Drifting Sands Haibun - Poet's Hub

I am a member of the Australian Haiku Society, a Writing Fellow of the FAW NSW Inc., and an occasional co-editor of Echidna Tracks – Australian Haiku. The Drifting Sands Special Feature, Girt by Sea was my undertaking; the partnership of my photography and poetry from Australian writers. I hope you have had a chance to explore this special feature.
I currently have two published poetry collections: Shadow Play, Dragonwick, Aus., and changing light, Alba Publishing, UK.

There are many people that have assisted me on my writing journey; from my first attempts at free verse poetry and prose, to the subsequent discovery of haiku and its related forms.

Australian author Jack Radley, the great uncle of a friend, first caused me to become serious about writing. Encouraging me to write short fiction and poetry, Jack was delighted when I began to have success in competitions, or work was accepted for publication. However, Jack’s honest critique of my prose was that I tended to overwrite. In his words, he sometimes had to ‘move the furniture to see the room’. Years later he admitted to having worried that he had been too hard on me. I assured him he had been tough but fair, and that I had taken heart from his continued encouragement. He remained a dear friend and mentor up until his death in 2008. To this day I miss him terribly.

In 2000 I enrolled in a creative writing course with Australian writer, Kate Walker, who has also been an influence with my writing. Always generous with her time and writing advice, Kate has become a valued friend and remains an inspiration to me. Like Jack, Kate was honest yet nurturing as she pushed me for improvement.

My interest in haikai poetry was piqued by a chance meeting with well-known Australian poet and editor, Beverley George. Beverley had judged the poetry section of the Manly Arts Festival Literary Competition and I attended the Presentation evening to accept an award. At the time, I wrote short fiction and free verse; both of which I still write today. It was this meeting with Beverley, and the shared ferry ride back to Sydney’s Circular Quay, that Beverley sat with me and urged me to consider writing haiku and tanka as it would be helpful for all genres of writing.
How true those words from Beverley proved to be. Finding the focus of haiku has indeed helped me to write more efficiently. I was drawn into the allure of haiku initially, followed by tanka, and more recently, haibun and tanka prose.

My early childhood was influenced greatly by my maternal grandfather. Grandad was a born storyteller. My earliest memories are of sitting on his knee and listening to stories. He did not read bedtime tales but created his own, complete with my friends and pets as characters. I demanded more and he always fulfilled my request with stories that were never exactly the same. Grandad owned property in the picturesque region of South-East Gippsland in Victoria, Australia. He was a grazier; raising sheep and beef cattle. I attribute to him my love and respect of nature and animals; particularly horses.

I was about three years of age when he sat me on his old palomino mare and my lifelong love of horses was born. Instilling in me a love of nature, Grandad pointed out the everyday splendour about us. We took time to observe the changing colours of a sunset, the mist in the treetops, and the sunlight on distant blue hills: the extraordinary in the ordinary. I am so pleased I learned to appreciate this simple beauty; it is something I hold dear in these more troubled times of this modern world.

In primary school I was often asked to read my work to the class, and in secondary school my poetry usually made it into the Year Book. Later, when my work first found publication, people often commented on it being ‘dark’. I imagine that is due to losing, in my early life, so many people close to me. I write about what moves me and I am willing to tackle some of the difficult topics. What a perplexing contrast to the observation of nature’s wonder, and trying to distill that experience within seventeen syllables. Perhaps there is a pursuit of childhood magic within the confronting complexities of adulthood?

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Some favourite previously published pieces

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Likeness

Empty eyes wait to be filled by the bottle jammed beneath your arm. The bagging sleeve of your worn cardigan gapes. Grey threads tangle into a cobweb of neglect.
I count the lines framing your eyes as you squint into the light, face gathered into accordion pleats. Cracked, down-turned lips lie in shadows; watchdogs guarding against a smile.
Alone on the step in an empty doorway, you slump against graffitied walls steady as tattooed arms that may have once held you. Were those arms a harbour? Or a cage?

              colours and shadows 
              in a shop-front window . . . 
              the way light falls

cattails, April 2021

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Surrender

Will I know if I have it? Will it kill me? Or will I welcome it? Invite it in to settle comfortably beside me like an old friend? Defeat thrashing and wrenching in my gut, steadfastly embedded there like the barb in the jaw of a hooked salmon. Once unclouded eyes, glazing to the spiritless stare of road kill. A growing ache advancing within, to quietly seep through my tributaries; its suffocating tendrils spreading through bone and sinew. Thought arrested and locked down along honeycomb chambers of the mind; sinking to foreign depths, with a silent ripple, encapsulating me.

            does death have a name
            a sound or smell
            perhaps endings 
            are beginnings in disguise 
            I think of love like cancer

Contemporary Haibun Online #17.2, 2021

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Some examples of my photography

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—Gavin Austin, Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, Australia

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Here are links to previously published drifting sands pieces

Tides

The Vigil

Battlefields

Unlocked

Annulment

The Bridge

My Journey to Haibun

I worked as a teacher during most of my early adulthood. In my early forties, I moved from the Philadelphia area to Massachusetts and secured a position as a Health Education Coordinator in school district. Writing as many grant proposals as possible was expected. During sixteen years in varied administrative positions, I wrote myriad proposals. And then, I retired.

