Issue 39

at this lonely grave
the one constant visitor
is a winter wren
-	Kobayashi Issa

Welcome to Issue 39 of The Solitary Daisy. This week, the prompt was to write a haiku using the words constant, winter, and grave. The words were taken from this haiku by Issa. The number of submissions we received was impressive and difficult to curate. Thank you to everyone who submitted. Let’s see what you came up with!

Michele’s Musings

Hello everyone!

We are having a lovely, long autumn here and we are taking full advantage! Sally and I did a ginko walk at a petting zoo at Donorays Farm last week ☺️ The staff were lovely and didn’t make us feel at all weird for being the only unaccompanied adults (my grandson lives in Port Coquitlam otherwise we would have taken him along!).

Sally was enamoured with the miniature goats.

autumn blues
lost in the warmth 
of the goat pen

I made a new friend!

shy sheep
lured in by leaves
new friend

We also stopped at another farm stand and picked up a peach pie!

peach pie
this moment 
an eternity
-	Sally

peach pie
the taste of summer
in an autumn treat
-	Michele

Somehow we forgot to take a picture of the pie!

We did remember to take a selfie with kj munro a few weeks ago when she was visiting from Whitehorse!

These visits from traveling haiku poets fill our souls ❤️ We hope that if you ever arrive near our area you will reach out to us. We would love to meet you in person!

Member News

Congratulations to Isabella Mori, Jerome Berglund, Biswajit Mishra, Nitu Yumnam and Kimberly Horning for their 2024 Nomination for the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses courtesy of Heterodox Haiku Journal. Those are just the subscribers I know. Congrats to all!

The Longlist for Troutswirl’s Harlequin’s Carnival is out. Some familiar names on said list –

Jerome Berglund, Tracy Davidson, Monica Kakkar, CX Turner, Nitu Yumnam, Madelaine Kavanaugh, Eovanka Ettinger, and Biswajit Mishra. You can read those haiku here.

Welcome to new member Karl Klip who sent us this haiku after perusing the archives:

Canada Geese fly
honking with each wing flap
fall traffic jams

The results of the Vancouver Invitational are in! Michele and Sally each received an honorable mention in the British Columbia category. In fact, Michele received TWO. Considering we were only permitted to send in two haiku, I’d say that’s pretty darn good.

kj munro had a series of haiku featured on Café Haiku’s Cityscapes. Nicely done, kj!

Sally’s Notebook

Recently both Michele and I had haiku accepted by first frost. Additionally, I was informed that my haiku was selected as “Best of Issue,” and I was invited to submit 15-20 haiku, 9 of which would be chosen to appear alongside my winning haiku on their website, as 10 Haiku by Sally Quon. Of course, I was thrilled.

But what happened next surprised me. I kept putting off submitting my haiku. I’d think, “Oh, yeah, I should do that.” Something else always seemed to take precedence like doing the dishes or taking a nap with the cat. What I came to realize is that I was feeling overwhelmed. Intimidated, even. In fact, I was experiencing the worst case of Imposter’s Syndrome I’d ever known. Did I even have ten haiku worthy of first frost? What if I embarrassed myself by sending in crap?

While it’s true I’ve had many haiku publishes, it’s also true I’ve had many haiku rejected. Looking over some of my older haiku was enough to make me cringe. What was I thinking?

But there is a Latin proverb – Audentes Fortuna Iuvat, or, in English, Fortune favours the bold.

When I first began taking my writing seriously, I had no idea what I was doing. I never edited my own work. I just sent it out into cyberspace, like throwing cosmic spaghetti at the walls of the galaxy, hoping something would stick. Some of it did. My theory was if you put yourself out there enough, eventually someone would like something you wrote and publish it. It was all a numbers game.

While I still believe that to be true, I’ve also come to believe that if you want to grow as a writer, you must immerse yourself in words. The more you read, the more your subconscious will pick up on the nuances of what you’re reading. You will absorb it like mental osmosis.

This is especially true of haiku. What appears, at first, to be a simple form to master, the truth is haiku has layer upon layer of complexities. Gone are the days of writing verse in 5-7-5, adding a tree and calling it a haiku.

So read. Read a lot. Not only the masters like Issa and Basho, but others as well. My two favorite volumes are Haiku Moments, edited by Bruce Ross, and The Haiku Anthology, edited by Cor Van Den Heuvel. Both are wonderful books that inspire me with every read, and I read them often. But don’t stop there.

Haiku journals such as first frost, The Heron’s Nest, and Seashores will get you to the heart of modern English haiku. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – Michael Dylan Welsh’s website Grace Guts is the absolutely the best resource available for all Japanese short form.

Eventually, I did cobble together a page of haiku to send to first frost, but it only happened after learning Michele and I had received honorable mentions in the Vancouver Invitational. (Did I mention she won TWO?)

The news nudged the Imposter Syndrome over just enough for me to put together a submission. I was still uncomfortable enough to make sure I submitted the full 20, just in case most of it was crap!

I guess the whole point of this is remind us we all have doubt. But writing is an exercise, and you have to muscle through. Read, write, submit, and repeat. After all, Audentes Fortuna Iuvat!

To see 10 Haiku by Sally Quon, you can click on this link.

Deadlines and Submission Opportunities

The Polish International Haiku Competition is open until November 24.

Haiku Crush is open for submissions. Thank you to Monica Kakkar for this suggestion. The deadline is November 31.

The John Bird Dreaming Award is open now until March 1, 2025.

The Wee Sparrow Haiku Nook is open for submissions until November 15

Mayfly Haiku is open until November 15 for submissions for their winter issue

November 15 is also the deadline for the following:

Modern Haiku

Under the Basho

Bottle Rockets – with this one, submissions are only accepted via snail mail, so maybe don’t wait until the last minute. Also, their submission guidelines are very strict. Be sure to read through carefully.

This Week’s Prompt

Have you been following all the awesome astronomical events this year? From Super Moons to comets and more. Write us one or two astronomical haiku and send to sally_quon@yahoo.com or kelownalady@hotmail.com. We are looking forward to your submissions!

“Reading haiku is as
much an art as writing it. The reader needs to pause and listen to the
silences, to feel the spaces between the words, and to journey into the depths
of many multi-colored worlds.“

― Harley King, Mother, Don’t Lock Me In That Closet!

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