empty pages
fallow fields
awaiting the turn of spring
Leslie Rose

state politics
the dog rolls in the puddle
he peed in
Leslie Rose

in the gate in my hand deep winter

w. f. owen

making Christmas cookies work turns to joy

w. f. owen

Sofia

On November 17, Ricardo and I woke to find that we had lost our beloved Sofia, our tiny, cross-eyed tabbie of 4-1/2 years. She had been in the vet's office two weeks before for a week-long stay because of fluid in her lungs. We all thought she was well (including the vet) when she was released and it's obvious she was not. She was special to us in many ways but especially because she was the only female among our family of cats. From the start, she was quite the doting mother to the boys. She will be greatly missed by us.

falling leaves
the outline of my cat's
dead body

Yvonne

autumn hike the mud makes us taller

w. f. owen

tooting my own horn

thanks to all for helping me revise and submit my work -- it pays off! (figuratively) . one of my tanka has been accepted for publication in bottle rockets and a haibun in CHO for the december issue! these are both firsts -- couldn't have gotten there without CVHC.

the ants are back
to back
in my kitchen



a letter
i imagine
your creases



on the bus
your seat, so used
to saving

rising heat fish hug the bottom

w. f. owen

before the fireworks a parent flares

w. f. owen

this constant moon
my parents discuss their
burial plans

Yvonne

passing clouds a foul ball into the stands

w. f. owen

picking the fruit my life half over

w. f. owen

the big house
he hopes to free himself
with haiku

Yvonne

the simple life

Part of haiku sensibilities go beyond "nature
poems." Many haiku focus on human life
that, to be sure, are part of nature, but I
think of the simpler, everyday activities.
Because haiku highlight moments, typically,
the mundane objects of life are elevated.
Modern humanity all too often rushes past
noticeable, yet unnoticed, simplicity.
Part of what attracts me to haiku writing
and reading is that it suggests mindfulness
and grounding in everyday reality.
In the past some writers have taken this
attitude to extreme. For example, one could
become an "ascetic" like Hosai Ozaki (see
"Right under the big sky, I don't wear a hat,"
Stone Bridge Press, P.O. Box 8208, Berkeley,
CA, 1993). Some of his poems:

Having run here through the wind, in his palm, hot coins (p. 37)

I know the footsteps of the sparrow walking on the mat (p. 105)

See this site for more on his book:

http://www.codeschaos.0catch.com/melancholy.html

We need not give up all worldly possessions like
Ozaki, but rather "slow down" to notice life's
simplicity. So, occasionally, I return to Ozaki's
small book as a reminder to notice more around
me, as with this poem from observing
carpenters:

bent over the apprentice straightens a nail

w. f. owen

before the cars drown the sound of wings flapping across water

--amy whitcomb

late afternoon
the tree's shadow
leans on my car

yvonne

ascending the steps
the scent of rosemary
first warm day
---Leslie Rose

horseshoes

day moon a pitched horseshoe leans against the stake

w. f. owen

food fair

food fair
scraping something
from my shoe*

The food is as varied as the people attending. Attire in creative colors and fabrics, every ethnicity, smells of concoctions intermingling, wafting through the throng. Booths offering samples delivered with oversized plastic gloves and hairnets never quite covering. And yet, from the mimes, to free magnets, to cartoon characters, to that guy on stilts with the constant smile, everything fits.

puppet show
she guides him
into his seat*

w. f. owen
* haiku notebook (pp. 40 & 53)

Keeping an Open Mind (repost)

Keeping an Open Mind's Eye

Part of the challenge of being a human and a haijin (haiku poet) is to make sense of the worlds around and within us. Regardless of where you live, work, or play, chances are high that you are surrounded by stimuli. Some stimuli are overt, others more subtle. The perception of these stimuli guide my actions and thoughts. They also guide my haiku. In writing haiku, I try to be aware of the stimuli and to understand the root, or essense, of the sensation(s) they invoke in me. As many haiku demonstrate, the stimuli are almost never extraordinary; they are common pieces of my natural and social environments that I capture by keeping my mind's eye open as best I can. There is no special place to look for "haiku moments" -- so look everywhere.