For years before retiring, I learned tai chi, qigong, and Daoist meditation from Master Cheng who had emigrated from China. I became enthralled with Chinese philosophy. When the local senior center offered an introductory haiku class, I thought it might be a way to add lightness to the intensity of my philosophical study. Not Chinese, but at least it’s Asian. I expected haiku to be three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. Simple. I learned that haiku is so much more and was captivated. I borrowed Lee Gurga’s A Poet’s Guide and Patricia Donegan’s Haiku Mind from the public library the same day as the workshop and purchased my own copies soon after. I joined the Western Massachusetts Haiku Poets’ Society and Haiku Society of America. I began writing haibun about a year after starting haiku. I don’t remember how I was introduced to haibun although, I suppose, reading it in Frogpond was probably my initiation. What I do know, is that I enjoy writing haibun at least as much as haiku.

Over time, I learned that Bashō was highly influenced by Chinese poets Du Fu and Li Po as well as Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, who is a long-time favorite of mine. At this point, I am engrossed in exploring the intersection of Chinese poetry and philosophy, haiku and haibun, and my life as a haiku and haibun poet.

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Stardust: a debut collection

A Few Haibun

Three Treasures

I wander a two-acre Japanese garden.  Raked gravel paths suggest the flow of water.  Pocket gardens focus on a single plant, sculpture, or boulder.  Purple, mauve, pink, and white azaleas in diverse stages of bloom.  A bee with a saffron-splotched thorax sips nectar.  Yellow marsh marigolds and cattails at the edge of a pond.  A turtle on a log.  A large Zen garden … white sand … curving lines around lichen-covered rocks lead my eyes throughout and within … wind-scattered azalea petals … the sound of a stream … a single footprint at an apparent entrance … I sit. 

in the pond —
cloud dragons
swim

Frogpond Vol. 42:3, Fall 2019

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Child Support

Momma scans the mail the moment she gets home from work, desperate for the check that is nearly a month overdue. She mumbles and shakes her head, removes her coat, goes upstairs. 

When she returns her eyes are red, yet my siblings and I are excited when she announces a special dinner – corn fritters. It turns out to be canned corn mixed into pancakes. Only pancakes. She asks about our days at school. She smiles as I report progress with my fetal pig dissection, furrows her brow as my youngest brother defends his role in another playground fight. Her eyes glisten as my other brother describes his school lunch – baked chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, peas, salad, milk and chocolate pudding. Our little sister, too young for school, just listens. 

Before Momma heads for her night job, she promises to tuck us in when she gets home.  We nod and grin even though we all know we’ll be asleep by then.

bedtime fairy tale
the girl adds
another wish

Contemporary Haibun Online  17.1   April 2021

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Close Encounters

Bacon sizzles on the camp stove . . . a mug of green tea warms my hands . . .  red, green, and yellow dew diamonds sparkle in the grass between sand dune and forest.  Movement catches my eye.  An adult bald eagle zooms toward me four feet above the ground!  The power of its flight . . . the intensity of the glare of its yellow eye . . .  the whoosh of its wings.  Seconds later, the enormous bird returns.  A small mammal hangs from a claw.  The eagle’s flight is more casual than before.  Air pressure waves from the beat of its wings wash over me.  My jaw drops.

morning draught
your exhale
my inhale

The Haibun Journal  Issue 3.1 April 2021

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Clearing Cloud-Mist

Mist intensifies as the bus climbs to the top of Wudang Mountain – legendary birthplace of tai chi and centuries-old refuge for Daoist hermits. My teacher, Cheng Lijun, and I fantasized of coming here. We argued before her sudden death, so I have arrived with more than the usual baggage. I follow a wire-covered boardwalk to a small hotel.

Mornings: Qigong instruction. Afternoons: meditating and journaling to heal the past, remember the present, and set intentions for the future. Evenings: lectures and sipping Wudang-grown tea at a shop where I snap a selfie with a life-size carving of Laozi. 

On the fifth day, the rising sun bounces pink and gold off the departing four-day cloud-mist. I break the routine for a personal hermit day. I walk to an overlook with a wall draped by a rainbow of raincoats drying in the sun. A brown grasshopper with antennae six times longer than its body eats a bamboo leaf. A wasp investigates the stylized lotus on my shirt. I meditate below a gnarled pine tree imagining Lijun and her teacher with me. Afterward, my body flows into the opening tai chi move … the next … the next … the next …  

It is the beginning of the Harvest Moon Festival, a time of moon gazing and reunions with family and friends that has been celebrated since the Tang Dynasty. I don’t believe Lijun’s teaching about the benefits of absorbing the yin energy of moonlight, but to honor her memory, I end my day with moon gazing. The moon is cradled in the upturned roof of the hotel. I listen to cricket song and feel the cool night air on my face. More and more calm, more and more centered. At last … I understand.

