Haiku Garden: Celebrating Spring

Abhishek Sundaram

Haiku amongst friends—
Is there any nicer way to welcome spring?

I'm celebrating this week's vernal equinox with haiku from the Golden Haiku competition, sponsored by the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District in Washington D.C.

This annual competition selects haiku to be displayed on more than 300 signs adorning tree boxes throughout D.C.'s central business district, "to bring a smile to commuters and visitors alike and brighten the winter landscape as flowers began to bloom."

It certainly brought a smile to my face to find out that my haiku was selected as one of two honorable mentions! 

Toshihiro Gamo

The contest's “Spring in the City” theme turned out nearly 2,000 entries from 50 countries and 41 states, and the District of Columbia, which the judges narrowed down to about one hundred favorites. Read them all here. Among them, you might recognize at least two other names—Diane Mayr and Elizabeth Steinglass, both of whom have been featured in the Haiku Garden at Today's Little Ditty (here and here). Diane and Liz have kindly allowed me to post their winning "Golden Haiku" as well. I'm tickled cherry blossom pink to be in such good company!

Oak leaf buds by staticgirl

"Hooped Moon" by Joey Rozier

Beautiful, aren't they? 

The photos, by the way, weren't part of the contest, just my attempt to pretty-up today's post.

I also wanted to tell you what a fantastic time I've been having doing "research" for next month's Classroom Connections series! I've been reading so many wonderful and diverse books—eclectic poetry collections, lyrical picture books, and engaging verse novels. The insights and classroom exercises the participating authors and editors are sharing for elementary, middle, and high school students are also amazing! So stay tuned for National Poetry Month. Next week I'll be publishing the schedule of events. 

Did you know today is National Goof Off Day? Now that's a holiday I can use! Rebecca Herzog is rounding up the Poetry Friday fun and games at Sloth Reads. Once again it seems I've missed the mark when it came to participating in this week's theme, but lest I be considered a party pooper, here's a goofy poem from a few years ago that might fit the bill.

Haiku Garden: Sydell Rosenberg (Giveaway!)

Lily Pond, Central Park, New York City, by David McSpadden

It's been far too long since we last visited the Haiku Garden at Today's Little Ditty. Seeing that today is International Haiku Poetry Day, we're going to remedy that!

I'm delighted to welcome Amy Losak for a very special guest post.


Amy Losak is a full time public relations professional with a spare time passion for writing short-form poetry, especially haiku and senryu. She has been published in numerous haiku journals, and you can also read a sampling of her work online (here and here). Today, however, she will not be sharing her own work. She's here to share the poetry of her mother, Sydell Rosenberg (1929-1996).

Amy has spent the last several years on a personal mission to organize and assemble her mother's work into a picture book for children—something her mother always dreamed of doing. Those efforts to revive and preserve her mother's literary legacy have finally been realized in H IS FOR HAIKU: A TREASURY OF HAIKU FROM A TO Z, published this month by Penny Candy Books with amusing and lively illustrations by Sawsan Chalabi.

I'm going to hand this space over to Amy now to fill us in.

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I’ve been writing haiku and senryu for a few years now. I should have started learning about these poetic forms years ago. I had a wonderful haijin – haiku poet – in my life, who could have taught and guided me. We could have learned together. Perhaps we would have collaborated.

That haiku poet was my mother, Sydell Rosenberg, a teacher and writer.

Syd was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America in New York City in 1968, and also served as HSA secretary in 1975. She published her first haiku in 1967, I believe in a journal entitled American Haiku. She wrote and published her short poems (and other poetry besides, as well as short stories, literary and word puzzles; and more) over a roughly thirty-year span (but she had been writing since childhood). And she studied these forms quite seriously. I remember that she studied Japanese in order to try to read the original masters.

Mom, a product of New York, referred to her short poems as “city haiku” in the classic 1974 text, The Haiku Anthology (edited by Cor van den Heuvel). Many of them indeed reflect her urban surroundings and sensibility—

From H is for Haiku by Sydell Rosenberg, illustrated by Sawsan Cholabi.

