NaHaiWriMo: the end

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first date
nacho stains
on her blue dress

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(Feb. 14: nachos. Also: Valentine’s Day.)

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sun setting
one foot
on a rocky slope

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(Feb. 20: talus)

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shaking off
all the rain
that didn’t touch me

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(Feb. 21: umbrella)

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I knew you would all be curious about how I handled “nachos” and “talus.” There is no point in pretending that I have an easier time writing haiku (or senryu) about nachos than anyone else, or that I had the faintest idea what “talus” was before this prompt was set. Also, who else thinks that Michael Dylan Welch opened the dictionary at random to find that prompt? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

It was an interesting month. (Okay, technically it’s not over yet. Can we just pretend it is? In a normal year it would be.) I never felt especially inspired. (Well, I came up with a couple of interesting things about apples, I think. That was then, this is now.) I didn’t like most of what I wrote at all. But there is value in writing things that you don’t like at all. Generally, you have to write a whole lot of things that you don’t like at all in order to write a few things that you like a lot. It’s hard to figure out what you like until you figure out what you don’t.

But I can’t say I’m sorry February is over. Forward, March!

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one word

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Frogpond 35.1

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(tumbling-down)

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Modern Haiku 43.1

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(thunderclap)

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thunderclap
most of me emerges
from a cloud

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Presence 45

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Striking

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Photo by Rishab Mishra

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lightning
through the skylight
conversation strikes
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Tommy Knockers: Mineral Point Retreat Anthology 2011

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Go ahead, click on the picture to make it bigger and more interesting. I’ll wait for you to get back.

… Back already? Here’s the deal with this poem — I wrote it last summer at the Mineral Point (Wis.) Haiku Retreat, which was an extremely stimulating and relaxing weekend (what? Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself…) spent writing and reading and talking with other poets at The Foundry Bookstore, where Gayle Bull likes to invite people over in swarms and feed them a lot and make sure they have a good time, which they always do. One night I stayed up late with some people talking. There was lightning. I rarely write haiku that are such faithful descriptions of something that actually happened. Or, you know. Metaphorically happened. (Since conversation doesn’t actually strike.) But it seemed appropriate in this case.

The anthology contains one poem each from most of the retreat attendees, and great illustrations, by local poet and artist Charlie Baker, of Tommy Knockers, who are these sort of Cornish elves who live in mines and like to wreak havoc. (Mineral Point was settled by Cornish lead miners, so this is not a non sequitur.) The haiku describe the weekend, our surroundings, our activities, our quiet impressions and our loud conversations. (Not to mention the roar of the tractor parade that went by Saturday morning. What? Does your community not have a tractor parade on a random Saturday morning in July? Obviously you don’t live in rural Wisconsin.)

I was back in Mineral Point again this weekend for a shorter but no less food-and-conversation-filled event, and picked up this newly-published book. It was good to be reminded in frigid February of that warm (in more ways than one) weekend in July. A lot has happened since then. But friends, friends are still there. And books. And poetry. And Tommy Knockers. Thanks to all of you.

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NaHaiWriMo: excerpts

snow falls on the cold frame distant stars

(Feb. 6: frame)

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lake ice growing thinner
I count my money
again

(Feb. 9: ice)

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I don’t have time to do NaHaiWriMo this month, so I’m doing it. There is something about that innocent little prompt that has the mysterious power to jar me out of writer’s block, even if temporarily. And once I’ve written my one haiku for the day I feel absolved of all guilt for not writing for another 24 hours, which I believe actually saves me time in the end.

Michael Dylan Welch is setting the prompts again this year (this whole thing was his idea) and they’re alphabetical this time (a is for apple, you know the drill). That’s kind of satisfying too, especially to organization freaks like me.

This is all I have right now that I can stand to show people. I’ll try to post another update later in the month.

(winter sky)

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winter sky
snipping out stars
for the children

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see haiku here, 8 January 2012

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(This haiga is a lot bigger and more impressive-looking at Kuniharu Shimizu’s blog, so click on that link up there to see it there. That way you can also see the whole sequence of haiga Kuni san did about children, and the related sequence he’s working on now, about toys.)

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(you tell me)

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you tell me
about the boy
you once were
clouds overhead
in the shape of Batman

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red lights 8:1, January 2012

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(standing)

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standing at one point
of a triangle
evening snow
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Presence #45

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(I wrote this last August at Haiku North America during Eve Luckring’s amazing workshop on “Video Renku: Link and Shift in Visual Language.” I was responding to a visual prompt of a photograph that depicted, as far as I can remember, three bath products lined up on a shelf in a chilly-looking tiled bathroom. [It’s not as prosaic as it sounds. It was art.] We were supposed to be responding not to the content — the subject — of the photo but to its structure, visual elements like patterns and colors and numbers of objects. We were supposed to be “linking” our poem to the photograph in the sometimes ineffable way that two verses in a renku are linked.

I really, really have to do that exercise again. I’ve been saying that for six months now. Nag me until I actually do it.)

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