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Haiku Windows: kitchen window

 

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 Submit an original unpublished poem (or poems) via our Contact Form by Sunday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence.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

reflections


Alan Summers

England


 


fox

through the kitchen window

winter snow


Alice Barrett

Goshen, Massachusetts


 


kitchen window

a moth wing dusts

my cupped hand


Betty Shropshire

Texas


 


super moon

at the kitchen window

I dry my plate


Bill Kenney


 


cracking nuts

a squirrel peeps

through the kitchen window


Carol Jones

Wales


 


typing dad’s obit

by the kitchen window

the woodpecker’s tap


Claire Vogel Camargo

Texas, USA


 


red flicker

and cardinal cries pierce

the coffeemaker’s grumble


Craig Kittner

Wilmington, NC


 


spring morning

sunlight through trees

flickers on herb jars


David Oates


 


looking through

the kitchen window

a full moon


Debbi Antebi

London, UK


 


wolf moon —

at the kitchen window

the night and I


Ernesto P. Santiago

Athens, Greece


 


loneliness…

no smell

from the kitchen window


Eufemia Griffo


 


the fingerprints

at my kitchen window

home-made cake


Eva Limbach


 


kitchen raid

the wolf moon lights up

my stealth


Hansha Teki


 


orange moon rising

we watch together

her apron and I


Henry Kreuter


 


bass clef

the kitchen window reverb

of 7th position


Jan Benson


 


kitchen window

through my reflection

carlights passing by


Joanne van Helvoort


 


the bread is rising

at the kitchen window

day moon


Johnny Baranski


 


open window

whoosh of a fledgling dove

to our kitchen shelf


Kathabela Wilson


 


farmhouse kitchen

tomatoes doing nothing

on a sill


Lee Nash

Cognac, France


 


kitchen window

feeding the soul

through the sky


Lori Zajkowski


 


foggy day

inside and outside

the same


lynnej


 


“Yellow Submarine” —

before the  kitchen window

a concrete wall


Margherita Petriccione


 


deep blueberry sky

a scent of muffins

warms the kitchen


Marietta McGregor


 


place setting

a robin and a squirrel

share the bird table


Marina Bellini


 


winter night

two in the kitchen window

cheek to cheek


Marta Chocilowska


 


kitchen window…

the morning sun

on spider web dew


Martha Magenta

England, UK


 


soup kitchen

take-out window

to the world


Michael 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 eggs


Pat Davis

Pembroke, NH USA


 


whisking meringue…

here and there a snowflake

kisses the window


Polona Oblak

Ljubljana, Slovenia


 


kitchen window…

shaping the sky

through cookie cutters


Praniti Gulyani


 


steam iron’s hiss…

outside the kitchen window

the hazy sun


Randy Brooks

Taylorville, IL


 


a Christmas candle

in the kitchen window

sideways snow


Rick Tarquinio

Woodruff, NJ


 


sympathy cards —

the kitchen window

still sticks


Roberta Beary

County Mayo, Ireland


 


bird table visitor

the camera flash captures

mum at the cooker


simonj

UK


 


warped cedar deck

in the ongoing rain

window streaks


Tricia 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.


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    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.
    

    

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      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
      

      

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    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
    

    

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    Dear poet,
    
Greetings! Delighted to go through the column, so much of talent pouring in. Good luck to you.
    
with regards
    
S.Radhamani
    

    

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    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!
    

    

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    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.
    

    

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    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
    

    

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      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
      

      

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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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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/
        

        

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          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
          

          

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          & thanks also for the Snowball recipe – I must try it! You would think someone living where I do would be an expert on those…
          

          

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      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
      

      

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    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 🙂
    

    

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