Daily Haiku: Oct. 16, 2019

senryu

first trick or treat . . .

the toddler reaches for

her mother’s face

by Barry George (USA)

Third Prize

The Betty Drevniok Award, 2005

Daily Haiku: Oct. 15, 2019

playing checkers . . .

a black butterfly

kings my opponent

by Pamela A. Babusci (USA)

Mayfly, Issue 31, Summer 2001

Daily Haiku: Oct. 14, 2019

fallow fields a light dusting of snow geese

by Debbie Strange (Canada)

Shortlisted for the Touchstone Award, 2018

Daily Haiku: Oct. 13, 2019

pumpkin patch

the Rubenesque curves

of the calabash gourds

by Terri L. French (USA)

Prune Juice, Oct. 28, 2013

Tanka Time

Dear Readers,

I don’t often run tanka–a lyrical poetry form of five lines with 31 syllables maximum– that originated centuries ago in Japan. However, I received two interesting ones from Roberta Beary in Ireland.

I’m sure you will enjoy these as much as I did.

Keep reading and writing in multiple genres, if you can!

Best,

Charlotte Digregorio

a chill night wind
rattles from room to room…
two years dead
and still i am not done
saying goodbye

 

by Roberta Beary (Ireland/USA)

GUSTS/ Tanka Society of America, 2006

 

gone for years
he returns
half hidden
in a ghost cloud
man in the moon

 

by Roberta Beary  (Ireland/USA)

Modern English Tanka, Vol. 1, No. 3, Spring 2007

Daily Haiku: Oct. 12, 2019

senryu

Halloween dance–

the mermaid’s tail

keeps slapping my butt

 

by Chad Lee Robinson (USA)

Haikuniverse, Oct. 31,2017

Daily Haiku: Oct. 11, 2019

senryu

scary at last

the jack-o-lantern

full of maggots

 

by Frank Higgins (USA)

Dragonfly

Daily Haiku: Oct. 10, 2019

tree branches empty
a lone bird
changes everything

 

by Roberta Beach Jacobson (USA)

The Heron’s Nest, Vol. XX: No. 2, June 2018

Daily Haiku: Oct. 9, 2019

woodpecker at dawn rattles off my to-do list

by Matthew Moffett (USA)

Hedgerow, No. 26, April 24, 2015

Daily Haiku: Oct. 8, 2019

senryu

Hallowe’en
letting the inner child
out to play

by Ignatius Fay (Canada)

Sulphur IV, English Arts Society, 2013

Daily Haiku: Oct. 7, 2019

dried field

imagining

butterflies

by David Käwika Eyre (USA)

not a one

Red Moon Press, 2018

Daily Haiku: Oct. 6, 2019

she says it’s a phase

he’s going through

autumn moon

 

by Barbara Tate (USA)

Frogpond, 41:3, 2018

Daily Haiku: Oct. 5, 2019

senryu

 

Halloween past …

the pumpkin’s grin

turns inward

 

by Valorie Woerdehoff  (USA)

Loras College Outlet

Daily Haiku: Oct. 4, 2019

senryu

amid the pumpkins–

a tattered drawing

of Linus

by P M F Johnson (USA)

Acorn, #30, Spring 2013

Daily Haiku: Oct. 3, 2019

closed eyes . . .

a star has fallen

somewhere

occhi chiusi . . .

é caduta una stella

da qualche parte 

by Carmela Marino (Italy)

Haikuniverse, July 21, 2019

Daily Haiku: Oct. 2, 2019

midnight waking . . .

the cat’s face

studying mine

by Bonnie Stepenoff  (USA)

Frogpond, 37:2, Spring/Summer 2014

Daily Haiku: Oct. 1, 2019

senryu

downsizing–

my old tap shoes

lost in the shuffle

by Susan Godwin (USA)

A Moment’s Longing

Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 30, 2019

fading dreams . . .

the golden smoke

of tamaracks

by Debbie Strange (Canada)

Runner-up

The Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Competition, 2018

Daily Haiku: Sept. 29, 2019

telephone pole

the woodpecker still using

Morse code

by Annette Makino  (USA)

A Moment’s Longing

Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology, 2019

A Classic Collection of Loss and Resilience: Deflection by Roberta Beary

I have about 5,000 books in my personal library, so it’s rare for me to take the time to re-read any of them. However, I keep coming back to “Deflection” by Roberta Beary, published in 2015. Back then, my curiosity piqued with its title, because the word illustrates the pattern of my life, as with the lives of most of us. We veer off course, are sideswiped, our journey  too often knotty.