slippery boardwalk
the unhurried pace
of a chartreuse caterpillar

Akitsu Quarterly   Spring 2021 

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Haibun in Drifting Sands

Amandla

Trick or Treat

Garden Drama

Leaps

Porch Swing

The Smell of Diesel

Strangers

Tides

Tradition

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Haiku

For samples of my haiku check out

Living Haiku Anthology

Haiku Registry at Haiku Foundation

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Presently I serve as Global Moderator of Inkstone Poetry Forum and Tanka Editor of Under the Bashō.  For the last quarter-century, I’ve made my home in the piedmont region of North Carolina, halfway between the mountains and the sea.  I live with my husband and one Abyssinian cat (the latter calls the shots) in an old farmhouse on five acres with a pond, orchard, vineyard, and vegetable garden.  My husband grows more organic produce than we can possibly use, and I do my best to prepare and preserve it. Raising some of our own food is part of our commitment to sustainable living; we also have solar panels that generate a portion of our electricity and hot water. When we’re not busy in the kitchen and garden, we enjoy playing Irish traditional music, hiking in the southern Appalachians, and spending time with our two sons and three grandchildren. 

The Blue Door of a Dream: My Journey through Poetry

I grew up in the shadow of elms in rural western Connecticut and spent my childhood roaming woods and meadows, with jack-in-the-pulpit and the scent of sweet fern for companions. Unchurched, I absorbed through my pores my mother’s belief that every leaf and stone is holy.

the unblinking eye
of a painted turtle
laying eggs . . .
how long does it take
to birth a universe

~from ‘In a Grain of Sand,’ a tanka sequence
red lights 17:1, January 2021

And from earliest childhood I was immersed in the sounds of poetry:

my mother’s voice
reciting The Highwayman
by moonlight
the gleam of a dark red love-knot,
the clatter of galloping years

 ~Moonlight on Water, 2016

For four years, I attended the last operating one-room schoolhouse in New England, but I composed my first poem before I learned how to write. I still have it somewhere, penciled on brown paper in my brother’s hand.

at age five
my first poem, an ode
to lampshades—
trying ever since to grasp
the nuances of light

~A Hundred Gourds 3:2, March 2014

I continued attempting to write poetry throughout high school and college, but while I was busy earning two degrees in biology, pursuing two careers, and raising two children, my muse was often sadly neglected. 

scribbling 
poems to eat  
on the grocery list
I let the toast
go up in smoke

~Atlas Poetica 13, Fall 2012

During my first career, I wrote and edited educational materials about biology and science. Motivated by my younger son’s disabilities, I embarked on a second career teaching children (many of them nonverbal) how to communicate by any means possible. So the threads were there—communication and the natural world—but they weren’t woven together into poetry for many years. 

As a young adult, my disabled son moved to a group home, and some years later I retired. With time to think at last, I began writing more than I had in decades.  I published a fistful of poems and won a couple of awards from my state poetry society.  I wrote mostly free verse but experimented with various forms, including a few haiku. 

Then I stumbled upon tanka in Jane Reichhold’s little book, Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide.  The genre immediately appealed to me.  My first published tanka comprised an entire sequence, ‘The Rosewood Bird,’ which, to my amazement, was one of three winning sequences in the twentieth Tanka Splendor Contest sponsored by AHA Books.  Writing that sequence about my father showed me the uncanny power of tanka to explore even a complex grief muffled for forty years. 

still folded
in a trunk
the sweater I wore
the day I learned
what you had done

~from ‘The Rosewood Bird,’ a tanka sequence, 
Twenty Years Tanka Splendor, AHA Books, 2009

Soon I was writing tanka pretty much exclusively. In 2012, I joined Jane Reichhold’s AHA Poetry Forum, which was immensely helpful in developing my skills. My engagement with tanka grew steadily, and within a few years I became Moderator of AHA’s Tanka Forum, and also Reviews & Features Editor of Skylark Tanka Journal, a position I filled for over five years. 

In 2016, I co-edited the Tanka Society of America Members’ Anthology, Ripples in the Sand. After the untimely death of Jane Reichhold in August of that year, and the subsequent demise of the AHA Poetry Forum, I was involved in the creation of Inkstone Poetry Forum. Also that same year, Skylark published my first tanka collection, Moonlight on Water.

the story
of my life as a changeling—
this poem
a silk purse stitched 
from a sow’s left ear

~from “a sow’s ear,” a tanka sequence
kernels 1:1, April 2013

During these years, I wrote mostly individual tanka and tanka sequences, although I also published quite a few tanka-prose pieces along the way. I used tanka as a medium to explore everything: my personal and family history, my relationship to the natural world, my wonder at the cosmos. Although I do occasionally write haiku, I find that tanka’s five lines afford the writer just enough space to explore the subterranean passageways that connect subjective and objective realms, psyche and Gaia. 

stumbling
into a world new-made
I search
for the shape of my face
in a pool of dreams

~from ‘Lost,’ a tanka sequence
Only the Dance, 2021

In recent years I have increasingly focused on using tanka to celebrate and mourn the natural world, as human actions seem hell-bent on destroying what created and sustains us. In 2021 I published my second book, a small collection of tanka sequences on these themes, called Only the Dance. 

