Issue 60 – Moose & Beaver 🫎🦫

Michele’s Musings

Last weekend Sally and I attended the Wine Country Writers Festival in Penticton, BC. It was great to connect with so many old friends and meet some new ones as well. I was surprised how many people I “knew” from social media platforms like Instagram and Bluesky. This is a world of connection, and yet …

It’s easy to start to feel lonely in this world. My mother has a saying, some people are with us for a season, some for years and some for life and they are all meaningful. So I know that is a normal part of the human experience. But as the days shorten and the weather turns cold enough to keep me inside, I feel myself drifting into depression. It could be Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m lucky to have Sally and my husband and a few other close friends to lean on during those times. I will up my vitamin D and turn on my sunlamp. I also lean into my haiku practice. Writing haiku helps me look for little glimmers of joy in days that seems grey and dreary. And somehow, my practice becomes a way to keep myself company. As a result, I have way more winter haiku than any other season!

How does haiku support you in your life? Have you come to consider your practice as a friend? What seasons are you writing more haiku in and why?

Have a lovely week, friends.

Member News

A few of our members had haiku showcased on Charlotte Digregorio’s blog over the past two weeks:

night rain licks away the black cat

Marilyn Ashbaugh (USA)
Frogpond, Vol. 46:1, Winter 2023

egrets carrying the mangroves into the afterglow

Mary Jo Balistreri (USA)
Frogpond, Vol. 46:1, Winter 2023

the can-can . . .
peonies show off
their crinolines

Nancy Brady, USA
Stardust Haiku Journal, Issue #78, June 2023

hunger games
weapons picking off
children of Gaza

Nancy Brady, USA
Heterodox Haiku Journal, Contrarians Edition, Summer 2025

campfire nights
we ride in on the back
of a song

Debbie Strange, MB, Canada
Third Place
New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition, 2025

sugar maples
small boys running
until they can’t

Debbie Strange, MB, Canada
Shortlisted, Best-of-Issue Award
Presence, No. 81, March 202

And from Tiny Words:

a different cool
than the Douglas firs
redwood shade

Michael Dylan Welch

Congratulations to the following poets whose haiku were selected in the Poetry Pea’s latest
Flashku contest:

Kim Klugh
Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Nitu Yumnam

Please check out this fantastic article by Julie Bloss Kelsey on Trout Swirl.

Finally, a big congratulations to the following poets whose work appears in issue #10 of First Frost:

Debbie Strange
Jenny Mattern
Rowan Beckett Minor
Ruth Holzer

My apologies if I missed anyone!

Sally’s Notebook

Tell me why the wind blows. Tell me how the constellations move across the sky and yet the North Star remains true. Tell me how a stream can spring out of moss in an alpine forest.

Sure, I could google it. Information and answers are just a keystroke away. But why? I’ll only forget, just as I forgot what one of my medications was doing for me just two days after I looked it up.

When Michele and I, along with her husband, my son, and a few cherished poet friends went to The Centre of the Universe, we were without internet access for three days. During that time, questions came up – questions we normally would have googled for instant gratification. Michele kept track of all our questions, things like what do a wolverine’s ears look like, and how big do cougars get? The one that popped up on a regular basis was what flower is this?

When she got home, Michele didn’t look up all those things. Instead, she created a list poem from all our unanswered questions, of which there were many. I still don’t know what a wolverine’s ears look like. I could look it up, but I won’t.

Let the mystery remain. Let the random, wandering thoughts alight on your overworked mind, that fleeting moment of wonder. That moment you step back, just for a minute, and let yourself be captured by the world moving silently around you. That is a haiku moment.

night sky
how bright the stars
so far from home

Places to Submit

The Seabeck Haiku Retreat is happening this October 23^rd to 26^th. This is the 18^th annual Haiku Northwest retreat and is a great opportunity to learn and meet new haiku writers!
Sense and Sensibility is open from October 1^st and will close October 15^th at noon ET, unless they reach their quota sooner. Please submit early to increase your chances of being published. The prompt for this issue is “Gratitude”.
Leaf – Journal of the Daily Haiku is open for submissions the month of October. They especially encourage youth under 18 to submit.
Mark down these dates for upcoming submissions to the San Francisco International Competition for Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, Rengay and Haibun, sponsored by the Haiku Poets of Northern California. Deadlines for Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka: October 31, 2025, Rengay: January 31, 2026, Haibun: Deadline May 1, 2026.
Pure Haiku will be opening up for submissions for the month of October. They will announce their theme on October 1^st so be sure to check it out. They only accept haiku written in the 5-7-5 syllable pattern.
JAL FOUNDATION biennially organizes the ‘World Children’s Haiku Contest’, and they are happy to announce that the 19^th contest is to be held this year. The theme is “Sound”. The Regional Contest (works in local languages) runs from October 1^st, 2025 to February 28^th, 2026. Applicants must be children under 15 years old as of February 28^th, 2026.
Nick Virgilio Writers House on Instagram has themed calls all year round! See the theme there, then submit to www.nickvirgiliohaiku.org/haiku-in-action for a chance to be accepted for their weekly publication. The prompt for October 1^st to 5^th is “Routines”.
Whiptail Journal is celebrating their 4^th anniversary with their upcoming edition. Accepting a wide variety of monoku, or single line haiku, the optional theme will be anything related to four. Submissions only open from October 21^st to 27^th.
Pulse Voices is looking for haiku that arise from your own healthcare experiences or those of your patients or loved ones. Submissions may be made in the month of October. The editor is Solitary Daisy friend Michael Dylan Welch!
Prune Juice is seeking submissions of original, previously unpublished* English Senryu which showcase the vast expanse of the human condition from around the world. Submissions for their December issue will be accepted from October 1^st to October 31^st.

This Week’s Prompt

Write a haiku that embodies the feeling of gratitude. Send one or two haiku by October 15^th to be considered for our next issue!

Send one or two haiku to sally_quon@yahoo.com or to Michele at kelownalady@hotmail.com. Find our full submission info here. Don’t forget to tell us where you are writing from!

“A haiku is not a poem, it is not literature; it is a hand beckoning, a door half-opened, a mirror wiped clean. It is a way of returning to nature, to our moon nature, our cherry blossom nature, our falling leaf nature, in short, to our Buddha nature.”

– R. H. Blyth, Haiku –

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