With less and less time in my schedule, I can’t review books on my blog, though lately, I’ve made a couple of exceptions.

“Deflection” is a book of spare poetry that includes haibun and haiku and tanka sequences. Understatement is so beautifully executed in these poems that evoke so much emotion about subjects including: a failed marriage, caregiving and the deaths of loved ones, child abuse by a person close to the family, the author coming to terms with her son being Gay, the grandparents’ difficulty in dealing with their grandson’s homosexuality, and a relative’s drug addiction. There is a strong sense of the author’s resilience after loss when, for example, she moves forward to a second marriage.

Life’s adversities are expressed so simply, with depth and insight that touch our hearts. We very much respect Beary’s courage in writing the book. One can imagine that these poems of grief must have slapped her in the face while writing them, and will forever affect her when she re-reads them. They are so revealing about the human condition that readers will most certainly be moved.

Beary’s work is at its finest here, as her Japanese-style poetry is spare.  “Deflection” is a collection filled with  loss and the questioning of life–­ why things happen as they do.

 

The book isn’t all somber. For example, In “Summertime Blues,” a sequence, we find the single poem:

 

suddenly single–

a carpenter bee gives me

the wrong kind of buzz

 

Individual haiku from the sequence “Caretaker II” are particularly moving:

 

resurrection sky

mother somewhere between

here and there

 

day of blossoms

a nurse erases

mother’s name

 

In the latter haiku, anyone who has navigated the healthcare system with a parent or other relative comes to know the often impersonal nature or even callousness of personnel. Also, in this haiku, we are touched by the contrast between spring and the end of life.

 

Here’s a passage from the haibun “Nighthawks,” during the deathwatch of her mother:

 

i keep watch: rise and fall of out-of-breath beats. too soon it

comes. ebb tide.

 

autumn coolness enters a hand long held in mine

 

After her mother’s death, Beary expresses feeling off-balance in the title poem “Deflection,” another sequence:

 

tai-chi rain

all my weight on

the wrong foot

 

In dealing with child abuse, below is a passage from “Irish Twins,” with its powerful curt lines that skillfully illustrate Beary’s fear of abuse by a person close to the family. As a child, she escapes to an imaginary world during the episodes. (Although the poem ends with a haiku, the main passage below strikes the reader stylistically as being free verse.)

 

I know he is there.

I feel his weight.

Never on my side.

Always on the side she sleeps.

When the bedsprings sing their sad song

I fly away.

 

In “The Offer,” a haibun, she relives her visit later in life with the abuser who is now demented and helpless. It seems she arrives at his house to offer help, trying to put what happened in childhood behind her. However, she is unable to follow through:

 

. . .He needs a shave. He needs a haircut, He needs a

wash. This man who used to scare me to death.

 

Unable to handle his ravings, she departs in her car:

 

rear-mirror the stunted pine’s red robin

 

In the haiku sequence ,“Last Rites,” one would guess that she is reliving her father’s death. This is the sequence’s final poem:

 

day of the obit

inside his wallet

me at eleven

 

 

Further, she writes the haibun, “Memorare,” telling of her prayers for either a drug-addicted relative or someone close to her. A recounting of her recitation to the Virgin Mary for intercession on this person’s behalf, she wonders if prayers will be answered. She intersperses passages from the translated prayer that Catholics recite by rote in parochial school, with stream of consciousness, remembering what children were told to do by nuns to live an immaculate life:

 

. . . that never was it known that anyone who fled

to thy protection implored thy help or sought

thy intercession was left unaided patent leather

shoes are not allowed because boys must be

kept free from temptation . . .

 

 

meth addict

the baby face

in my wallet

 

 

She skillfully captures this recitation without punctuation, not only for the effect of stream of consciousness, but to illustrate how parochial school children often pray, in a rambling way,  without fully understanding the words.