Currently I am writing more and more tanka-prose and occasionally haibun, exploring what it means to live in this Anthropocene Epoch, with its runaway global warming and mass extinctions. Writing prose gives me space to tell the stories of what’s being lost, and interweaving poems into the prose allows me to reflect on those losses. Nature, of course, will outlive the destructive human species, but so much will surely be swept away before we’re done.  My task is to bear witness.

a rift in the wing 
of a wild goose
flying headlong 
through gathering dusk
the fate of the earth

~from ‘Beyond the Threshold,’ a tanka sequence
red lights 16:1, January 2020

closing behind me
the blue door of a dream
I hear the words
don’t forget the absolute
yet love the leaves & branches

~ from ‘Credo,’ a tanka sequence
red lights 13:1, January 2017

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my breath is the wind

that carries a leaf with rain in its veins down to the earth that built my bones from fire and clay

floating 
behind my eyelids
the cosmos

~Under the Bashō Nov. 15, 2020

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LINKS

Books:

Moonlight on Water

Only the Dance

Blog:

The Grass Minstrel

Publications on Drifting-Sands-Haibun:

Contagion

The Fourth Freedom

A Leaf on the Wind

Moonstruck

What’s in a Name

Selected Tanka-Prose & Haibun Elsewhere on the Web:

Bread of Life

But Now We Are Many

Dust to Dust

The Filly

Genius Loci

Original Sin

Sketches from Life

I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta and still make my home here.  I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in southern Alberta.  The City of Calgary is also home to Metis Nation of Alberta, Region 3.

My husband and I were married in 1977 and together we’ve travelled to 36 countries on six continents.  We agree with St. Augustine who famously said that the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.  We’re closing in on a novel!

My haiku journey began long ago in high school, when I started reading Basho’s poetry and was intrigued by haiku’s ability to say a lot in just a few words.  Later on I joined Haiku Canada and presently I’m a regional coordinator for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  I also write poetry book reviews for Haiku Canada Review.  I’m a member of Tanka Canada and I write book reviews for that organization’s journal GUSTS: contemporary tanka.  As well, I sit on that journal’s tanka selection committee.  Here are some poems that have appeared in those journals.

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    storm clouds
    the marching band
    picks up speed

    connected to peace  Haiku Canada Members’ Anthology 2023 and TINYWORDS, 22.2, 20 Oct. 2022

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    melting snow
    I recycle
    sympathy cards

    Haiku Canada Review Vol 17, Feb. 2023, No. 1

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    traffic jam
    a bumper sticker
    amuses me
    honk if you love
    peace and quiet

   GUSTS contemporary tanka  No. 37, spring/summer 2023

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    rainy day
    the cats and I
    curl up for a nap
    my best laid plans
    are laid to rest

    GUSTS  contemporary tanka,  No. 37, spring/summer 2023

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Here’s one of my haibun that appears in contemporary haibun online.

 Silver Threads Among the Gold

After an afternoon of shopping I notice a seniors discount on one of my receipts.  Seniors’ discount?  What’s next – someone offering to help me cross the street?  I crumple the receipt in my pale, blue-veined hand.  Then I smile.

    falling leaves
    the box of hair dye
    unopened

    cho 19.1

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As you can see, I sometimes add a touch of humor to my poetry, which is in keeping with my designation as a Certified Laughter Leader with The World Laughter Tour, based in Columbus, Ohio.  I use the techniques of laughter  therapy to enhance certain aspects of my social work practice.  Laughter is the best medicine!  In that regard, for the second consecutive year ( 2022, 2023), I’ve won a Dishonorable Mention in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges participants to write the worst opening line in a fake bad novel.  They’re fun sentences to write – and read!

I’ve published five collections of my poetry, one of which is a scifaiku collection.  Yes, I have a dark side, as illustrated in these scifaiku from the collection titled A Nameless Place, published by Sam’s Dot Publishing.

    in space
    there’s no morning
    no mourning

    alien funeral
    mourners shed their skin
    instead of tears

These were inspired by own off-kilter imagination, as far as I know! 

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I’m also inspired by peaceful places like The Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge, Alberta, where I wrote this haiku.

    Japanese garden
    not one flower
    to spoil the view

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Website:  www.joannemorcom.ca
X (formerly Twitter) @joannemorcom.ca

I am a retired psychiatric nurse living on a nature habitat near Newberg, Oregon. On my seventeenth birthday, I dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Army. I was stationed in Germany after training as a combat medic and paratrooper. After my discharge, I spent time aimlessly hitchhiking around the country with no special place to go. Later, I hitchhiked throughout Europe, across Africa, the middle east to India and Nepal. Eventually I became a merchant marine, making my home in Paris and the south of France when not at sea.

