Haiku Windows
In the book Haiku: The Art of the Short Poem, editors Yamaguchi and Brooks quote David Lanoue: “A haiku is a window”…
In the following weeks we will look at (or through?) the many possibilities raised by this thought – and you’re invited to join in the fun! Submit an original unpublished poem (or poems) via our Contact Form by Sunday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence. I will select from these for the column, and add commentary.
next week’s theme: dollhouse window
Now we move further inside – to the interior of a tiny home, to the interior of the imagination… from a handcrafted work of art dollhouse to the plastic fantastic – what is Barbie up to these days?
I look forward to reading your submissions.
Haiku Windows: kitchen window
Thanks first of all to The Haiku Foundation, again, for this wonderful opportunity, and to all who submitted their poems. I couldn’t do this without you! For those whose work has not been selected, it is my hope that after reading this column you will have a better idea of what I am looking for. Please note that I will be sending acceptance emails only – if your poem was not selected this week, feel free to re-submit it if it fits with a future theme, and always include your place of residence!
All of the following kitchen window poems deserve a few words, but I will limit my comments to the following four:
my mother in every kitchen window — Chad Lee Robinson, Pierre, SD, USA
This poem can be interpreted on so many levels – for those of us who had (or are/were) stay-at-home moms, the kitchen and mom do go together. But my favourite reading conjures a child out in the yard getting up to some kind of no-good, and always getting caught in the act because somehow mom appeared in every window – at the same time, even…
streaming sun
sink bubbles
in all their glory
— David Jacobs, London, UK
Here the poet describes a most ordinary kitchen scene – washing the dishes – and isn’t this a perfect topic for haiku? The combination of sun through the window and dish soap takes the reader from the realm of mundane housework to a colourful iridescent scene, and then off through the window of the imagination, maybe following the bubbles on a breeze… until they pop, and then we are back at the sink…
kitchen window
i share my bit of sky
with a mountain
— Sandi Pray
What a clear picture is drawn here – the poet has selected words carefully – “my bit of sky” – tells us a lot about the view before we finally learn about the mountain. Most writers would have described, instead, the mountain as being the subject of the view, rather than this idea of sharing the sky with it, or even losing a view of the sky to it…
over the kitchen floor
a little moonlight
a little mouse
— Simon Hanson, Tamborine, Queensland Australia
Again a surprise with the last line, this time with the repetition of “little”, which is effective. Again the window is not mentioned, but we know it is a kitchen window because of the other details provided by the poet. And what a change in mood (at least for me!) from moonlight to mouse – the ensuing scene, no longer calm, possibly involving a broom…
Hope you enjoy the rest of my selections for this week:
post-Christmas
the kitchen window
reflectionsAlan Summers
England
fox
through the kitchen window
winter snowAlice Barrett
Goshen, Massachusetts
kitchen window
a moth wing dusts
my cupped handBetty Shropshire
Texas
super moon
at the kitchen window
I dry my plateBill Kenney
cracking nuts
a squirrel peeps
through the kitchen windowCarol Jones
Wales
typing dad’s obit
by the kitchen window
the woodpecker’s tapClaire Vogel Camargo
Texas, USA
red flicker
and cardinal cries pierce
the coffeemaker’s grumbleCraig Kittner
Wilmington, NC
spring morning
sunlight through trees
flickers on herb jarsDavid Oates
looking through
the kitchen window
a full moonDebbi Antebi
London, UK
wolf moon —
at the kitchen window
the night and IErnesto P. Santiago
Athens, Greece
loneliness…
no smell
from the kitchen windowEufemia Griffo
the fingerprints
at my kitchen window
home-made cakeEva Limbach
kitchen raid
the wolf moon lights up
my stealthHansha Teki
orange moon rising
we watch together
her apron and IHenry Kreuter
bass clef
the kitchen window reverb
of 7th positionJan Benson
kitchen window
through my reflection