 

Beary completes her collection trying to come to terms with yet another loss in the haibun “What Remains.” This focuses on someone else’s loss of a son, perhaps that of a sibling she was estranged from. She is regretful of the young person who drives carelessly and dies. She is haunted by what she was told transpired:

A police car sets its revolving light on a mother’s house. The shadow of two men appears.

The front door opens. One man

is a policeman. This is where the story ends. The other man is a

priest. This is where the story begins.

 

We praise Beary for having the courage to write this book that ultimately makes us feel less alone in life as a fellow traveler through adversity. It is a highly recommended work of art. Further, its stunning book cover is the creation of Kevin Beary, her brother.

 

Roberta Beary has also authored “The Unworn Necklace,” a William Carlos Williams finalist by the Poetry Society of America, 2008. She has been a haiku and haibun editor of numerous journals and books, and a poetry contest judge, in addition to having won several international poetry awards. Beary speaks worldwide and is a workshop leader on the art of Japanese-style poetry. Currently, she lives in Ireland. Her website is www.robertabeary.com

To contact Beary, you may email her at robertabearywriting@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Haiku: Sept. 28, 2019

yellow maple

our edges

softer in the fog

by Dianne Garcia (USA)

A Moment’s Longing

Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 27, 2019

the last poppy

less and less red . . .

summer sunset

 

by Rosa Maria Di Salvatore (Italy)

The Mainichi, July 18, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 26, 2019

senryu

 

arraignment

list of her offenses
teddy bear tattoo

 

by Ignatius Fay (Canada)

Daily Haiku: Sept. 25, 2019

tasting the well

in the water–

summer stars

 

by Marjorie Buettner (USA)

Honorable Mention

Harold Henderson Memorial Haiku Contest, 2011

Daily Haiku: Sept. 24, 2019

senryu

Nonna’s temper rises

kneading her words

into the bread dough

by Rita Yager (USA)

Daily Haiku: Sept. 23, 2019

clearing storm

sunlight through the wingtips

of an emerald dove

 

 

 

by Vanessa Proctor (Australia)

Windfall, Issue 5, 2017

Special to The Daily Haiku: Sept. 22, 2019

autumn breeze

the new smell

of my red jacket

 

by Roberta Beary (Ireland/USA), Author

The Unworn Necklace

Daily Haiku: Sept. 17 through 22, 2019

Sandi Pray, a haikuist in the USA, is a great observer, and writes with heart and soul. Her haiku is accessible to everyone who reads it, and her delight in finding the haiku moment is infectious. We know her haiku below will inspire you to read and write more haiku.

wingbeats

sometimes just knowing

i’m not alone

Indian Kukai

evening jam

a banjo picks

through the wind

 

Akitsu, Spring 2018

with an answer

for everything

the tree of crows

Wild Plum Haiku Contest, April 2017

frog song

a heron’s shadow

takes the last note

 

A New Resonance 11

Red Moon Press, 2019

blue feathers

all but the song

in my hand

Modern Haiku, 49:2, Summer 2018

only the clicking

of dragonfly wings

hospital garden

A New Resonance 11

Red Moon Press, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 16, 2019

summer’s end–

I bury my face

in sun-dried laundry

by Susan Antolin (USA)

Mariposa, #37, 2017

Daily Haiku: Sept. 15, 2019

homecoming

only the shadows

are familiar

 

by Cherie Hunter Day  (USA)

Modern Haiku, 48:3, 2017

Daily Haiku: Sept. 14, 2019

summer drought
ant tracks in the dust
to another world

 

by Barbara Tate (USA)

Butterfly Dream, Nov. 9, 2018

Daily Haiku: Sept. 13, 2019

after the bang
bits of paper & smoke . . .
bottle rockets

by Stanford M. Forrester (USA)

www.bottlerocketspress.com

Daily Haiku: Sept. 12, 2019

senryu

after midnight

window to window

silent tears

by Carol Raisfeld (USA)

Frogpond, Vol. 42:1, Winter 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 11, 2019

snail shell
its pink
emptiness

 

by Jeannie Martin  (USA)

Acorn, #42, Spring 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 10, 2019

senryu

false teeth

in his shirt pocket

enough talk

by Lori Becherer (USA)

bottle rockets, #40, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 9, 2019

wakeup call

a rooster beyond

the churchyard gate

by Tom Painting (USA)

bottle rockets, #34, 2016

Expand Your Writer’s Outreach

If you’re like most writers, it’s hard on top of your day job, to find the time to write creatively. And, it’s even harder to promote your creativity by doing outreach work.  Unfortunately, putting food on the table comes first.