In 1969, I returned to the U.S., transporting military supplies and troops from San Francisco to Okinawa, Korea, and Japan. On one of my trips, I visited the famous garden of Ryoan-ji in Kyoto. That sparked a lifelong interest in Zen. I gave up sailing to become a student, majoring in Asian studies at San Francisco State where I discovered haiku and R.H. Blythe. There was a vibrant poetry and Zen scene at the time, and I was fortunate to be a work study student at the Poetry Center, epicenter of the San Francisco poetry scene. Through my work, I met most of the major American poets of that era. Meeting the poets and hearing them read their work gave me an interest in writing and poetry. At the same time, I was attending classes at Zen Center and taking classes in Buddhism at Berkely. I was fortunate to have met dynamic teachers like Paul Reps, Philip Whalen, and Alan Watts who were interested in the correlation between haiku and Zen. My wife and I moved to El Paso, after a couple years in Ohio.

I finished nursing school and obtained a graduate degree at the University of Texas in psychology. During this period, I started publishing short articles and stories for various magazines as a hobby. In 1988, We moved to Oregon and my interest in haiku spiked. I took classes in Japanese tea ceremony and became marginally involved with haiku enthusiasts in the Pacific Northwest. The area attracted serious haiku poets, people like Francine Porad, Michael Dylan Welch, Ce Rosenow, Sam Hamill, and Maggie Chula. I became friends with Lorraine Harr, pioneer editor of Dragonfly, one of the earlier haiku journals. She encouraged me to write little articles and haiku for small journals. I don’t remember all I published and many of those journals, Woodnotes, Northwest Literary Review, Sudden Showers, South by Southwest, Cherry Blossom Rain, others, no longer exist.

After a couple years, I started to lose interest and became disengaged from the scene. Five years ago, about 2020, I discovered Portland still had a haiku group, (Haiku Society of America). This talented, diverse group encouraged me to write haiku again. Also, about this time, I got hooked on flash fiction after taking a class with Anna Keesey. The new flexibility and possibilities combined with short prose stimulated me to write again. I don’t take my writing seriously; I think of it as a hobby. And I am constantly grateful to the staffs and editors of journals and websites such as Drifting Sands for keeping haiku alive and for providing a source of publishing. Recently, I assembled fifty of my currently published haibuns into book form. It is titled, Just Enough Moon, and is available from Amazon. I am always interested in contacts or information exchange with others who are interested in Japanese inspired haiku, haibun, and tanka. I may be contacted at

Neena is a banker turned poet from Chandigarh, India. She runs a non-profit for the education of underprivileged children. 

Her haikai poetry has featured in online journals and magazines viz. Presence, Frogpond, The Heron’s Nest, Contemporary Haibun Online, Asahi, Under the Basho, Prune Juice, Chrysanthemum, The Haiku Foundation, Wales Haiku Journal, Acorn, Cold Moon, Failed Haiku, Haikuniverse, Heliosparrow, PoetryPea, and others.

She has self-published two books of poetry—“Whispers of the Soul-The Journey Within” and “One Breath Poetry”

My journey as a haiku poet

Haiku writing was a mystery to me when I published my first poetry book “Whispers of the Soul”. Though I did write 3 lined verses, the intricacies of haiku, senryu and tanka were unknown to me. Then, through divine serendipity, Dr Angelee Deodhar, a celebrated haiku poet came into my life. She became my mentor, friend and haiku guru, as I used to call her to her wry amusement. 

She instilled in me a deep fascination for this art and its connect with Nature, and life became imbued with its beauty. 

Nature being an abiding love – long walks in gardens, conversing with trees, birds and squirrels, moon-gazing, journeys to far-away lands, the vignettes of daily life, all spoke to me, and I started sharing haiku with Angelee, my family, friends and online journals. 

Studying the works of old haiku masters, contemporary poets as also online mentoring by The Haiku Foundation helped me understand the nuances of haiku and other genres of Japanese poetry. 

A visit to Japan (the birthplace of haiku, senryu & tanka) and initiation in Soka Gakkai Buddhism based on the teachings of the Japanese monk Nichiren, further motivated me to write and share my experiences through haiku. The minimalistic style of writing poetry triggered my creativity. Writing haiku, capturing a moment in time, helped me become more present and aware of my breath. 

The 17th-century Japanese haiku master Basho said, to write haiku, get a three-foot child. Yet, to write haiku well is an ongoing journey…requiring study, practice and more practice. The journey continues with the guidance of many mentors to whom I remain eternally grateful. 

Read my published poems on my blog: Whispers of the Soul

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Presently I serve as a consulting editor for Drifting Sands Haibun and as Encore Editor for Contemporary Haibun Online. My partner Nancy and I live on a rural acreage in Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada. Both retired, we enjoy hiking in the Rocky Mountains and Utah’s Canyonlands, walking in the nearby mixed-hardwood forests, bicycling our hilly, twisting rural roads, canoeing Ontario’s Muskoka lake country, and most of all, we love avoiding Toronto and the infamous hwy 401. Nancy is a fibre arts crafts person and I’m a writer. We both enjoy photography. I have a recurring dream that in a previous life I’m a university professor teaching social sciences.

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My Journey on Basho’s Pond

It was about 20 years ago, after an enchanting photography visit to the Kurimoto Japanese Garden  that my writing journey started. I decided to do a photography website showcasing the Garden and wanted include Asian poetry, which I didn’t know much about, to complement the images. On a search, I discovered haiku which, like photography, is about simplification and involves expressing the heart of visual experiences.