From what I've learned, haiku are the sights, smells, touch, tastes, and sounds of a moment in words that convey related images and interpretations. Other poems do this, too, but the haiku form does it particularly well by striving for conciseness and "show vs. tell." Because haiku is so often misunderstood or misrepresented as simple and trite, I think there may be haijin and haiku out there that we overlook. Consider the following poem, "Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost:

"The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued."

This poem, to me, expresses a "haiku moment" in a different (and arguably awkward) form. My intention is not to call Robert Frost a bad poet -- that would be wrong and ridiculous -- but rather to remind us to keep space in our days and hearts to be moved by such stimuli. I believe the important lesson is to invite and capture the images and senses of your days. ...The craft and revisions of the poems will come later.

Repost of Comments:


w. f. owen said...
Hi Amy,

Your post was very insightful. I
especially liked the last paragraph
about opening our senses and letting
the "craft" of writing come later. I know
for me the best haiku I've written merge
what I've sensed with the writing all
at once. Kind of a "eureka" moment.
It's as if the poem writes itself. Next
best, again for me, is the perception
followed closely by one or two versions
of a poem, which usually gets resolved
quickly. In any case, the sensation leads
the way. So, thanks for a thoughtful
post!

Bill

9:50 PM PDT
Mark Hollingsworth said...
Thank you, Amy.
Yes, I think there's a haiku moment in this poem. Yes, it is awkward. And it tells. And it only has one image. So how might this moment become a haiku. Maybe:

end of winter
crow on the hemlock branch
dusts me with snow

10:36 PM PDT

If I remember correctly, Mark led us in a workshop whereby we each selected a poem from The New Yorker Magazines provided and turned it into haiku. Perhaps we could do that again the next time we meet? Just as Amy's workshop at our last meeting was so helpful, regular poems into haiku can be quite insightful.

Whaddya think?

Yvonne Cabalona

P.S. to my last post

Very good point, readers, i.e. we compose haiku in different ways. Now that you mention it, mine are often "eureka" moments as well. When that happens, most I know are just right on, others I've been able to work on afterwards, and the remainder turn out to be nothing. Was I misleading in the blog in presenting the process a different way? No, I just hadn't thought it through very well, I guess. And the main point I guess I was trying to say is that I found this haiku moment in Robert Frost's collection and it surprised me so much -- that I saw haiku outside of MH and Frogpond; that I recognized the sensation as a haiku moment; that the form didn't seem to do justice to the experience. All food for thought. Thanks for reading and responding.

spring planting
the rise and fall
of a flock of birds

moonless night
search lights cross
uncross themselves

Posted by Yvonne Cabalona

Haiku and related forms by CVHC Members

Here are some items our members
have published or are working on
(all rights reserved by each writer).

through chain link
and over razor wire
blooming almond tree

before dawn
silhouette
of a mockingbird song

• Mark Hollingsworth

distant thunder
a few cherry blossoms
float to earth

just blossoming
we meet under
the cherry tree

spring darkness
the scent of cherry blossoms
is bright

• w. f. owen

The Jerry Kilbride Memorial 2008 English-Language Haibun Contest

The Jerry Kilbride Memorial 2008 English-Language Haibun Contest


Sponsor: Central Valley Haiku Club

Deadline: In hand by September 1, 2008

Submissions: All entries must be unpublished, not under consideration elsewhere, and in English. No limit to the number or length of any submissions. Submit three copies of each haibun, two (2) copies without author information attached for anonymous judging, one (1) copy with author’s name, address, phone number and e-mail address for notification purposes. A first prize of $100 and a second prize of $50 will be awarded. Honorable mention certificates also will be given. The entry fee ($5 US dollars per haibun) should be made out to: Mark Hollingsworth (CVHC Treasurer).

Eligibility: Open to the public; CVHC officers are not eligible.