Since poetry and other writing genres often don’t get the attention they deserve, if you can combine your writing events with art, you’ll fare much better.

For example, in the next few months, I am spreading the word about haiku and senryu with haiga  exhibits (illustrated haiku/senryu)  in the general area where I live. My haiga will displayed through Oct. 1 at Winnetka Community House in Winnetka, IL and at Glenview Park District in Glenview, IL from Oct. 2 through Dec. 31.

In other words, promoting writing isn’t just limited to speaking, giving workshops, and participating in open mics. While all these are great avenues, you can appeal to a wider audience by combining writing with music, dance, and art events to draw a larger crowd. While this is evident to authors who’ve been publishing for decades, it’s not always evident to new ones.

Your opportunities for promotion are as great as your imagination. And, it involves networking to partner  with other groups. The key is to never take anything for granted and approach anyone who may be willing to listen.

Keep in mind at all times, that it’s a give and take situation, where what you have to give will benefit other groups and organizations as much as it will benefit you. Don’t be greedy, make it worth other people’s while, too, to sponsor you. How will your activity benefit them and enhance their event?

Wishing you peace and joy in all your creative efforts,

Charlotte Digregorio, Author

Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All

Copyright 2019 by Charlotte Digregorio.

 

Daily Haiku: Sept. 8, 2019

fur collar church

a Christian burial

for the fox

 

by Dan Schwerin  (USA)

bottle rockets, #34, 2016

Daily Haiku: Sept. 7, 2019

turning compost . . .

I still don’t understand

why

 

by Julie Warther  (USA)

bottle rockets, #40, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 6, 2019

parkinson’s

the lengthening pause

between poems

 

by Roberta Beary (Ireland/USA)

seashores, Vol. 2, April 2019

 

Daily Haiku: Sept. 5, 2019

another rainbow—
in my mother’s garden
wisteria in bloom

 

by Goran Gatalica (Croatia)

Allegro Poetry Magazine, #21, June 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 4, 2019

senryu

military parade

the obese

dictator

 

by Mike Montreuil (Canada)

Frogpond, Vol. 42:1, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 3, 2019

a child hums . . .
adding more blue
to the summer sky

by Caroline Skanne (U.K.)

International Women’s Haiku Festival, March 13, 2018

Daily Haiku: Sept. 2, 2019

a crow calls out
of the fragrance
of the evergreen

by Elmedin Kadric (Sweden)
Modern Haiku, Vol. 50:1, 2019

Daily Haiku: Sept. 1, 2019

withered daffodils

I resurrect

an old feud

 

by John McManus (England)

Frogpond, Vol. 38:3, 2015

Daily Haiku: Aug. 31, 2019

early dusk . . .

my children’s footsteps
fill the stillness

by Marion Clarke  (Northern Ireland)

A Hundred Gourds, 1:2, March 2012

Daily Haiku: Aug. 30, 2019

she gardens . . .

the oaks whisper

to her

by Taylor Tucker (USA)

Daily Haiku: Aug. 29, 2019

first buds . . .

the Morse code

of a little bird

 

primi germogli … l’alfabeto Morse di un uccellino

 

 

 

by Lucia Cardillo (Italy)

TINYWORDS, April 3, 2019

Daily Haiku: Aug. 28, 2019

pinned to the wall winter sunshine

by Gregory Piko (Australia)

Frogpond, Vol. 39.3, 2016

Daily Haiku: Aug. 27, 2019

senryu

whizzing downhill

hands off handlebars

fifty years late

 

by Paul Beech (Wales)

Failed Haiku, Vol. 4, No. 41, May 2019