a hungry rabbit in the garden
the vegetables shudder
silence of the yams
Karl Kliparchuk
Burnaby, BC
ripening moon
now it’s my turn
to carry their fear
Deborah Karl-Brandt,
Germany
indoor whispers who have we summoned
Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, USA
darkened forest
creatures hiding in
the fog of my mind
Corinne McAuley
Pender Island, BC
All Hallows’ Eve
once a year she dresses up
for company
C. Jean Downer
her breath
on his neck…
corpse flower
Greg Schwartz, Maryland
foggy morning
a gnarled crone
blows her tea
Charli Poe
to scare myself
I carve his face
on jack-o’-lantern
Martina Matijević, Croatia
halloween visit
grandmother smiles at the masks
— all faces strange now
Clodagh O Connor
my giggling kids
playing marbles
with our neighbor’s eyes
Emil Karla
France
in my hands
the squish of cold flesh…
scooping pumpkin pulp
Kim Klugh
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
wind whistling
in the eaves
the wail of a banshee
Melissa Dennison, UK
new orleans cemetery
our photos detect
the resident orbs
Margaret Anderson
Vancouver, BC
moonlit garden
the spirit board settles
on our folded knees
Rowan Beckett Minor, USA
Michele’s Musings
Hello, friends!
Wow, your spooky haiku were so awesome!! Such a great variety of eerie ideas. Had our spines tingling! Our policy is to only print one haiku per person, but I couldn’t resist giving you this second one by Emil Karla from France:
sunday BBQ
umami scents
of the grilling corpse
Something that has my spidey-senses tingling recently is the discussion about using AI to write haiku.
Almost every haiku journal I have seen lately has a caveat against the use of AI in the creation of haiku, including us here at the Solitary Daisy. And I like to think Sally and I would be able to spot a haiku using AI. Right now it’s not difficult but it will getting trickier as the AI looks at more and more haiku as examples. So I checked out a few AI detection tools to see if we might be able to use one.
According to GPTZero, the website that calls itself the #1 AI detection for teachers, AI detection uses three factors to look for AI usage.
- Perplexity: Is the writing obviously predictable?
- Burstiness: How much variation is there in the sentence length and style?
- Style: Is the tone and writing style overly generic or repetitive?
Unfortunately GPTZero requires 250 characters to do a scan. That is a lot of characters!
Grammarly also has a built-in AI detection tool and it is free. But unless your haiku has more than 200 characters (and I’m almost certain it won’t!!) then that tool doesn’t work.
I found it humourous that ChatGPT, the biggest open AI app, has an AI checker built in as well. AI checking for AI – hmmm! I asked ChatGPT to write me a few haiku and they were all pretty awful.
There has been a lot of talk about the em-dash being a sure sign of AI. But poets, especially haikuists, and other writers have been using the em-dash for hundreds of years. So AI using the em-dash makes sense – after all it is learning from us.
In the end, I don’t think any of our members would be using AI. Just like plagiarism, it’s not okay. You have the best haiku in your hearts and minds anyway ☺️
Finally, a big apology to Joanna Ashwell for misprinting her haiku last issue! Here it is in its entirety:
wren notes
the grace of morning
in sunrise
Keep on writing!
Member News
Starting out this week with a haiga by Debbie Strange, published by Tiny Words:
-Debbie Strange
Speaking of haiga, Belinda Behne has a haiga published in this edition of Enchanted Garden, and a haibun coming up in the next issue of Drifting Sands.
I’d love to share the following email from Sofia Conway. Congratulations, Sofia! This is fantastic news!
Hi Sally,
I’d love to celebrate with you and the Solitary Daisy readers that I was chosen as a Confluence Fellow for the 2025-26 year! I’m very excited to be publishing essays, commentaries, and collaborative works with my Fellow poets in the year to come.
You can learn more about the Confluence Fellowship here: https://confluencehaiku.com/12-confluence-fellows-selected-for-2025-26/
I’m trying to help spread the word about them as it’s a new and unique experience for haiku poets! Applications for future Fellows will open next summer for the 2026-27 term.
Sophia Conway
And from Charlotte Digregorio’s Blog, we have this offering by Joanna Ashwell:
dried herbs
the gathered scent
of autumn
Joanna Ashwell (UK)
a confluence of mythology, 2025
Haiku Canada Members’ Anthology
Special thanks to those who took the time to send in their news!
Places to submit
All are welcome to participate in the Haiku Society of America’s 2025 conference, “on the edge”, taking place via Zoom on November 21-23, 2025. The schedule of events and the link to register can be found here, please note that all timings are in Pacific time. As well, please note that attendance is free for HAS members. Those who are not members of the HAS may attend the conference by applying to join the HAS (which includes a $40.00 USD fee) OR by applying for a free conference scholarship.
Modern Haiku has an upcoming deadline of November 15th. I love the very clear definitions they provide for not only haiku but many other Japanese short-forms!
Under the Bashō is open for submissions until November 15th. They have an interesting submission policy in that if your submission is declined you may submit again! Too late for this deadline but keep that in mind when they reopen for submissions again in March 2026.
Hedgerow Haiku Journal puts out a delightful seasonal-flavoured print issue every quarter. Submissions for the winter issue are open November 5th through 19th.
Fresh Words Magazine is putting together a “Snowfall and Starlight” Christmas Haiku Anthology. Submission deadline is November 28th. Check out their other calls for short pieces as well!
The Haiku Society of America’s journal, Frogpond, is open for submissions until November 30th. Frogpond will accept a submission of up to eight (8) haiku & senryu. In addition, your submission can include: up to three (3) haibun, up to three (3) rengay or other short sequences (including alternate forms of rengay and split sequences), and one (1) renku.
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.
JAL FOUNDATION biannually organizes the ‘World Children’s Haiku Contest’, and they are happy to announce that the 19th contest is to be held this year. The theme is “Sound”. The Regional Contest (works in local languages) runs from October 1st, 2025 to February 28th, 2026. Applicants must be children under 15 years old as of February 28th, 2026.
Haiku Pause is accepting submissions on the theme of Shiki’s Window until November 9th. Shiki was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. He is considered a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry.
Daisy friend, Kelly Sauvage Moyer, posted this on her Facebook recently: An oldie for my fellow spoonies:
dumpster fire a handkerchief hemline
I’m working to put together a global Zoom for chronically ill/disabled haikuists. If you’re interested in joining, please shoot me a message.
Sally and I are both also Spoonies (people with chronic illness). Hope you will connect with Kelly and join in as well if applicable!
This Week’s Prompt
Brrrrr. There is a chill in the air here and snow is already falling in the mountains. Send us some winter haiku – but don’t use the word winter! Deadline for submitting is November 12th.
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!
“Haiku is a way of culling things from the stream of things that rush past the senses.”
-Michael J. Rosen
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
