Category Archives: memory

Little frog faces (tanka/kyoka)

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One of two tanka appearing Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, Issue 28, 2020

 

in the attic I find
your small Wellies                            
with little frog faces—
oh, those happy puddles
when you were only three

 

 

Note: We lived near Hampstead Heath in NW London for a full academic year, 1989-90, with our (then) three year old son, Adam. Oh, how he loved rain puddles and stomping in them in his little green Wellies. Getting exercise each day was never a problem with a child who loved the outdoors no matter what the weather. This poem is for him.

 

 

You turn a deaf ear . . . (3 Tanka)

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Published in Gusts 31 (Spring/Summer 2020), Tanka Canada

 

Three tanka written and read by Mary Kendall (click on link):

 

 

how do I tell you

about the darkness                             

that embraces me,

    uninvited

    unwanted  

 

          ~

 

a loose shutter

flaps in the storm ~

times when it’s so easy

to lose names, numbers

and where to go

 

           ~

 

the morning spent

ripping out

wild honeysuckle vines . . .

no matter how hard I try

you turn a deaf ear

 

 

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

 

pale lichens on stone . . . (two haiga)

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

 

~

 

photography by Mary Kendall
Highgate Cemetery, London

 

 

Photograph by Mary Kendall,
Blackwood Farm, Hillsborough, North Carolina

 

~

 

My deepest thanks to Steve Hodge, editor. This was his last issue as editor of Prune Juice. It has been a joy and a wonderful learning experience working with Steve as an editor. 

 

Cover art by Chase Gagnon (c) 2018

 

Here is the link to the full issue of this amazing journal. It includes the amazing prize winners of the Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Competition for 2018 (edited by Steve Hodge and Michael Rehling), pdf:   pj-26-rev

 website:  https://prunejuice.wordpress.com