Next I decided to try writing stand alone haiku and haiku for my images (haiga) – after all, who doesn’t want to be a poet? I thought it would be easy to create 17 syllables in 3 lines. After showing my first 3-liners on haiku forums, I was quickly disabused of the notion that composing haiku is simple. One well-published haijin (haiku poet) said that my haiku was “an aphorism, and not a very good one at that.” Ouch, that hurt!

In time, with a lot of reading and practice and coaching, I was able to succeed in having a few haiku and haiga published, and success inspired me to do something I’d always wanted to do – write about personal experiences to share with friends and family. I read read other genres in the journals, found my way to haibun pieces and thought, this is more what I want to do – tell stories about real personal experiences and add haiku. For some reason, I didn’t just want to write personal essays or memoir snippets. I liked the idea of finishing with a haiku.

While initially I aimed my writing at family and friends, over time I wanted some sense of validation that my writing was okay. I knew I couldn’t get that from family and friends – they’re thoughtfully diplomatic. So I began to submit my work to editors, themselves established writers, to learn whether they thought my work was good enough to publish and show to their readers. I was happy to get my work into any journal, but over time I want my work to be placed in journals that are difficult to get into. At the start, similar to my initial attempts at haiku, the reactions I got went like this: “Interesting story but you need to understand and be able to write haiku-like prose.” Ouch, that hurt again!

And again, in time, I succeeded in having my haibun published. At this point, I’ve had more than 200 accepted in a variety of journals which importantly are edited by different editors with a variety of tastes. Why important? I believe that most editors have a mission to please their readership and thus they try to select the best of the submissions. And I’ve learned that each editor has his or her own tastes about haiku, haibun prose, and the marriage of the prose and haiku.

Even with success, haiku, the necessary little partner of haibun’s prose, remains to this day my Achilles heel. And why shouldn’t it be? As one famous haiku poet put it, “I hope to write a few good haiku in my lifetime.”

Community Service

While learning my trade in haibun, haiku and haiga and finding my own expressive style, or what some call “voice,” I was appreciative of the work that volunteer editors put into reading and accepting (or not), and making suggestions for submissions to their journals. I received great help from several editors. So I decided to give back to the haiku genre community. Early on, I designed the Simply Haiku website. Under the editor’s leadership, it evolved into a very good multi-haiku genre journal. Then I designed (or helped with the design) of other journals foused on haibun including Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, A Hundred Gourds and Cattails.

At some point, I was asked to serve as an haibun editor and I edited for the World Haiku Review, A Hundred Gourds, Simply Haiku. For a long period, I served as a haibun editor and then as Editor-in-Chief of Haibun Today.

As I write this I’ve stepped down from 10+ years of editing, and now I help out with technical issues and advice to various journals.  Right now, I’m helping format Drifting Sands Haibun and training volunteers how to format the journal. I’m Also presently the Editor of the Encore Section of Contemporary Haibun Online where I select “classic articles” which have been all but lost and should be read by new writers and those wishing to improve their understanding of haibun.

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A Favourite Published Haibun

The Bathrobe

One rack in the men’s shop contains richly colored robes with fancy lapels, threads a James Bond might wear while romancing one of his many women. I reach for bold red and gold plaid with shiny black lapels.

Suddenly awake, anxious, I glance at the hook on which my robe hangs. Relief! Still there.

There are large patches where I’ve had my seamstress salvage it after large holes grew in the wrong places.

“Robes aren’t that expensive. Why not just buy a new one?” my seamstress, a very practical woman, had suggested.

“No,” I said, “I like this robe.”

“Do you want exactly the same kind and color of cloth?”

 “It’s just a robe. Do your best.”

Having had it patched didn’t relieve my fears. When my wife looks at it, I see the rag basket in her eyes. When it falls to the floor, the dog happily sleeps on it.

Men reading this know that the robe and I won’t soon be parted. No one else sees it and only my wife is concerned about a little flesh hanging out here and there.

I pull the comforter over my head and drift back to sleep.

lucky moon –
even when waning
no one threatens to replace you

. . .

Note: haibun published in Haibun Today & the Contemporary Haibun Anthology.

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A Favourite Haiga

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Websites, Blogs and Books

• Haibun & Haiku Blog
• Day’s End: A Multi-contributor Haiga Website about Aging
• Romance Under a Waning Moon: Multi-contributor Late-in-Life Haiga
• Wabi Sabi Website
• Haiku, Haibun and Haiga information website
• Landmarks: A Haibun Collection
• Photography website

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Publications in Drifting Sands Haibun

• A Winter Renewal with Issa
• Mo[r]ning Doves
• What if . . .
• Seizing Autumn

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Essays in DSH and Elsewhere

• What Are We Writers Up To, Really! (DSH)
• The Writer’s Gaze (Contemporary Haibun Online)
• Commentary on Basho’s “Hiraizumi” (Haibun Today)
• Characteristics of Contemporary English-language Haibun (Haibun Today & CHO)
• A Title is a Title is a Title, or Is It? Titles in Haibun (Modern Haiku, Haibun Today)

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~ End ~

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← Back to my Drifting Sands Poet’s Hub Blog

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Sherry Grant is a Taiwan-born NZ concert pianist, cellist, poet and translator. She is the author of ‘Bat Girl’ and the inventor of ‘nonaku’ poetry form. Sherry organised and performed 12 concerts in 2019, mostly with viola. Her youngest daughter, 7-year-old Zoe Grant, writes with her frequently. Sherry is the national/international outreach officer at NZPS since 2021. Apart from music, she also has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.