Correspondence: No entries will be returned. Send business-sized SASE for a list of the winning entries. Please note that entries without SASE, insufficient postage, or that fail to adhere to contest rules will be disqualified.

Judges: Will not be disclosed until the contest winner has been decided.

Send entries to: Yvonne Cabalona, 709 Auburn Street, Modesto, CA 95350-6079.

Central Valley Haiku Club books

The Central Valley Haiku Club (CVHC) has several member-written books available from our Leaning Bamboo Press:

blink: A collection of haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun. Yvonne Cabalona, Don Delcollo, Ty Hadman, Kaz Ide, Jennifer Jensen, Jerry Kilbride, Shiela Mahan, Claris Moore, w. f. owen, Jo Lea Parker, and Barbara J. Williams. 2002. $5 USD

feel of the handrail: Haiku by Yvonne Cabalona, Mark Hollingsworth, Claris Moore, w. f. owen, Lane Parker, Leslie Rose, and June Shook. $7 USD

Tangled in Dreams: A linked haibun project. Yvonne Cabalona, Mark Hollingsworth, Claris Moore, w. f. owen, Lane Parker, and Leslie Rose. Includes the first place and first and second honorable mentions of the CVHC's Second Annual English-Language Haibun Contest. 2006. $9 USD

Contact:
Leaning Bamboo Press
709 Auburn Street
Modesto, CA 95350
YCabalona@sylvan.k12.ca.us

New Haibun Book by w. f. owen

Fifty haibun by w.f. owen entitled
"small events: haibun by w. f. owen"
now available from Red Moon Press:
http://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/

haiku notebook by w. f. owen

Announcing w. f. owen's new book, "haiku notebook" published on
Lulu.com (and also available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and
Borders). ISBN 978-1-4303-0557-6

This notebook is a bridge between technical manuals on how to write haiku poetry and collections of haiku. There are two hundred haiku and senryu poems from w. f. owen’s last several years of writing. As a professor of interpersonal communication and an award-winning haiku writer, the author presents commentaries, perceptions, brief stories and haibun that are intended to help authors new to this art compose their poems. Included are first-place poems from the Harold Henderson Haiku Contest (2004) and the Gerald Brady Senryu Contests (2002, 2003) sponsored by the Haiku Society of America.

New Work by the Central Valley Haiku Club (CVHC)

The Central Valley Haiku Club has been very active
this past year. Publication of our linked haibun
book "Tangled in Dreams" and sponsorship of
the Haiku Society of America conference this
past June in Sacramento.

Here are recent works by our club members.

haiku:

evening stroll
filling his void
spring peepers

autumn dusk-
red leaves coming down
with the rain

Amy Whitcomb

tan renga:

first warm day
fleas jumping
on linoleum

a horseshoe
thuds the box

w.f. owen (first three lines)
Mark Hollingsworth (last two lines)

end of summer
washing sand
from our swimsuits

feet squeezing
into school shoes

w.f. owen (first three lines)
Yvonne Cabalona (last two lines)

Frogpond, XXIX, No. 3, 2006

senryu:

flower arranging
we gather
around the table

Frogpond, XXIX, No. 3, 2006

Recent CVHC Writings

Our club--The Central Valley Haiku Club or CVHC--continues to be prolific.
Look for our linked haibun book, Tangled in Dreams, available now.

In addition, all of us continue to publish poems and written forms
related to haiku poetry in contests and the many journals in the field
(e.g., Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Mariposa).

early spring--
when the rain stops
I close the door

--Lane Parker

spring hillside
shadow of a cloud
nears a Holstein

--Mark Hollingsworth

end of summer
washing sand
from our swim suits

feet squeezing
into school shoes

--w.f. owen and Yvonne Cabalona
(a three-line poem followed by a two line poem--called tan renga)

green meadow
waiting for flowers
my plant press

--Amy Whitcomb

first warm day
fleas jumping
on linoleum

a horseshoe
thuds the box
(another tan renga)

Best Wishes,
w.f. owen
CVHC President

CVHC Member Publications (Fall 2005)

The Central Valley Haiku Club (CVHC) members have been very active in publishing their work in the last few months.
Here are some examples:

Arrangements

It's February, 1945. My great uncle Paul has been in Belgium fighting the Germans. His younger brother Robert, my grandfather, has been back east going through officer's training.

