Category Archives: lyrical poetry

Haiku Holiday turns 40

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The North Carolina Haiku Society hosts an all-day meeting on the last Saturday of each April. This year marked the 40th year of these days called “Haiku Holiday.” Each of the past 40 years has been hosted by one wonderful poet and woman, Jean Earnhardt

on Bolin Brook Farm, an old farmstead that has been in her family for 12 generations. Can you imagine opening up your home and garden annually to a large group of poets? Jean does so graciously and with a welcoming, inclusive attitude. Thank you, Jean!

 

“In honor of the 40th anniversary of Haiku Holiday, we read 40 haiku by current and past members of the North Carolina Haiku Society. Crystal Simone-Smith selected the poems and published them as a broadside.”  (Dave Russo, the NCHS website Editor)

 

The Broadside is so beautiful, and it’s an honor to be part of this. My two haiku are listed below. My thanks to Crystal for selecting this to be included.

 

Haiku Holiday, NCHS, 2019

40 Years, 40 Haiku: A Broadside

 

 

dandelion—

more and more invisible

as I grow old

 

 

our country’s story

ever evolving

. . . fallen blossoms

 

 

Both haiku by Mary Kendall (c) 2019

 

unearthing beauty (rengay)

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My deepest thanks to Kate MacQueen for writing this rengay with me. It was a wonderful and illuminating experience to write with Kate. Kate’s verses are #2, 4, 6 (italicized) and mine are #1, 3, 5.

 

This rengay was published in Vines #3, part of the publication hedgerow edited by Caroline Skanne. 

 

Note: for readers not acquainted with rengay, here is a definition from “Graceguts” by Michael Dylan Welch:

“Garry Gay invented a renga alternative in the summer of 1992: the “rengay.”

“The rengay is a collaborative six-verse linked thematic poem written by two or three poets using alternating three-line and two-line haiku or haiku-like stanzas in a regular pattern. The pattern for two people is A-3, B-2, A-3, B-3, A-2, B-3, with the letters representing the poets, and the numbers indicating the number of lines in each given verse.” 

dreams lost in dreams . . . (three haiku)

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Three haiku were also published in Presence, Issue #62, 2018:

 

1.

 

dreams lost in dreams wild poppies

 

 

Field of Poppies, Photographer Unknown

 

2.

 

“Snow” by gookingsword (Pixabay)

 

 

 

deep in winter

abandoned nests

and forgotten songs

 

 

 

3.

 

waking from a dream

the night winds

unsettle the moon

 

 

Photo by Kenrick Mills on Unsplash

 

 

 

Loneliness . . . (three tanka)

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Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society,
Volume 28 Number 4, November 2018

 

Three tanka were published in Blithe Spirit this past November:

 

 

 Snow Landscape by Hans Braxmeier

 

 

winter woodland

bereft of birdsong 

           with your passing 

even clear days

are shadowed

 

 

Photo by Frantisek Krejci

 

 

together so long

we seem to finish

one another’s  sentences,

fluent in the pauses

of each other’s mind

 

 

 

Universe by Gerd Altmann

 

loneliness

comes and goes,

dancing around

my mind

with two left feet

 

 

 

 

 

finding a way back . . . (four Senryu)

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Part 2:
Prune Juice, A Journal of Senryu, Kyoka,
Haibun and Haiga,
Issue 26 – November 2018

 

 

Four Senryu:

 

 

reproach –
finding a way back
from heated words

 

~

 

 

 

overanalyzing–
the smell of wood smoke
on the wind

 

~

 

 

 

winter walk
learning to negotiate
what can’t be seen

 

~

 

 

the house
where I was born
weeds & more weeds

 

 

 

          Photograph by Marina Shemesh

No second guessing

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1.

 

how many times

can a stone skip

before sinking . . .

deep in my breast

a small lump appears

 

Unsplash by Linus Nylund

 

 

2.

 

no second guessing a kingfisher’s straight dive

 

 

 

Kingfisher and Irises by-Ohara Koson, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Holland.

 

 

3.

leaves turning –

an old friendship

ends

 

Golden Tree by Mary Kendall

 

 

ephemerae,
an international of haikai, tanka & beyond
Volume 1, C: November 2018

 

My thanks to Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy for publishing two of my haiku and one tanka in the November issue of ephemerae. 

 

 

 

 

Almost . . . (tanka)

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Ribbons, the Journal of the Tanka Society of America Fall 2018: Volume 14, Number 3

 

 

the long scar

down your chest

almost healed —

so hard to forget

you almost disappeared

 

 

   

Ribbons, the Journal of the Tanka Society of America
Fall 2018: Volume 14, Number 3