Month: February 2022

Burning / #HaikuSeed / Daily Haiku Prompt

#HaikuSeed /19 Feb, 2022
burning

Try to use a kigo (seasonal word/reference/context) in your haiku, be it the prompt word itself or something else you find apt. Hoping some great haiku sprout from this Haiku Seed.

A Few Reminders About Writing Haiku:

  • A good haiku consists of two images juxtaposed together using as simple a language as possible allowing the reader to visualize the scene and fill all the things left unsaid.
  • Usually in haiku, one image acts as a fragment and the other as a phrase. These two are traditionally separated by a keriji (cutting word). In English, we make use of punctuation like ellipses (…), em-dash (—) and other characters to denote a cut/break between the two images. This break between the two images in the haiku has a lot of significance and plays a major role in how deep and vivid your haiku becomes in the reader’s mind. It is not merely a punctuation!
  • The #HaikuSeed prompt is just that – a seed. Your haiku need not feature the prompt word as long as the haiku is triggered from the prompt word and contains some aspect relevant to the prompt word.

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Mountain / #HaikuSeed / Daily Haiku Prompt

#HaikuSeed / 18 Feb, 2022
mountain

Try to use a kigo (seasonal word/reference/context) in your haiku, be it the prompt word itself or something else you find apt. Hoping some great haiku sprout from this Haiku Seed.

A Few Reminders About Writing Haiku:

  • A good haiku consists of two images juxtaposed together using as simple a language as possible allowing the reader to visualize the scene and fill all the things left unsaid.
  • Usually in haiku, one image acts as a fragment and the other as a phrase. These two are traditionally separated by a keriji (cutting word). In English, we make use of punctuation like ellipses (…), em-dash (—) and other characters to denote a cut/break between the two images. This break between the two images in the haiku has a lot of significance and plays a major role in how deep and vivid your haiku becomes in the reader’s mind. It is not merely a punctuation!
  • The #HaikuSeed prompt is just that – a seed. Your haiku need not feature the prompt word as long as the haiku is triggered from the prompt word and contains some aspect relevant to the prompt word.

Continue reading “Mountain / #HaikuSeed / Daily Haiku Prompt” →

Kimono / #HaikuSeed / Editor’s Garden

Today’s #HaikuSeed is kimono

Kimono is one of my favorite Japanese words to use in haiku. Cherry blossom is another one at the top of the list, obviously. Well, they are two of my favorites whether I’m writing haiku or not. I guess I romanticize Japan and many things from the country. I think it is so because I’ve read many haiku from the Japanese masters like Basho which mesmerized me with their beauty, simplicity, mellowness, sensory and visual descriptions; and somewhere in my head, all of it tied to Japan which must be an inherent source and ingredient in all these verses that have inspired and moved me when I first learnt about haiku all those years ago.

in the garden, a nettle shoot
tugs at her pink kimono
asking her to stay

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Neighbour / #HaikuSeed / Feature With Commentary

Featuring haiku written by Voimaoy for the #HaikuSeed neighbour

surviving the plague years–
waving to my neighbor
across the street

– Voimaoy / @voimaoy

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Sparrow / #HaikuSeed / Editor’s Garden

Today’s #HaikuSeed is sparrow

Over the years sparrows inspired me to write a few haiku which I’m quite happy about and proud of. Sparrows are aplenty in our neighborhood and they are there in our backyard with their live commentary every morning as the sun shyly awakes. Even now, as I write this post, there are sparrows calling to each other, some darting this way and that between our house and the next. Such lively little creatures.

clothesline
wobbles
— a sparrow loses balance

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Windowsill / #HaikuSeed / Feature With Commentary

Featuring haiku written by Richard Barnes for the #HaikuSeed windowsill

hard rain
on the windowsill
tiny elbows

– Richard Barnes / @NaumaddicArts

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Cicada / #HaikuSeed / Feature With Commentary

Featuring haiku written by @micro_zon for the #HaikuSeed cicada

Forests of Cicadas 森
There are no songs
until tomorrow.

– @micro_zon

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Low Tide / #HaikuSeed / Feature With Commentary

Featuring two haiku for the #HaikuSeed low tide, in no particular order.

low tide — the egret’s legs shorter yesterday

when the great whale
is revealed cell by cell…
low tide

– @Silk73507704

– Alan Summers / @haikutec

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Neighbour / #HaikuSeed / Editor’s Garden

#HaikuSeed neighbour

neighbour’s terrace garden —
like their water lilies
plentiful my envy

I wrote this haiku for the #HaikuSeed water lily from a few days ago which bloomed from a thought I would have still had for today’s prompt if I hadn’t already written it.

Over the years I’ve read a few haiku about neighbours and I remember being amused, even sniggering, when reading them. We get a sort of exclusive sneak peek as the writers, through their haiku, admit a thought or opinion about their neighbours they wouldn’t have otherwise to their friends and acquaintances, much less to their neighbours, hadn’t they been motivated to create art. There is often silliness, even pettiness to our thoughts and opinions about our neighbours, I’ve realized. It may not be something that determines our relationship with them but still, in some corner of our minds and hearts, there is coveting, judgment, anger, compassion and many such opinions and feelings towards our neighbours that we would likely never express.

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