night beach
lover sharing
lifeguard stands
Chris Faiers/cricket
(from my 1969 haiku chapbook Cricket Formations - also in Foot Through the Ceiling, Aya Press, 1986 which received The Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award - and in many other publications)
Please note David McMurray selected a Honey Novick haiku below:
Neither heads nor tails sardines--all in the same boat
--Tim Chamberlain (Tokyo)
* * *
first frost
migrant boats
turn away
--Melissa Dennison (Bradford, England)
* * *
freezing fog
an extra urgency
in the blackbird’s call
--Tony Williams (Glasgow, Scotland)
* * *
winter sparrows
a Saint Francis statue
streaked in white
--A.J. Johnson (Stephens City, Virginia)
* * *
work, work, work--
a cat
in the sun
--Yoshiho Satake (Tokyo)
* * *
Snowdrift
reaches the window
a cat’s gaze
--John J. Han (Manchester, Missouri)
* * *
Sleety night
stray cats, too
sit round the hearse
--Yutaka Kitajima (Joetsu, Niigata)
* * *
Fear of the unknown...
Gypsies driven
from winter fields
--Angela Giordano (Avigliano, Italy)
* * *
crunching salt
beneath my feet…
childhood fear
--Artur Zielinski (Gdynia, Poland)
* * *
dreary winter rains
sputter, muttering again
no frosts
--Mick McGann Jones (Kerry, Ireland)
------------------------------
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
------------------------------
faster, longer
more work hours
marathon olympic medal
--June Read (Calgary, Alberta)
The Olympic Winter Games opened today, Feb. 6, in Milan and Cortina, Italy. Christina Chin traveled under the English Channel from Bournemouth, England to Genoa, Italy.
hopping onto
the transcontinental train
cold drafts
Ana Drobot felt invigorated. Ivan Georgiev opened a gate.
cold winter wind sharpening my senses
* * *
sense of home
a stolen horse returning
through the fog
David Greenwood forged ahead.
head tucked down
the wind numbs all before it
but my shadow
Pitt Buerken cheered for his favorite sports team until the very end of the game.
final whistle
the team’s relegation
is a done deal
Junko Saeki noted that her profession requires so much concentration, she disciplined herself to say “no, to all unexpected assignments after a full day of work,” adding that “it is not the most important thing in life.”
an interpreter
I stumble out of the room
after-hours meeting
In Perugia, Italy, Maria Tosti closed her eyes and dreamed of “skipping the calendar and going straight to March 21st!”
drawing still life--the last
window light in the neighbourhood
always mine
Laila Brahmbhatt watched a peaceful competition.
swans stretch their wings
children measuring
themselves in the water
Archie G. Carlos kept an eye on children playing in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Writing from Taylorville, Illinois, Randy Brooks recalls how valleys with steep walls on three sides were used to corral wild horses America’s Wild West.
eight-foot snowbank
the cul-de-sac kids’
growing interest
* * *
horse tracks in the snow
to the box canyon
none of them shoed
Morgan Ophir judged a diver in Sydney, Australia.
temple bell
frog jumps
a perfect circle
David Cox sat on his sofa watching “The Detectorists,” a quirky television show about lost treasure hunter-evaluators.
always a pen lid hoard
under the middle cushion…
antiqui-searcher
Feeling under the weather, Ella Aboutboul overheard equestrians chatting cheerfully as they passed by her window in West Sussex, England. Tsanka Shishkova was entertained by a virtuoso’s “Winter” in Sofia, Bulgaria.
winter melancholy
clip-clopping riders
laughing for me
* * *
snowstorm
icy lace on the window
Vivaldi’s violin
Tomislav Maretic wrote his resolutions for the incoming lunar new year in Zagreb, Croatia.
Chariots of fire--
I have not yet finished
all my battles
Writing a tribute about a fashion icon in Tehran, Iran, Pegah Rahmati Nezhad closed with the words, “May she rest in beauty.”
in leap years
i’m twenty-six
Iris Apfel’s epilog
Alexander Groth contemplated the meaning of fleeting beauty in Berlin, Germany.
if beauty
held not impermanence within
what would be its worth
Mario Massimo Zontini looked over the fence from time to time in Parma, Italy.
another cold day
my neighbour’s dog barks,
not much
Chen-ou Liu pressed his nose up against a window in Ajax, Ontario. Georgiev kept his nose to the grindstone in Gottingen, Germany.
work work work and work
etched across my office pane...
sunlight tinged gray
* * *
backbreaking work
closer and closer
to the ground
Dennison noted on her calendar that the hardworking squirrels which concealed food with their snout and paws last autumn will soon awake from hibernation. Marie Derley tried to suspend time in Ath, Belgium. Urszula Marciniak awoke early in Lodz, Poland.
tap...tap...tap...
a squirrel
buries nuts
* * *
staying in autumn
because the image is nicer
wall calendar
* * *
a winter morning
a squirrel clutching
a dug-up nut
Haikuists celebrated end of winter (setsubun) events by throwing beans to ward off evil spirits at shrines and temples. Attending the Feb. 3 festival at a temple in Tokyo, Murasaki Sagano felt like a kid again. At home in his kitchen in Honolulu, Hawaii, Raj K. Bose fondly recalled playing with his brothers and sisters.
waffle hollows
full of honey…
bean-throwing festival
* * *
shelling peas
I recall the faces
of all my siblings
Teiichi Suzuki sat near sumo wrestlers in the subway who were heading home from Nanba station in Osaka.
