective feels wistful and innocent as if it’s a child’s.
Note by the Editor
Woodnotes triveni spotlight
by Michael Dylan Welch
From 1989 to 1997, in various capacities, I edited or helped to edit Woodnotes, the quarterly journal of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, and in 1996 I took on the journal independently before replacing it with my new journal Tundra. I lived in the San Francisco area for more than a dozen years and was active with HPNC from its first year in 1989 until I moved north to Seattle in 2002. Working on Woodnotes with such coeditors as vincent tripi, Ebba Story, Christopher Herold, and Paul O. Williams was a fine education in the art of haiku. The following are selections of favourite haiku and senryu from the journal’s 31 issues, with brief commentary. These poems are expressions of wonder, or as Billy Collins once described haiku, they exhibit “existential gratitude.” In return, I am deeply grateful for the thousands of poems published in Woodnotes over the years, and the hundreds of poets who contributed to the journal’s success. * * * * * This month is going to be a treat for our members. _()_ Thank you so much, Michael.
Thank you, Michael, it's a lovely poem. I've never skated but there's one skating haiku I wrote down because it was so evocative.
my sister skating here comes her yellow hat (by Frances Angela)
Lovely
drew me to the famous painting “the skating minister”