(Click image to enlarge.)

a lot are populated with pigeons, sparrows and squirrels, for example! But they also have an appealing air of timelessness and universality.

When I was a young woman, mom tried to engage me in her work. With her encouragement, I even wrote a haiku or two myself as a child (one was about a frightened chipmunk, if I remember correctly), but overall, I was mostly disinterested. She would ask for my feedback. Regrettably, I wasn’t very responsive. I don’t even recall if the poems she wanted me to read were drafts or finished.

But mom and her “haiku mind”—her way of seeing a kind of magic in the stuff of daily life—must have exerted a subtle influence on me that I didn’t realize or understand at the time.

I know that, among other literary goals, mom wanted to publish a children’s book, preferably a haiku alphabet reader. She started submitting at least one manuscript in the 1980s, perhaps earlier, to publishers.

After mom died in 1996, her family decided to pick up and fulfill her dream.

This didn’t happen right away. I wasn’t ready. But slowly, I began to mobilize.

H is for Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z
Sydell Rosenberg, Sawsan Chalabi
Penny Candy Books (April 10, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0998799971
Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound.org

And as I sorted through vast piles of Syd’s papers and other materials and reacquainted myself with her poetry, almost naturally, I started to write haiku and senryu of my own. I also started to read the work of terrific haijin from around the world (thanks to the connectivity of social media). My poems were terrible! However, her influence finally became clear. I even joined the Haiku Society of America (which turns 50 this year) and found the Haiku Foundation to be another great resource.

H is for Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z  has been a long journey filled with both joy and pain. This book is about the “bigness” in the so-called “small moments” we may be too busy or distracted to notice. The poems are word-pictures or tiny stories, some of them infused with gentle humor. Everyone will, I hope, relate to them.


I have several favorites in this collection, but one I keep coming back to is:

So pale – it hardly sat
    on the outstretched branch
        of the winter night.

“So pale” was published in haiku journals three times: in 1968 and in 1975 in Haiku West; and in the December, 1996 issue of Frogpond, the journal of HSA, on mom’s memorial page. Over time, I have warmed to the lightness of this poem. It has a subtle sense of serenity, of mystery. I especially like that mom doesn’t specify what “it” is—she leaves this for the reader. In the book, Sawsan interprets “it” as a friendly moon. But “it” can be almost anything the reader wants to imagine.

From H is for Haiku by Sydell Rosenberg, illustrated by Sawsan Cholabi, used with permission.

I will always be new to haiku, and that’s fine. I am taking my time as I cultivate my own “haiku mind,” my own “eye” and “voice.” I hope to keep improving as a poet, because this is the best way I can think of to honor Syd’s loving influence, and continue to be the steward of her legacy. It’s also a lovely way for me to slow down my often frantic pace and find bits of magic in my daily life. I hope readers will be inspired to haiku, too.

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Thank you for sharing your journey with us, Amy, and your mother's exceptional work. You must be so proud of what you've accomplished, and we all are better off for you having done so.

Sneak a few more peeks at H is for Haiku at the blogs of Sylvia Vardell, Robyn Hood Black, and Matt Forrest Esenwine; and many thanks to Penny Candy Books for offering a copy to one lucky reader!

Leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy of H is for Haiku: A Treasury of Haiku from A to Z courtesy of Penny Candy Books. Alternatively, you may send an email to TodaysLittleDitty (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject "H is for Haiku giveaway." Entries must be received by Wednesday, April 25, 2018. The winner will be selected randomly and announced on Friday, April 27th.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, April 18th) is the last day to enter the giveaway for Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's latest collection of poems for young readers, With My Hands: Poems About Making Things, courtesy of Clarion Books/HMH. Read the post and giveaway details HERE.

Besides being International Haiku Poetry Day, today is also the official book birthday of Deborah Bruss and Matt Forrest Esenwine's Don't Ask a Dinosaur (POW! Kids). Yes, we've got a giveaway for that one too! Read about our month-long celebration HERE. 

Haiku Garden: Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

"Our house in the village" by Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

Does this little girl look familiar?

Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

Her name is Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu and she first appeared on my blog as part of September's wrap-up celebration.

