triveni spotlight: 7th September 2025
- Anju Kishore
- Sep 7
- 2 min read
triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY hosts: Anju Kishore and Mohua Maulik GUEST EDITOR: Anju Kishore
7th September 2025
triveni spotlight September 2025
harvest rain
the mountain crossing
a farmer’s eyes
Patricia McGuire
“…without zoka, haiku cannot express the universal force that shapes and reshapes our world. Without zoka, haiku are one dimensional.”
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Zoka
This month, the Spotlight is on Janice Doppler’s path-breaking compilation One Thread, Zoka in Contemporary Haiku published in 2024.
So what is zoka?
In her introduction, Janice says quoting Steven D. Carter, “the one thread” that runs through the work of the masters is a “commitment to zoka, the creative” — the dynamic spirit that transforms the natural world and the inner workings of the cosmos. Kala Ramesh in her foreword to the book says zoka is the creative force of nature and calls it “Prakriti”, an ever-changing aspect of reality as per ancient Hindu belief systems. She quotes Hiroyuki Murakami about working on zoka. “… this state can only be achieved when the haiku poet looks deeply toward nature that never stops changing and, in a sense, toward the universe, to the extent that he or she becomes assimilated with the subject.”
The book is a collection of haiku written by poets from around the world who have presented their views and their own previously published poems that best embody zoka as they understand it. City-bred poets as most of us are, we seek both muse and solace in our brick-and-mortar lives, and in the little nature it provides. Attention to zoka therefore, is a practice that becomes necessary to cultivate, a skill important to be honed. From this stimulating anthology, I have attempted to choose haiku that blur the line between humanity and nature in a way that binds all of creation with one thread — zoka. Also included is a quote from the write-up of each featured poet.
Anju Kishore
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Patricia’s haiku commincates so much of the workings of zoka and the interconnectedness of all things … the harvest rain, the unseen to us crops it nurtured, the mountain and all that lives there, and the farmer intertwined within all of it.
This is such a beautiful sensory image.
Zoka is the truest form to relieve and release our bodily attachments to give freedom to the soul. It is one way of saying goodbye to the stigma of wants and desires and arise above all natural forces. Close your eyes and one can visualise the shape of a mountain, the scent of blossom and taste of the sea.