Conversation 37: WRITE HAIKU: Themes from THE DAILY HAIKU 6-12 February 2021

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Just over a month to go until our first birthday on THE DAILY HAIKU.  Journeys is our final theme for this week and what a journey it has been! We have over 4500+ members worldwide and this month our stats are again up 15% with 5600 posts, 19200 comments and 97000 reactions. Through The Great Margin website here and Twitter our blogs are being shared by wellbeing and creative organisations that include the Network of Wellbeing, Get Creative UK, Arts Health and Wellbeing Alliance, ArtsWell, the Royal Society of Literature and connecting with other haiku writers.

I am so excited to see our engagement growing and more people being introduced into writing haiku alongside expressing their ideas and feelings with words, artwork, video and photography too.

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This week we had fun grappling with the essence of haiku in a creative game ‘What Does Haiku Mean To You’ to add to our usual debates on haiku.  It produced some amazing responses which I collated into a blog on HAIKU: WHO ARE YOU? which you can read here https://thegreatmargin.org/conversations/haiku-who-are-you-a-creative-exploration/

Do try this if you haven’t already.  The results are surprising and insightful.

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Now to the round-up of our themes from this week.  Be inspired by them to write haiku with or without images, for those new to the form we have a guideline of 3 lines with 5/7/5 syllables but this is always a guideline not a rule. For those revisiting the themes showcase your favourites from the week in the comment thread and think about encouraging someone who has never haiku-ed before to have a go. The workshops on this blog are a helpful starting point.

Weekly Theme: HOME

Daily Themes:

SUNRISES/SUNSETS

BOOKS

ABSTRACT

FLOW

TREES

YOUTH

JOURNEYS

Impromptu theme: SNOW

Bonus Theme: NATURE

Music Theme: Amy Winehouse – Back to Black  youtube.com/watch?v=TJAfLE

Link to our main Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/THEDAILYHAIKU 

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Haiga#15 respond to these images by what you see, thinking beyond the literal representations. Either choose a stand-alone haiku or make a new image with a haiku written over it. For more on Haiga read again the blog with excellent examples and advice from Marion Clarke. https://thegreatmargin.org/conversations/conversation-11-writing-haiku-haiga-where-image-and-haiku-meet/

6 Comments on “Conversation 37: WRITE HAIKU: Themes from THE DAILY HAIKU 6-12 February 2021”

  1. Here are some of my favourite haiku that sprang from this week’s theme:

    still moving
    at home journeying
    moving still

    all journeys end but
    I’m not quite here yet feel like
    I’ve just started out

    so soon snow turns
    fresh white fields to thick brown mud
    our fast steps to slow

    snow
    a brief gift
    left wrapped

    oh to walk again
    the forest paths of my youth
    find my first pine cone

    Rothko let me
    fall untitled into your
    untitled soul

    una ciotola
    il mare si riempie
    di sole
    (a bowl
    the sea fills with
    the sun)

    bare backed – the sun
    rides the sky from dawn ’til dusk
    braves the sweet and rough

  2. I’ve enjoyed many haiku on TDH. I love to read them all. But I’m also excited to write new ones and share according to the themes. It’s great fun. The Japanese made haiku into a party game. They would get together and write long poems of linked verse in haiku (called hokku and when linked haikai no renga depending on the era). With so many haiku poets composing haiku according to a common theme, it’s like a new modern version of a haiku game. And we often play off each other. Someone’s haiku will inspire me to respond with my own unique haiku according to the theme. Sharing these as a community is a great way to stay engaged in haiku, to keep composing and keep learning, and to have a lot of fun while doing it.

    Here are my favorite haiku that I composed to the recent themes:

    SUNRISES/SUNSETS

    old pavement fissure…
    a wayward seedling finds light
    at the crack of dawn

    sunrise and sunset
    this cosmic rotisserie
    lights my face

    BOOKS

    through the nebula
    my nose in the universe…
    a comet books by

    ABSTRACT/HOME

    feet up in my mind
    savoring a cup of tea…
    at home in myself

    TREES/GREEN

    a young elephant
    caught in a thick Cape Willow…
    green behind the ears

    TREES/GREEN/{impromptu} SNOW

    green memories…
    gnarled brown branches
    laden with snow

    YOUTH & JOURNEYS

    this long journey…
    a child still behind
    wrinkled eyes

    BIRDS

    on a powerline
    over the cemetery…
    mourning doves

    I’ll put my BONUS: Nature haiku in a separate post here.

  3. So, along with last week’s themes we start this week with Valentines, which I like to call Happy Hearts Day. And my LOVE is NATURE which goes along with the bonus nature theme very nicely. So here’s something for everyone on this bonus theme and to celebrate today!

    Happy Hearts Day

    My love is nature. I started dating nature when I was a young child. I think I got married to nature in my teens and we’ve been together ever since. I express my love, reverence, awe, gladness, and wonder for nature in haiku.

    In my book, A Tree Frog’s Eyes: Haiku, I wrote about one of these early dates with nature, so I think it is appropriate for the “nature” theme (and love):

    full moon date:
    in a distant wooded copse
    I sit with trees

    Oh, and by the way, I did get my wife a beautiful flowering plant and card for today too. 😉

  4. The Great Margin – 6 Feb-12 Feb Haiku Round-up.

    My round-up has to include other people’s haiku.

    ABSTRACT/HOME
    by DE Navarro

    feet up in my mind
    savouring a cup of tea…
    at home in myself

    HOME
    by Stan Phillips

    The arrow of life
    carves its path in the night,
    takes me safe home.

    ABSTRACT
    by Wendy Houser Blomseth

    safe in the bedroom
    personal retreat moment
    creative thoughts stir

    BOOKS
    by Melissa Moore

    member of book club
    collection of bookmarks grows
    looks like dressing up

    **More to follow**

  5. The Great Margin 6th Feb – 12th Feb Round Up 2.

    My favourite haiku written during the same period.

    SUNRISE & SUNSET

    sunrise and sunset
    swiftly flow the days, but the
    nights crawl by sleepless.

    ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2021.

    BOOKS

    books can educate,
    take us to another place,
    make us laugh or cry.

    books can be online
    or ones you can touch and smell,
    and hold in your hands.

    books can be a dream;
    one you realise when you
    write and publish one.

    ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2021.

    FLOW

    To be in the flow
    of the source, all is joyful,
    all is abundance.

    ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2021

    HOME 5

    home is in my heart
    where memories of loved ones,
    reside there, in love.

    ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2021.

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