writeALONG 17 February 2026

A TUESDAY FEATURE

hosts: Padma Rajeswari, K. Ramesh

guest editor: Shloka Shankar

Only the unpublished poems (that are never published on any social media platform/journals/anthologies) posted here for each prompt will be considered for Triveni Haikai India's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 (haiku/senryu) 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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We started off this month with one of Shakespeare’s most well-known romances. This week, let’s enter the ominous and morally fractured world of Macbeth. Write a poem inspired by the following soliloquy:

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,

Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry “Hold, hold!”

— Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5

For inspiration, watch this enthralling performance by veteran actor Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDobn7VvH4