She was a stranger to me. I came upon her photograph thanks to a search for children and mirrors on Flickr Creative Commons, and was drawn to the expression in those sensitive, young eyes.

The eyes of a poet.

By the miracle of the Internet, Cristina discovered that I used her photo and reached out to me with a comment on that blog post. Little did I know, she was, indeed, a poet, specializing in haiku and haiga!  Cristina connected with me on Twitter, and once I had a look at her Twitter stream, I was captivated by her work. The rest, as they say, is history.

I gripe and moan a lot these days about how much time I spend on the Internet when I could/should be doing other things. (Like writing!) But then something like this happens, making the world feel smaller and more friendly, despite the horrendous acts of violence that are happening all around us. How fortunate for me that at Thanksgiving time—when family and friends, old and new, come together— I have a new friend from Bucharest, Romania to help me celebrate the holiday. With poetry. What could be better?

Thanksgiving
the scent of cinnamon 
in grandma's Bible

                                    ~ Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

Cristina tells me that the picture is a (modified) photo taken in the village church. Given that she lives roughly 5,600 miles away, I asked her how she managed to effectively capture such a strong sense of the American holiday:

Thanksgiving does not exist in my country, but I used it as a symbol, a religious symbol that can replace other religious holidays that do exist in my Orthodox religious country. Considering the fact that those who heard about Thanksgiving are many and those who heard about religious feasts that are specific only to Romania are few, I made this replacement. One Romanian religious Orthodox celebration that can replace Thanksgiving is Mucenici day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucenici.

An added benefit of meeting Cristina has been learning about her village and family upbringing. Before WWII, my mother-in-law grew up in a small village in Hungary. I've never visited that part of the world, but somehow, through Cristina, I feel like I've been given a peek into aspects of my mother-in-law's childhood.

Cristina has loved poetry since she was little. While other children preferred to play ball games, she read poetry. She began writing poetry as an adult in 2007, and haiku in 2010. In 2010, she also began to translate her poems from her native Romanian to English or French.  She's been published in various e-zines, poetry journals, and magazines, some of which are well-known amongst our Poetry Friday haiku poets. Although Cristina lives in the city, usually her poems are inspired by the time she spent in the countryside or by observations of, as she describes them, "little facts of life."

I am tempted to share a few more of my favorite "little facts" from Cristina's extensive collection of short form poetry, but since that's not really the format of the Haiku Garden, I'll force myself to stick to just one. I strongly encourage you to read more of her work on her blog Minipoeme/Short Poems (I've linked you to the English versions, click on "Postări mai vechi" to page through); or on another, more personal blog, Eppur si non muove.

I'd like to close with this beautiful essay Cristina wrote in 2012 on Eppur si non muove, about her "haiku experience":

In my journey among endings and beginnings I stopped one day thinking about what opens and what closes with each step I take.  For me the answer was: light.  Life’s moments drip like stalactites in a cave, humans are melted stardust, binding to each other.  Stars do shine for those who know to look at them.  Sons and daughters of sunlight, we leave our shadows imprinted in other hearts until the Milky Way sweeps them away.

Autumn is the season that opens a door towards other existential areas, a time when blue skies become pale, when the fire of emotions dwindles, when shadows separate on forest ground.  One of these moments I opened my eyes understanding the importance of being aware of each open window of existence:  the world given to me by senses, filtered in my feelings and engraved in my thoughts.

I started reading and writing haiku two years ago.  My haiku aren’t a puzzle or a simple picture of reality.  They aren’t about describing emotions or revealing ideas.  They try to express the meaning of life events mirrored in each drop of light that enters my world.  For example a bird’s chirp has its echo beyond my senses, it touches a puddle where water ripples when petals fall and then goes further.  Me too, I am creating my own ripples in water, earth and air, being influenced in return by natural events.  Each haiku is an image of this bond or an image of the links within the universe.

Time is the most important element, because every event happens once and it is perceived as present even when senses lose their accuracy.

That’s why I tried to write my haiku looking at the world with the eyes of a child and trying to uncover the meanings of my life experience.  What I understood and what I will never understand.

"Myself"
Cristina-Monica Moldoveanu

Like I said, the eyes of a poet.

