Tag: haiku journal

Issue #0 – First Blossoms

Recommendation: This issue PDF is best viewed in 2-page (side-by-side) mode (available in Desktops/Laptops/Tablets) as sometimes the artworks are spread across two pages for aesthetic value. To do that, download the PDF, open it using any browser or Adobe Acrobat Reader & click the 3 dots in the top right after opening the PDF and select “Two page view”. The issue reads just fine even in “One page view”.

Download Issue #0 PDF

Alternatively, if you want to experience 2-page view on your mobile as it is intended with the design of the journal, please download the following version of the issue and read the PDF in landscape orientation: Issue #0 PDF (mobile 2-page version)

Please report any inconsistencies/mistakes in the journal to me by sending a mail to haikuseed@gmail.com, I will fix them and upload the updated issue PDF online.

πŸƒπŸƒπŸƒ

Hope you enjoy reading this inaugural issue of Haiku Seed Journal. We would love to hear your thoughts about this issue, good or bad, whatever they are. We would love to see you share your haiku or your favorite haiku from this issue (along with the artwork) on social media. Do tag us, it helps more writers and readers know about us as we are still a new journal trying to find our place in the publishing landscape.

Once again thank you to all the contributors that have submitted haiku to our journal in 2022 and to all the readers who followed the journal closely. I know the submission and them the selection process for the #HaikuSeed prompts and Issue #0 were inconsistent in 2022 and I wish I could select more haiku to publish in Issue #0 but due to many limitations I had to leave out many brilliant haiku. I will run a tighter ship in 2023, so look out for updates and announcements about the journal in upcoming months.

β€” Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta
Founding Editor
@coffeeandhaiku

Last Week’s #HaikuSeed Blossoms – Feature / Week #41

The #HaikuSeed prompt last week was fog with an additional photo prompt

This week there will be no commentary, sorry! Too busy with work and all. I loved how the haiku captured beautiful moments in nature and brought focus to certain aspects of how fog exists, moves and interacts. Some wonderful senryu again. Perhaps I will add short commentary to a few featured haiku on Twitter over the week as I find time. Hope you enjoy last week’s blossoms.

sunrise
the fog coalesces
into a purple heron

Alaka Y

lost
in the fog
but for my footsteps

C. X. Turner

rolling fog . . .
shadows deepen
in slow motion

Don Baird

driving slowly
with windows down
pea-soup fog

Joseph P. Wechselberger

foggy morning
the shuffling gait
of grandpa

Lorelyn Arevalo

fog map–
the shifting path
of a story

Pippa Phillips

Diwali weekβ€”
mother’s old silks
drape the dining table

Rupa Anand

winter’s sun
reluctantly rising
with a sigh

θ–«ιŸ³ (Kaon)

opaque fog –
near becomes
far

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams

creeping fog
across the battlefield
buried memory

BA France

morning fog
the eerie stillness
of dew point

Eavonka Ettinger

harsh winters
now and then
a road loses its way

Meraki

autumn dawn
a heron fishes
the fog

Kerry J Heckman

harbor fog
i stumble
through goodbye

Luna

midnight fog…
the shadows
of skeletal trees

Nancy Brady

shrieking chimps
echo across the jungle
fog of war

morning dew . . .
fog of starlings
rolling in and out

petro c. k.

I see my breath
morning’s also
floating over the pond

Skyeku

πŸƒπŸƒπŸƒ

Footnotes

I’ve started this journal with an idea to see amateur haiku poets like me write more nature-themed haiku, having seen all sorts of topics being written in haiku form by aspiring writers on Twitter and other places on the internet. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. But I’ve grown into a classicist when it comes to haiku as I really looked at what most of the haiku written by masters like Basho, Issa, Buson do. So I’m not too quick to warm up to contemporary haiku. It is an undeniable fact that the haiku form in English has been evolving for decades now and it will continue to. So while I keep this journal to inspire and feature nature-themed haiku, I will occasionally break from it because I see some expertly written haiku that I cannot help but appreciate what the writer has achieved and it makes me rethink the kind of haiku I want to feature here.

HSJ readers and contributors, if you like these feature posts with commentary, we would consider it a great encouragement and would love it if you shared it with others on the social profiles. On Twitter you can tag us at @HaikuSeed_, we are looking to gain audience of both writers and readers as we aim to grow.

Thank you for writing haiku for our prompts and reading the journal. We hope our journal inspires you. Keep writing!

β€” Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta
Founding Editor
@coffeeandhaiku

πŸ‚ 🌿 πŸ€ 🍁 πŸƒ

Copyrights Disclaimer:
  • All featured works are copyrighted to the respective writers. We would love it if you cite being our journal if your work is going to be published elsewhere, no obligations though.
  • Photos used in our journal are taken by and copyrighted to Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta unless stated otherwise.

Last Week’s #HaikuSeed Blossoms – Feature With Commentary / Week #40

The #HaikuSeed prompt last week was candle with an additional photo prompt

A lot of senryu or senryu-like submissions for this prompt. Usually, if the verse centers around concrete elements of nature while having a light human presence in some form, the line between haiku and senryu becomes blurred. And if the verse includes no nature and on top of that includes deep thoughts or expressions that are abstract and are hard to perceive as concrete images, I see them being strongly senryu than haiku even if there are elements of nature in it. Not surprising given the prompt. Few of the common scenes, words & aspects in the haiku submitted this week include flickering candle, wind-flame & love-candle juxtapositions. I would have liked to see more nature-themed haiku for this prompt (and for all #HaikuSeed prompts, after all, this is intended to be a nature-themed journal). But the senryu that were written contain some exquisite craft and depth, so I’m not one to squander the chance to showcase how haikai poets’ minds and spirits work wonders with just a few words irrespective of what label of Japanese poetry it falls under.

Continue reading “Last Week’s #HaikuSeed Blossoms – Feature With Commentary / Week #40” →