carlights passing byJoanne van Helvoort
the bread is rising
at the kitchen window
day moonJohnny Baranski
open window
whoosh of a fledgling dove
to our kitchen shelfKathabela Wilson
farmhouse kitchen
tomatoes doing nothing
on a sillLee Nash
Cognac, France
kitchen window
feeding the soul
through the skyLori Zajkowski
foggy day
inside and outside
the samelynnej
“Yellow Submarine” —
before the kitchen window
a concrete wallMargherita Petriccione
deep blueberry sky
a scent of muffins
warms the kitchenMarietta McGregor
place setting
a robin and a squirrel
share the bird tableMarina Bellini
winter night
two in the kitchen window
cheek to cheekMarta Chocilowska
kitchen window…
the morning sun
on spider web dewMartha Magenta
England, UK
soup kitchen
take-out window
to the worldMichael Henry Lee
Cappon Magro preparation —
the vapors overlap
on the window(a much-loved Italian fish appetizer typically found in the city of Genoa)
Pasquale Asprea
by the window
the morning breeze
I whisk into eggsPat Davis
Pembroke, NH USA
whisking meringue…
here and there a snowflake
kisses the windowPolona Oblak
Ljubljana, Slovenia
kitchen window…
shaping the sky
through cookie cuttersPraniti Gulyani
steam iron’s hiss…
outside the kitchen window
the hazy sunRandy Brooks
Taylorville, IL
a Christmas candle
in the kitchen window
sideways snowRick Tarquinio
Woodruff, NJ
sympathy cards —
the kitchen window
still sticksRoberta Beary
County Mayo, Ireland
bird table visitor
the camera flash captures
mum at the cookersimonj
UK
warped cedar deck
in the ongoing rain
window streaksTricia Knoll
Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada and an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets. She recently co-edited an anthology of crime-themed haiku called Body of Evidence: a collection of killer ’ku.
What a lovely idea, and beautiful haiku! Thank you for doing this.
What an interesting website. I’ll come back again an again. And send a haiku.
Great!! Thanks Bob!
I can’t see the new prompt. Sorry I didn’t come up with something last week. I wam really looking forward to the weekly challenges.
The new weekly theme will be at the top of each post on Wednesday morning: “next week’s theme”; then you will have until midnight on Sunday to submit on the contact form…
cheers, kj
Even if late, for personal reasons, I congratulate the choice of Kathrine! Really haiku of great suggestion!, I am grateful to be part of it
thanks!
Dear poet,
Greetings! Delighted to go through the column, so much of talent pouring in. Good luck to you.
with regards
S.Radhamani
Thanks so much!
Thanks to all those who sent in replies – they’re just as much fun as they are instructional. Thanks to Kathy for including my poem. Looking forward to Dollhouse Windows!
I agree about the comments – I keep forgetting to check this page!! Thanks for submitting!
A lovely selection! Many thanks for posting mine 🙂
You are welcome!
What an enjoyable start, Kathy! It looks like we’re all in for a fun few months of windows peering into every corner of our lives. Thank you!
Cheers from Australia,
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Marietta.
Thanks Marietta – I am looking forward to reading more tonight!
cheers from the chilly (-28*C) Yukon, kj
A great group of poems by some wonderful poets
Thanks k
Agreed!
thanks, kj
What a wonderful selection!
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Coming from a large family (nine including my parents) the kitchen was the heart of our home and so many of these haiku resonate with happy memories, visuals, sounds and smells for me.
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This one from Lee Nash made me smile as there was always a row of tomatoes slowly ripening on our kitchen windowsill (which I guess that counts as doing something 🙂 )
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farmhouse kitchen
tomatoes doing nothing
on a sill
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Lee Nash
Cognac, France
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marion
I agree, Marion – the response has been terrific! I liked the contrast here with the tomatoes sitting doing ‘nothing’, in what I imagine is a busy farmhouse kitchen…
thanks for your kind words, Kathy
Thank you, Kathy for your comments and for publishing my poem! It is a nice surprise for me. Thanks a lot!