Thank you, Cristina, for allowing me to introduce you to the Poetry Friday community. It's an honor for me to share your work.

Warm wishes to all for peace, prosperity, 

and a happy Thanksgiving!

Just one more week to send me your kindness poem in time for Next Friday's DMC wrap-up celebration! This week we showcased young children's acts of kindness with poems by Kristi Dee Veitenheimer, Suzy Levinson, Mary Lee Hahn, and Janie Lazo.

Please join Tricia at the The Miss Rumphius Effect for today's Poetry Friday roundup.

Haiku Garden: Charles Waters

Photo: Trym Asserson

You wouldn't know it by the weather here in Florida, but the writing's on the wall– 

summer is drawing to a close. 

Soon I will be forced to let go of lazy days and loose, unstructured schedules. Until then, I'm grabbing every moment of quiet, reflective time I can get my hands on. That's what makes today's visit in the Haiku Garden all the more special.

Joining me today is a man of many talents: Charles Waters. Charles is a children's poet, poetry performer, actor, teacher, activist, friend... I've probably forgotten a few, though I'm not sure it matters once you've reached a half dozen. One of the things I find remarkable about Charles is that he actually pulls it all off. While some of us require sleep, Charles is a preeminent go-getter. He doesn't wait for opportunities, he makes them.

And let's talk about his swoon-worthy poetry, shall we? Charles' work has appeared in numerous anthologies. In 2015 alone, he has appeared in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (Vardell/Wong) and Dear Tomato: An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems (Hoyte), and will also appear in J. Patrick Lewis' The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry and Lee Bennett Hopkins' Amazing Places, both forthcoming this October.

Leading up to today's haiku, Charles shares with us a few lesser-known personal attributes– nature lover, allergy sufferer, and vegan:

I had a love/hate relationship with nature for many years. While I admired its beauty, washing my eyes over its visual splendor, I had the worst case of allergies in U.S. history. I'm exaggerating, but only a little.  Pollen/dust have always been thine enemy. 

However, some of this discomfort may have been from food, as well.  Since becoming a vegan there has been a major decrease in scratchy throat, itchy eyes, sneezing, and coughing.  This has given me an opportunity to be less apprehensive in strolling inside nature, like a poet detective, looking for clues on the unfolding of our universe.

Photo: Alan Howe Landscapes

MORNING THIRST

Straw colored swaths stretch
From tufted bed drinking in
Nature’s nourishment.

© 2015 Charles Waters. 

               All rights reserved.

For Charles, all roads lead to inspiration.

Photo: Fiona in Eden

He has appeared in several national theater touring companies including The National Theater for the Performing Arts, The National Theater for Children and Poetry Alive!, AND he's been on television– how cool is that?  He conducts his one man show POETRY TIME, as well as poetry performance workshops for elementary and middle school audiences, all over the nation.  It's been said that "Poetry comes alive when Charles takes the stage!" and I, for one, believe it. To find out more about Charles' books and workshops or to watch a sampling of "Poetry Time" videos, visit Charles' website: charleswaterspoetry.com. 

Thank you for stopping by the Haiku Garden, Charles,

 and for sustaining us with your nourishing words.

You'll find lots more inspiration at the Poetry Friday roundup. Please join Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for this week's offerings.

Haiku Garden: Loree Griffin Burns

"talisman of hurt, of youth, of hope" by jenny downing

Loree Griffin Burns is a self-described beginner when it comes to writing haiku, though she's carried the form with her as a spiritual practice, if not a literary endeavor, for several years.

She tells me:

"It's how I keep myself connected to nature and to the now."

Loree was introduced to the practice by a 50 cent book that called to her from a used book shelf on a rainy vacation day in 2011. Since then, Seeds from a Birch Tree by Clark Strand has become her friend and constant companion. You can read Loree's review of Seeds From a Birch Tree in this blog post.

She pretty much kept the practice to herself until last month, when she decided to explore the form more deeply... and more publicly. She joined author and poet Liz Garton Scanlon in writing one haiku each day for National Poetry Month.