Sweet scented hair oil
from sumo wrestlers’ topknots
the crowded subway
Robin Rich threw a peanut to feed a squirrel but a crow got the rebound in icy Brighton, England.
throwing crows
the monkey nuts…
bounce off puddles
In Draguignan, France, Francoise Maurice watched flat stones skip across the ice.
frozen pond--anyway he throws a stone
Honey Novick tossed a coin for good luck in Toronto, Ontario.
winds of change breathe hope
like a wishing well dragon
new year new dreams abound
Dennison shivered at the sound of chemical reactions.
throwing salt...
the hiss
and crackle of ice
Carlos cried in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
ice pellets
the sting
of tear gas
Scott Reid froze in Monte Rio, California.
Minnesota ice--
the frozen song
of poetry
Rob Scott created this line fissure in Melbourne, Australia.
cracking ice another deadline approaches
Anthony Q. Rabang risked seven years of bad luck in Santa Catalina, Philippines.
swinging and slashing
with plastic swords
cracks on the mirror
Worried that “spirits wander aimlessly in suspended time,” Giordano shut her door tight at the seasonal division of winter and spring.
closed doors--devils and witches rule the night
Asleep at home in Nienhagen, Germany, Isabella Kramer’s eyes suddenly opened wide in the dark.
hidden moon
the something under my pillow
moves
Maretic recounted the history of the horses that were set free to roam in a wilderness region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, rather than be sent to slaughter.
rusty plows--
our horses take care
of themselves
* * *
snowy landscape--
Livno wild horses lick the salt
from the road
Slobodan Pupovac outstretched a handful of salt on a farm in Zagreb, Croatia. Georgiev watched a similar scene. Pegah Rahmati Nezhad relaxed in Tehran, Iran.
happy cow
moist palm
of my right hand
* * *
temptation
the salt already dissolved
in his warm hand
* * *
in her palm
a volcano hummingbird
in torpor
Sagano received a packet of salt to carry home.
purified salt
after the funeral
winter solitude
Patrick Sweeney empathized with a Russian author who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union and the Gulag prison system.
house to the car with cane
I’m Solzhenitsyn
in the snow
Yutaka Kitajima turned up the heat in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.
The coal stove maxes...
a soporific lecture on
The Tale of Genji
Dejan Ivanovic looks forward to Feb. 14 Valentine’s Day celebrations of love in Lazarevac, Serbia. Luciana Moretto pitied poor Juliet Capulet’s popularity with tourists in Treviso, Italy.
frosty February
the cats already meow
that love is in the air
* * *
Juliet’s statue in Verona
her right breast worn out...
endless yearning
Jackie Chou read a love story in Pico Rivera, California.
old diary
his name and mine
locked in a heart
Sagano visited India.
Taj Mahal
love crosswords in marble
windy flowers
Feeling melancholic from a profound saudade, Foteini Georgakopoulou found refuge in Athens, Greece.
in the shade
of a past love I shelter
in the winter
Sagano was charmed at a classical style cafe in Tokyo by an aged waiter who warned “please, be careful.”
hot wet towel
placed unfolded on my hands
Valentine’s Day waiter
Visiting Medellin, Colombia, Dina Towbin implored her lunch companions to share their leftovers rather than let the waitstaff return the exquisite-tasting food and beverages to the kitchen.
unforgettable lemonade
delicious cheesy bread
don’t let them take yours
Kitajima dedicated this poem to his granddaughter, who is “charming like Kaguya-hime.” In a folktale about a bamboo cutter, a mysterious baby found in a bamboo stalk grew into a beautiful woman who rejected all her suitors with impossible tasks until she flew away to the moon.
Puffy wind
stirs fluffy hairs off
the bonnet
Lethargic after a vacation away from his political science studies at St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata, India, Allen David Simon felt a little off routine.
year’s first class--
my fingers forgot
how to hold a pen
Yumi Miyashita won the 7th Annual English Haiku Contest at Kagawa University. Judges praised the work of the fifth-year medical student for sharing a real story in a “vivid, powerful, and memorable haiku” which strikes at all our senses.
Blood pumping from the bag
Like drums calling out her name
She is meant to live
Zontini heard mellow, mournful sounds at a beach. Gordana Vlasic wondered if birds might have escaped from a zoo. The cold seeped deep into Johnson’s thoughts. Vasile Moldovan observed birds form Vs as they migrated further south from Bucharest, Romania.
the snow falls:
from the shore the muffled cry
of the plovers
* * *
frozen lake--
at the zoo the children search
for swans
* * *
not far enough south
tundra swans honk at
freezing rain
* * *
the northern wind
increasing their flying speed
flocks of cranes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Feb. 20. Readers are invited to send haiku about imperfection on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or e-mail to mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp.
* * *
David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.
McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.
McMurray’s award-winning books include: “Teaching and Learning Haiku in English” (2022); “Only One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor” (2015); “Canada Project Collected Essays & Poems” Vols. 1-8 (2013); and “Haiku in English as a Japanese Language” (2003).
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