Robert arrives in Los Angeles on leave. He enters his mother's house, looks around the usually austere, practical living room. Sees the flower arrangements. He grins quizzically and says, "Who died?"

hometown
orange groves and loam
paved over

Lane Parker

Simply Haiku
Autumn 2005
http://www.simplyhaiku.com/


Stripped

One of the screws holding the nameplate on the plaque my fiance made for me is stripped. Over and over she says she wants to replace it, but I tell her that’s what makes the gift perfect. At the end of the summer, she has to leave Hawaii for the mainland to resume college, while I finish my fourth year in the Marine Corps. Distance in geography and education levels caused our eventual breakup, but we kept up with each other’s lives through letters: my marriage, new house and jobs, her college degrees and fight against breast cancer.

At work I receive a letter from her younger brother saying the mastectomy and chemotherapy have not been enough to win her battle.

early spring
before she can tie it
the balloon escapes

w.f. owen
Modern Haiku
Volume 36, Number 1
Winter-Spring 2005

Selections from the CVHC book, "feel of the handrail," (Leaning Bamboo Press)
Copyright © 2005Central Valley Haiku Club

canal water
pouring onto itself . . .
my thoughts empty

Yvonne Cabalona

nursing home
the feel
of the handrail

Mark Hollingsworth

giant redwood
standing at the bottom
looking for the top

Claris Moore

shaking out
the picnic blanket
first stars

w.f. owen

summer day
wishing I were that bee
in the honeysuckle

Lane Parker

valley wind
pine needles litter
a swept deck

Leslie Rose

Easter
a ray of sun lights up
my son's photo

June Shook

Recent CVHC Member Poems

Here are some poems our members have published or that
were read at our meetings or that appeared in our newsletter:

a stain each day
upon the garage door
dog pee
the neighbor on his walk
stops to share gossip

~ Leslie Rose

origami . . .
I coax a frog
from my fingers

~ Yvonne Cabalona

spring thunder
slight cracks in the
swollen tree buds

~ w.f. owen

New Online Haibun Journal

There is a new online quarterly journal of English-language haibun
named after the annual printed volume: contemporary Haibun.
The web address is:

http://poetrylives.com/CHO/index11.html

This could be an exciting development as it has
haibun not included in the paper version. It
does not have everything that was printed in
the paperbound book, but it gives dozens
of haibun examples. Check it out.

A Note on Haiku Forms

Most of the books and essays on haiku address the 5-7-5 syllable, three-line
issue. Without re-addressing these issues, I think it's important to understand
that haiku are moments of insight. The poet sees or hears something and it is
like a snapshot or brief snippet of song. It is brief. Haiku should be as brief--the
length of a breath, or less. I usually attempt to be as brief as possible--no extra
words or syllables. Such as:

pet store
nose prints
both sides

w.f. owen
A New Resonance 2 (Red Moon Press), 2001

Other times, there is a rhythmic quality that is part of the meaning (that is, in
concert with, but distinct from the word meanings). Such as:

early autumn chill
the widow brings home a fish
in a plastic bag

w.f. owen
Mainichi Daily News, September 2004, Tokyo, Japan

This poem is one of the few 5-7-5 syllable counts I have written. I think mainly it just
came out "right" that way. Maybe it is because I featured the old woman trudging all
the way home with her new companion. Even though a small package, she likely
was exhausted at the end of her shopping trip. Long poem, long shopping trip.

Also, some poems are best written in one line--often if a line is consistent with
the image(s), such as:

another argument unfolds the futon

w.f. owen
A New Resonance 2 (Red Moon Press), 2001

The whole point is that there are multiple forms for haiku, but that, in my opinion,
must be "right" for the experience of the moment.