This is what Loree wrote on her blog after her daily haiku regimen was over. It's advice I've taken to heart:

Here’s the thing: writing haiku is something I’m new at. I’m still learning. And sharing work that is new and different from what you usually do means opening yourself up to the opinion of other people, to correction, and even to criticism. These are scary things!

But there is a law about scary things, you know. From what I can tell, it goes like this: being brave and working through scary things always works out for the best. Always.

How lucky we are that Loree's personal haiku journey has brought her to Today's Little Ditty.  I'm honored to present a small taste of her work here in the Haiku Garden.

"Kornblumen" by eLKayPics

taken in their prime
by a friendly guy and his
mower: cornflowers

© 2013 Loree Griffin Burns. All rights reserved.

Aside from her poetic wanderings, Loree is an award-winning writer whose books for young people have won many accolades, including ALA Notable designations, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book Award, an IRA Children’s Book Award, a Green Earth Book Award and two Science Books & Films (SB&F) Prizes. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and her books draw heavily on both her passion for science and nature and her experiences as a working scientist.

Loree shares her experiences as a scientist, a naturalist, and a writer in the classroom and with audiences of all ages. Visit her website for more information about books and research, teacher resources, and her public speaking programs.

Thank you for sharing your talent today, Loree.

Bravery is always welcome here. Always.

SPEAKING OF TAKING RISKS. . .

What a tremendous response to Nikki Grimes' DMC challenge this month! So far I've received 30 poems from 26 writers, several of whom are new contributors. Do you know how happy that makes me? Whatever you're thinking, double it.

Featured poems this week included my own, and ones by Linda Mitchell, Donna Smith, and Margaret Simon. With one more week to go, there's still time to send in your free verse poem. Click HERE for all the details.


SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS:

• I'm SO close to 200 likes on my Facebook author's page, I can taste it! I hope you'll help push me over the edge (grin). You'll find a "Like" button here on my blog, in the sidebar to the right.
• Did you know I'm also on Pinterest? Would love to connect with you over there too!

POETRY FRIDAY:

Matt Forrest Esenwine is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme. Good news, good poetry... he has it all!

Haiku Garden: Jone Rush MacCulloch

"Winter Strikes Back" by Bryce Mullet, Flickr Creative Commons

Jone Rush MacCulloch is no stranger to haiku.  For the last three years, she has participated in Shiki Kukai, a monthly haiku challenge that's now in its 19th year.  Each month, people from around the world write haiku based on two prompts– a Kigo, or seasonal word, and a free form word. The haiku are then anonymously distributed to the community for voting. Points are allotted by each member for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place entries, and the results are posted.  What a wonderful way to immerse yourself in the practice of writing this form!

Today I'm delighted to welcome Jone to the Haiku Garden. Given the difficult task of choosing amongst several of her beautiful and thought-provoking haiku, I decided upon this one, which was born from the February 2014 free form prompt: "longing."

For me, it was love at first sight...


                         between
                         snowfalls
                         the robin's song

                         © 2014 Jone Rush MacCulloch. All rights reserved.

"Winter Robin" by Bryce Mullet, Flickr Creative Commons

...and still I'm left longing for more.

Besides having the voice of a poet, Jone speaks with expertise as a library media specialist/teacher, and many sing her praises as Poetry Chair for the Cybils as well. (Find out more about the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards HERE.) Did I mention that Jone also maintains three blogs? Her professional blog is called Check It Out: Life and Books in a K5 Library School Setting, her personal blog is Deo Writer, and Solace In Nature is her photography blog... oh yes, Jone is a talented photographer as well!

Thank you for taking a moment to share your talent

in the Haiku Garden, Jone.

In case you missed it, last week Joyce Sidman challenged us to write a "Deeper Wisdom" poem. You can find all the details HERE. So far I've featured poems from Katie Gast and Buffy Silverman, and today I must point you over to Reflections on the Teche, where Margaret Simon describes the deeper wisdom that she and her student poet, Matthew, achieved this week in the classroom.  I hope you'll consider sending me your poem. (Frankly, I can use all the wisdom I can get!)

