The Solitary Daisy Issue 31

Fawn

Michele’s Musings

What a heat wave! Sally and I have been melting up here in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Hope you are all staying cool (or warm in the southern hemisphere!).

We are starting a new feature with this issue – Member Spotlight! This will allow us to run a cluster of haiku by one poet. This will be in addition to our prompt choices, so keep sending those in!

Our first member spotlight features Isabella Mori. You will remember her from an earlier interview. Isabella and I were both fascinated by our friend Meg Hackinen and her Continental Divide Tour in June. We could follow along with her dot all the way from Banff, Alberta, Canada to the Mexican border! Meg and her team did a great job posting photos along the way. This inspired Isabella to do a haiku sequence, writing a haiku a day for each of Meg’s 15 day, 23 hour trek! This issue we are featuring a selection of Isabella’s haiku. And by the way, Meg was the first woman to cross the line, setting a new record, and was seventh overall! Yay, Meg!

Member Spotlight

Isabella Mori

following
a snake of bike trails …
the crunch of gravel

one pedal stroke, another –
she hugs the mountain
with her breath

almost at the top
she inhales
the clouds

no ending no beginning
in the darkness of dawn
the first eagle

wide, wild ocean
the albatross
touches land

Member News

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams and A. D. Adams created “Encore 2024” for the HaikuLife 2024 Video Project of the Haiku Foundation.

HaikuLife 2024 – The Haiku Foundation

Congratulations!

Debbie Strange received an Honorable Mention in Sonic Boom’s annual Vispo Contest. You can see the gallery of winners by following this link.

Paul Callus of Malta shared his haiku based on Michele’s photos of the Sea to Sky Gondola.

sea to sky 
spreading my wings
in a gondola

lost for words
circling right above
a bald eagle

We are also excited to hear Joanna Ashwell (UK) is putting together a collection of haiku for publication. Let us know, Joanna, when and where your book will be available so we can share it will all our haiku friends!

And Monica Kakkar (India, USA) had this haiku, first published on Asahi Haikuist Network, June 21, 2024, republished on Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog on June 28, 2024.

louder than tourists . . .
on a mountain with green leaves
roar of the Ganges

Michele Rule received an acceptance from Poetry Pea for one of her haibun.

Sally Quon had a haiku published in The Cicada’s Cry Spring 2024 edition.

KJ Munro, Isabella Mori, Jerome Berglund, Michele Rule, and John Green collaborated on a Renku which was accepted for publication in Prune Juice.

Congratulations to all our talented members!

Sally’s Notebook

We had so many fantastic haiku submitted for this week’s prompt, and while we would love to showcase all of them, we have decided to limit our selection to eight per issue. Here is what we are looking for:

1. No more than 17 syllables. 7-15 is the sweet spot.
2. We will only publish 3-line haiku/senryu, with preference given to haiku
3. We prefer haiku with a fragment and a phrase
4. Use of a kigo is not essential, but is preferred

Thank you again for all your wonderful submissions. It’s good to see haiku coming in from people we haven’t had a chance to get to know yet. If your haiku wasn’t selected this time, please don’t let that stop you from submitting again. Especially with our new feature, we look forward to reading your work. Stay cool, stay safe, and have a wonderful rest of the month.

And thank you to all who shared news. We love hearing about your haiku activities and achievements.

Upcoming Deadlines and Places to Visit

If you haven’t done so already, please give a visit to Season Words by Mark S. and sign up for his newsletter. It’s fun, it’s informative, and it gives you another opportunity to respond to a prompt. In fact, this week’s prompt was straight up stolen from his newsletter of last week. Thanks, Mark!

Senryu submissions to Poetry Pea are open until July 15.

Another great place to visit, and submit is Asahi Haikuist Network

I received this email from Haiku Canada, regarding a submission opportunity from The Haiku Foundation.

Dear haiku poets:

I am guest editor for The Haiku Foundation website’s Per Diem/ Haiku of the Day for September 2024, on the theme of “Fresh Starts and Transitions.”

Please send up to 5 poems (published or unpublished) on this theme for consideration into this monthly set to: rolandpacker36@gmail.com

If selected I’ll send a permission email to you before publication. Deadline is the end of July.

Thanks to all haiku poets for taking the time to send in your work. I look forward to reading each and every poem. 

sincerely,

Roland Packer

First Frost is open now for submissions until July 31.

Seashores International Haiku Journal has a special issue coming out in November. It’s a fascinating look at the sajiki and would be well worth the price. Taken from their website, here is a list of what it includes.

Contents

–          An explanatory introduction on the origins, content and structure of the saijiki;

–          35 major seasonal themes;

–          120+ season words;

–          300+ haiku; and

–          Still more on the rainy season, the scented plum tree v cherry blossom, and other matters.

This Week’s Prompt

This week, we’d like you to write a haiku about lilies, a lily, a lily pad or however you choose to interpret the theme. Please send your haiku to sally_quon@yahoo.com or kelownalady@hotmail.com for the opportunity to have your haiku published in our next issue.

Also remember to send us your news, contests or opportunities we might not be aware of, or even just drop us a note to say hi.

“All the time I pray to Buddha
I keep on
killing mosquitoes.”

― Kobayashi Issa

Michele Rule

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.

michelerule.ca/

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Sally Quon( Writer / Poet )

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

featherstonecreative.wordpress.com/

• Ginko Walk at Munson Pond
• Maude Roxby Ginko
• Interview with Michael Dylan Welch