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Books:
– Bat Girl
– Speed Rengay (anthology)
– Rooster & Dragon
– Rengay Edge

Websites:
– www.batgirlbook.com
– www.artsinfinitypress.com
– www.nonaku.org

Facebook Groups:
– Chalk on the Walk Haiku
– Chalk on the Walk Monoku
– 2021 Hindemith & Copland Music Festival

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I live in a faraway country called New Zealand, where more sheep than people reside. By profession, I am a performing classical pianist and cellist, collaborative pianist and my four children currently attend 4 different schools. In June 2020 (near the end of the first NZ Covid lockdown) I wrote my very first poem and haven’t stopped writing poetry since. 15 months on, I’ve written well over 2600 poems in both long and short forms, got around 300 poems published at over 40 journals or anthologies. My poem Combat Ready was shortlisted at the 2020 NZ Heritage Literary Awards and I published my first book of poetry Bat Girl with my youngest daughter Zoe Grant, who was 6 years old when we wrote the book together. Zoe is the co-author and illustrator of Bat Girl.

murmuration —
long forgotten 
words return

I was born in Taiwan. When I was little, I’ve always loved world literature, poetry and philosophy. I was quiet yet curious. Having attended a special music academy since when I was 6 years old, I have remained in the exact same class with most of my classmates throughout primary and high schools (10 years). My friends nowadays could hardly imagine me as a shy person, but I spent most of my childhood in the company of books. In high school, I fell in love with the English language, and started devouring novels in English. At school I had the nickname of a walking dictionary when it came to English and my classmates would always come to ask me for help whenever they got stuck. I find English very intuitive, and feel thankful that I spent enough school years in Taiwan, which made it possible for me to translate my own poems into Chinese now, particularly my rengay. I have recently also started translating contemporary Taiwanese poetry as well as ancient Chinese poems into lyrical or haiku-like English poems.

the crows here
speak another tongue
feathery snow

After immigrating to New Zealand with my parents and sister, we started a new journey. We didn’t know anyone in this new home, but I was able to attend Auckland University, majoring in cello performance. The kiwi accent took a little getting used to, but after a while we found NZ to have a very welcoming mixed culture, although at the time of arrival most shops closed at 5pm sharp which was a big shock! We missed the busy lives, friends and food in Taiwan, yet we love the blue sky, green grass and way less population or pollution in New Zealand. Besides studying for my cello performance degree, I took language papers for fun and learned some German, French and Japanese. Now I am also learning Russian.

all the nights
merge into one
a silhouette 

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Every time I tried to go a different way, I got drawn back to music. I guess that is my calling and destiny. After studying post-graduate cello performance at Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK on a scholarship, I thought it was time again to come off music and do something else. I took up computer science and did a degree at the Auckland University, during which time I also became the president of a computer programming club (SDK) and did all sorts of event organising including inviting experts working in the industry in for monthly seminars, and holiday computing programme for kids. I co-organised the first Auckland Linux Installfest with the Engineering Department at Auckland University and made the club a chapter of an international computing group (ACM). I think a bit of leadership skills showed through at the time.

statues
bow their heads
scurrying mice

After graduation from the computer science degree, I got married and had 4 children and that was the start of another adventure that put an end to my glamorous days. It was a period of lots of running around, with very little sleep or reading opportunities, or indeed any time for myself. So as soon as my youngest daughter Zoe turned 5 and started school in 2019, I organised 14 concerts in the “War and Peace” arts & music festival to celebrate the 100th year milestone since the year after WWI, as well as a memorial NZ concert tour “100 Years Journey”, in which I performed as collaborative pianist in 12 of the concerts. I was joined by marvellous musicians, particularly violists (Milan Milisavljević and Robert Ashworth) and commissioned 5 new viola pieces (music by Chris Artley, David Hamilton, Ben Fernandez, Carvin Knowles and Mathias Hutton) for premiere. I love the viola! We had a lot of fun onstage and I found this is what I truly love, to show my audience a glimpse of beauty from deep in my heart.

years later
these ripples
echo back

Then Covid hit. The arts and music industry took a major hit. We don’t know if we’ll ever safely return to the concert halls for performances again. Many of my planned concerts and festivals were either postponed indefinitely or cancelled. That was a dark time, but I think poetry gave me the light and helped me come out of it. All the lockdowns are hard on the children too, not having been able to go to school and meet their friends. I started writing poetry all of a sudden. One night at the start of June I got up to write what was to be my first poem after having gone to bed but not fallen asleep. I felt compelled to write it down and my poet friend told me it read really well. That gave me a bit of confidence. I didn’t think much of it, since I’ve never written poetry before. A few more days passed, then I felt inspired to write another five poems on the same day. That was when I decided this is fun, I should do more! And then I kept on writing poetry every since and never thought of stopping, even if people around me told me it’s not profitable and a bit useless — it made me feel better and later I found out my friends really love them too. That kept me going. My kids and I also started lockdown project Chalk on the Walk Haiku and Chalk on the Walk Monoku, to share haiku in our own way and introduce our haijin friends to one another.