You'll discover lots of wisdom in the poetry Irene Latham has selected to celebrate MLK Day. Those treasures and more can be found in today's Poetry Friday roundup at Live Your Poem.

Haiku Garden: Keri Collins Lewis

Have you noticed lately? 

The autumn-inspired poems are picking up like a brisk breeze, blowing through Poetry Friday. 

In Florida, Mother Nature rarely dresses up for autumn.  She's too fond of her flip-flops and cut-offs, I suppose. Yet I always enjoy seeing and hearing about the seasonal changes that are taking place elsewhere.  It brings back wonderful memories of my childhood in New York, my college years in Connecticut, and those first few years on my own in Boston. Despite the disappointing show of color down south, the feelings that autumn evokes for me are as strong as ever.  It seems a bit ironic that this time of year, when nature is gently retiring, should be so hopeful, fresh, and optimistic in my mind, but it is.

Today I am welcoming Keri Collins Lewis to the Haiku Garden.  Judging by the poem she's brought with her, it's possible I'm not the only one who feels this way:

Photo: © XFour. All rights reserved.

                  now that it has fallen
                  the leaf’s underside
                  can see the sky

                  © 2014 Keri Collins Lewis. All rights reserved.


Isn't that beautiful? I so admire how Keri finds a poetry form that speaks to her, be it cinquains this summer or haiku this autumn, and diligently practices and improves upon her craft until her work positively glows. You can discover Keri's thoughts on poetry, books, and life at her blog, Keri Recommends.

Thank you, Keri, for bringing your glow to the Haiku Garden.

For those who missed last week's interview with J. Patrick Lewis and his tantalizing new DMC challenge, the "zeno," you can find all the details HERE.  So far I've featured zenos from Matt Forrest Esenwine, Miranda Barnes, Kristi Dee Veitenheimer, and Lori Degman, with several more in the pipeline.  I hope you'll send me yours!

The best way to read these featured daily ditties is to follow my blog via email or RSS, or to like my writer's page on Facebook. All of these methods are available in the sidebar to the right. (On Facebook, though, make sure you also go directly to my writer's page, click on the "Liked" drop down menu and check "Get Notifications.")

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect. 

Haiku Garden: Violet Nesdoly

Photo: Tai, "Dew on Grass"

“A writer is like a bag lady going through life with a sack and a  pointed stick collecting stuff.”

                                           –Tony Hillerman

I found this wonderful quotation on the Poetry page of Violet Nesdoly's author website.  I thought it speaks well to Violet, since she, herself, is the ultimate collector – of nature, art, moments, words....  She displays them in exquisite detail in her poems, her photography, and in the way she lives and values life.  I'm honored to welcome her to the Haiku Garden.

dew scattered on grass
one carat diamonds winking
the day’s promise

 © 2011 Violet Nesdoly. All rights reserved.

Violet sent me this gem with the following description: "I wrote this haiku in 2011, in a stretch of beautiful August days, each one beginning with a dew-drenched morning."  I'm sure she joins me in wishing that everyone who reads this can enjoy a few days this month as magical as the ones that inspired today's little ditty.

Photo: Jason Rogers, "Morning Dew"

And while we are gathered here in the Haiku Garden, I would be remiss if I didn't also share this link to one of my favorite posts on Violet's poetry blog– a series of haiku detailing the life cycle of a Magnolia blossom.

Besides writing poetry for both children and adults, Violet writes non-fiction, fiction, activities, book reviews, and devotionals. She also blogs... blogs, blogs, and blogs some more.  For those who lost count, that's four blogs in total.  In addition to her author blog and poetry blog which I've already mentioned, she maintains PROMPTINGS 2, a personal photoblog, and Other Food: daily devos, a source of daily devotions for adults.  As someone who occasionally struggles to keep one blog afloat, I am astounded that Violet can keep up with them all!  But that she does... and still she pauses, with her sack and pointed stick, to take in a dew drop on a blade of grass.

Thank you, Violet, for sharing yourself and your gifts 

in the Haiku Garden today!

For those who missed last week's announcement of our August featured author, Lori Degman, and her fun new DMC challenge, you can find all the details HERE.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Mary Lee at A Year of Reading.