Best wishes
Marta Chocilowska
You are welcome, Marta! Thanks for submitting!
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Thanks Kathy, for starting off this great feature of windows with a great rap on the single, double or triple-glazing. 🙂
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Like Carol, although I was blown away by so many other fine responses, I kept coming back to:
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bird table visitor
the camera flash captures
mum at the cooker
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simonj
UK
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I wonder how many old photos of one thing, have caught one of our parents, or both, now lost to us but in these incidental non-posed captures? There is something gently poignant and haunting behind the simple words.
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Chad’s response also had a mother at every window:
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my mother in every kitchen window
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— Chad Lee Robinson, Pierre, SD, USA
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I saw a mix of moving childhood homes (three and a half, if you include my birth mother) so Kathy’s interpretation came to mind. But also, as we ‘grow up’ and leave home, we transmigrate to several kitchen windows, from our first shared apartment, friends, neighbors, leaving for work so many mothers in kitchen windows preparing food for kids or partners.
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So each ‘my mother’ in Chad’s verse is both someone else’s mother acting like his mom, but also that they morph into his perhaps?
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That’s the power of a monoku, there is more to them than any number of onion skins!
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streaming sun
sink bubbles
in all their glory
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— David Jacobs, London, UK
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Excellent opening line to this verse by David and a great early memory of washing up liquid creating so many colours. For some of us in earlier times it was washing up liquid that was our first experience of fun bubbles, as we didn’t have spare cash for the toy version. On another note I’ve been doing the washing up since I was six years old, no one else in the family home would do them! 🙂
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kitchen window
i share my bit of sky
with a mountain
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— Sandi Pray
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I am so envious! As much as I’d love to live by the beach, or the sea, or on a cliff as Khalil Gibran did, or by or in a forest, there is something about mountains being part of our windows!
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over the kitchen floor
a little moonlight
a little mouse
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— Simon Hanson, Tamborine, Queensland Australia
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Gosh, I remember seeing a field mouse in a Queensland farmhouse, and then years later the Brit version in our English apartment. Moonlight and mice, and humane traps, and then letting them go quietly in the nearby wood near undergrowth to protect them from the owls.
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I wonder if that mouse was one of these? 🙂
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a midnight window
the quiet sorting of gifts
by mice for christmas
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Alan Summers
Lagan Online, Northern Ireland
30/10/2017
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What a great selection from the four winners, and from the rest of us kitchen window poets. I wonder how many of them do the washing up though? 😉
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Warmest reflections,
Alan
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Thanks, Alan, for your comments. I apprepciate very much I still can learn something new.
Warm wishes
Marta
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winter night
two in the kitchen window
cheek to cheek
Marta Chocilowska
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Wonderfully romantic! Due to it being a winter night I can imagine Christmas decorations, perhaps reminiscing but also enjoying the enchantment of this time, and with a Snowball or eggnog drink even. So much is said without telling, delightful!
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warm regards,
Alan
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p.s. eggnog traces its roots back to English posset, while a Snowball is:
https://charlotteslivelykitchen.com/a-festive-snowball-cocktail/
Thank you so much, dear Alan for your beautiful comment!
Is winter night, light in the kitchen is on, and somebody observes the lit window from the outside. This observer was me when I was a childd 🙂
Thanks for the traditional snowball cocktail recipy!
Love
Marta
& thanks also for the Snowball recipe – I must try it! You would think someone living where I do would be an expert on those…
thanks for your comments, Alan, and yes, I do the washing-up!
Good man! 🙂
Thanks for your comments, Alan, & for the further discussion they inspire… I would prefer not to think of the poems I commented on as ‘winners’, though, rather – they struck me in a way that made me want to share my comments on them… as I said, all the poems deserved a few words – but then I wouldn’t get my dishes done…
cheers, Kathy
A marvellous selection of very visual verses, Kathrine.
I can certainly see the pictures of simonj’s verse, done it so many times in the excitement of the moment 🙂
thanks Carol!