Autumn
crunching through leaves
scented with memories-
so many autumns
-Anna Dean
brave golden leaves fall
letting go of yesterday’s scent
future of hope awaits
-Honey Novick
mountain ash madness
starling crashes window
body still warm
-David Brydges
alzheimer’s ward
the sound of geese
through the fog
-Marco Fraticelli
the child exclaims
over every fallen leaf-
bouquet of autumn
-Sally Quon
Haiku Conversations with Michele
I fell in love with Marco Fraticelli’s haiku for this month. Here’s why!
Two simple words: Alzheimer’s ward. We suddenly know where we are and feel the profound sadness of the place. Then we hear the sound of geese – our seasonal reference – also a melancholy sound. And if it can’t get any sadder, it’s through the fog. Great way to invoke emotion, Marco!
I also enjoyed the deeper level of the haiku. Often people with Alzheimer’s speak erratically and don’t make sense, like the geese (because none of us speak goose). And they are also often in a fog; unable to remember the present or even their pasts as the disease progresses. They are on a kind of migration from a familiar place to an unfamiliar one.
Great work, Marco! Keep those haiku coming!
Member News
A little slow in the member news department this time. Are y’all keeping your news to yourself? Please send it along to either kelownalady@hotmail.com or sally_quon@yahoo.com.
Michele and Jerome Berlund wrote a split-sequence that was accepted into the Lothlorien.
——-
Jerome Berglund and
Michele Rule
Sunflower
Bat
Longer days
Confuse circadian rhythms
Maple tree
Sleeping sunlit
Last snow
Treading newly mopped floor
Near closing time
Hanged man reversed
Cat walks backward
Under a black ladder
Good-luck charm
——–
Sally received an acceptance from The Heron’s Nest and The Haiku Foundation’s Daily Haiku for November, guest edited by Charlotte Hrenchuk. She also wrote a haibun she is rather proud of. Michele and Sally had the good fortune to attend the Wine Country Writer’s Festival in Penticton, BC two weeks ago. There, we connected with writers, poets, publishers, and agents. Sally booked a blue pencil session with Genevieve Wynand, a well-known haiku poet, and turned the tables on her! Coming up in the next few editions, an interview with her, but first…
An Interview with kjmunro by Sally
Originally from Vancouver, kjmunro moved to the Yukon Territory in 1991 & now lives on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation & the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada & a member of The League of Canadian Poets, The Federation of BC Writers, & The Haiku Society of America. In 2014, she founded ‘solstice haiku’, a monthly haiku discussion group in Whitehorse that she continues to facilitate. Since 2018, she has curated a weekly blog feature for The Haiku Foundation, now managed with guest editors. She is the recipient of the 2023 Borealis Prize – The Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, & her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). kjmunro1560.wordpress.com
Hi kj. Thank you so much for joining me. Tell me, how were you first introduced to haiku?
When I was first investigating journals & magazines to submit my poetry, (around 2010), I looked into haiku journals, because people had often described my short, condensed style as “haiku-like.”
Book Recommendation from Member David Brydges
“Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” by McMurray, David was first published by The International University of Kagoshima on February 11, 2022 and is in its second printing in Japan from March 31, 2022. (B5-size, Hardcover Buckram Cloth with silver inlay, color photos, pp. vi + 147) ISBN: 978-4-901352-66-6.
David McMurray mcmurray@int.iuk.ac.jp
It is $40 Canadian with shipping included
Call for Haiku Submissions
Pulse–voices from the heart of medicine (pulsevoices.org), an online publication devoted to telling the personal story of health care, is accepting haiku submissions during the month of October. Accepted haiku will be published in 2024.
Pulse emails a first-person story or poem to its 10,000 subscribers every Friday. Every other week a haiku is included in the mailing and posted in Pulse’s Haiku Collection.
For complete instructions on how to submit haiku, please visit Pulse’s Submission Guidelines. Pulse welcomes up to three previously unpublished haiku inspired by real-life experiences in health care. Anyone who’s ever been to the doctor’s office, or who’s dealt with illness in themselves or a loved one, is welcome to submit.
Guest editor Michael Dylan Welch will be making haiku selections this year.
This Week’s Prompt
Write a haiku based on this photo.
“Learn the rules and then forget them.”
–Basho
Michele Rule is a disabled writer from Kelowna BC. She is especially interested in the topics of chronic illness, relationships and nature. Michele is published in the Asahi Shimbun Haikuist, Pine Cone Review, the Enchanted Garden, Five Minute Lit, Shadow Pond, WordCityLit, and the anthologies F*ck the Patriarchy, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and To Live Here, among others. She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and Haiku Canada. Michele has been awarded honourable mention twice for the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational and also for the Haiku Northwest Porad Award. Her first chapbook is Around the World in Fifteen Haiku. Michele lives in a beautiful garden surrounded by people who love her just the way she is.
Sally Quon is a disabled poet and photographer living in the Okanagan Valley of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She is an associate member of The League of Canadian Poets and a member of Haiku Canada. Her work has been published in numerous journals including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, First Frost, and Time Haiku. She is currently working on her first book of haiku, haibun, and haiga, tentatively titled, “My Valley, My Home.”
Featherstone Creative