slipping
into shadows
my soul

Poetry is such a divine way of expressing oneself, and I am a very fast writer. Whereas countless hours of music practice boils down to performances of an hour or two onstage, once a poem is written, it is to be read over and over again. My original goal was to reach 100 poems and gradually it grew into 500 poems, eventually I was able to write over 2000 poems in my first year. It is amazing where determination takes us. I have to juggle writing with housework so there are many poems written while cooking, doing laundry or dishes. Sometimes in the middle of driving I had to pull over to park and write down new lines of poetry. I have also written many rengay collaboratively with friends all over the world. We are gifted with a welcoming short form poetry community, to both new comers and seasoned poets. I am blessed with the support of my poet friends, the artist friends I continue to write poems for, and having composer friends who set my poems to music. I feel I have finally found my true calling, which is not only in music but in poetry. I wish to create the next Golden Age with my vision.

I scoop up
every birdsong
in mermaid tears

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For more, please visit my Drifting Sands Poet’s Hub Blog.

Last update: 2021-10-23

I was born, grew up, had a career and now… Hey! No! Wait! It’s not over yet!

I’m here. I’m alive. After struggling through a severe health-scare I thought there’s so much more to do than cocooning on the couch.

Writing fell into my lap; so to speak. About four years ago a friend suggested a creative writing course, to get out of the house, do something, meet new people. So I signed up and I haven’t looked back since.

Now I am a member of the Australian Haiku Society and have been published in various journals online and in print. I even recently accepted a technical role, formatting poems for publication, right here at Drifting Sands. It is safe to say I enjoy writing very much. Japanese poetry intrigued me especially. My teacher and mentor Gavin Austin saw that I developed a liking for this poetry form and helped me a great deal along the way.
The first time I encountered Haiku I was confused but also fascinated. To be able to create so much impact with so few words. At first I had problems, I tried to be clever but I quickly learned that simplicity is the key for a good Haiku and this is why I like it. Since then I also explored Tanka, Haibun and Tanka prose as well as other forms in the genre, for example Cherita and Rengay.

My grandmother was a keen traveller and I was lucky enough to join her on some great trips. Safari in Tanzania, Desert trekking in Tunisia and once we followed Buddha’s tooth to Sri Lanka. The travel-bug returned in my later life when I worked as a flight attendant for Lufthansa. After the tragic 9/11 terror attacks I took some time off and travelled to Sydney, Australia where I found love and a new home.

Most of my jobs were in the artistic areas. For some years I was a ballet dancer. I danced in Iceland, Germany and for a short time in the USA. Working as a dancer and choreographer I won several prizes; German champion in disco couple division and European champion in jazz dance group division.

Then I started to get creative on other people’s heads, as a hairdresser I owned my own business and worked long hours; cutting, colouring and styling a variety of different hairdos, some of which were for the catwalk. When I was young, I sometimes modelled myself. Nowadays I prefer to be behind the camera. I like taking photos of everything interesting. Nature, people, architecture and the odd funny snapshot.

Feel free to browse my page I will include some examples of my work.

Tom Staudt
Darlinghurst, NSW Australia

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Haiku

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Tanka

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Modern miracle

It’s my first trip there. After the crew briefing I ask the captain if I could sit in the flight deck for final approach and landing. He smiles “First timer, eh?”

After roughly 12 hours, I get a call to come upstairs. I take my seat in the cockpit.

Down below; nothing but high rise buildings. Straight ahead, I can see the famous checker board hill, a marker for the plane to do a sharp right turn. The massive jet passes in-between two skyscrapers, I can see what people are watching on TV. I hold on to my seat. In front of us is a tiny runway. “No stress, I’ll bring us down safely.” The captain looks at me, before we descend, and touch down. 

The reverse thrusters roar, and we come to a halt.
“Welcome to Hong Kong…” the captain announces.

the door flap rattles
my cat squeezes through…
round things fit square holes

Kokako #35 November 2021

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Tanbun

Easy

“It’s simple, just lean forward, raise the heels, and off you go” I say.

What is the problem? Am I special?  

I’m on my way. I enjoy the wind in my hair, when I’m flying.

From the corner of my eye a dark shadow appears. Before I can attempt a soft landing, the darkness fills the sky. Something big is heading straight for me. It hits my face.

skating fast
I leave lines in the ice
a splitting sound
before the cracks
open the frozen pond

The soft padded paw of my cat gently presses on my nostrils. Just enough to make breathing difficult. 

I wake up. What a shame I really enjoy flying.

Contemporary Haibun online #17.2 August 2021

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Photos

Note: This page is published with parental consent.
Last updated: 2022-01-13