Defining haiku, senryu and haibun

Definitions of literary forms vary of course and many gray areas exist. This is as it should be, in my opinion, with art. True art knows no boundaries. Nonetheless, some conventional definitions help frame our understanding. Currently, there is a review and recommendation for changes in these definitions by the Haiku Society of America (HSA). See http://www.hsa-haiku.org/

haiku: 1: An unrhymed Japanese poem recording the essence of a moment keenly perceived, in which Nature is linked to human nature. It usually consists of seventeen onji.

2: A foreign adaptation of 1, usually written in three lines totalling fewer than seventeen syllables.

(From every issue of Frogpond (http://www.hsa-haiku.org/)

Examples:

personal effects
the scent
of the cedar chest

w.f. owen

(Frogpond XXVII, No. 2, 2004)

spring
flipping the comforter to
a lighter shade of blue

Yvonne Cabalona

(A New Resonance 3: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Red Moon Press, Winchester, VA
22504-1661, 2001, Eds. Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts).

senryu: 1: A Japanese poem structurally similar to the Japanese haiku but primarily concerned with human nature;
often humorous or satiric.

2: A foreign adaptation of 1.

(From every issue of Frogpond (http://www.hsa-haiku.org/)

Examples:

sunny day
the tiny hole
in her black stockings

Yvonne Cabalona

(A New Resonance 3: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Red Moon Press, Winchester, VA
22504-1661, 2001, Eds. Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts).

divorced
she cleans the ring
around the tub

w.f. owen

(1st Place Brady Senryu Contest, 2002)

haibun: "a sort of verbal collage that contains passages of prose combined with haiku" (Lee Gurga, Haiku: A Poet's Guide, Lincoln. Illinois: Modern Haiku Press, 2003).

Example:

Mumblety-peg

The pocketknife lands in the black Texas mud just beyond his foot. In this game called “split,” we take turns throwing a knife outside our friend’s position. He stretches a leg out to the knife, pulls it from the ground, then takes his throw. The first person to fall while stretching loses. This Yankee kid named Ed stretches out, loses his balance, then falls to the hoots and howls of my buddies. Keeping with tradition, I wipe my blade clean on his clothes. From New York, Ed talks funny--he calls our knife game “mumblety-peg”--but he has a nice Case pocketknife and turns out to be our high school’s best football player. After a while, we got used to his northern accent.


September sky
hearing that a friend
was in the first tower

w.f. owen
(Modern Haiku, 35:3, page 92, 2004)

haiku books, journals and web sites

Acorn. http://home.earthlink.net/~missias/Acorn.html

bottle rockets: A collection of short verse.
http://www.geocities.com/bottlerockets_99/

Haiku: A Poet’s Guide, Lee Gurga (Lincoln, Illinois: Modern Haiku Press), 2003.
www.modernhaiku.org

Haiku Society of America. See: http://www.hsa-haiku.org/

Narrow Road to the Interior and Other Writings. Matsuo Basho translated by Sam Hamil (Boston, MA: Shambhala), 1998. (Especially good for understanding haibun).

Red Moon Press: http://www.haikuworld.org/books/redmoon/books.redmoon.html
Publishers of: Red Moon Anthologies, New Resonance, Contemporay Haibun,
etc.

The Haiku Handbook, William J. Higginson with Penny Harter (Tokyo: Kodansha
International), 1985.

The Heron’s Nest. http://www.theheronsnest.com/

Indian summer haiku

Indian summer
a spent salmon
washes ashore

w.f. owen
1st Place, Henderson Haiku Award, 2004

Indian summer
a fish slips through
the gill net

w.f. owen
3rd Place, Henderson Haiku Award, 2001

Indian summer
rust on our hands
from the swing

w.f. owen
3rd Place, Haiku Poets of Northern California Award, 2003

Indian summer is that period after a cool or cold period of weather in which there is unusual warmth. As I understand it, in Japanese haiku, it is referred to as "little spring." I especially like writing about Indian summer because it is a transitional time, a time in which new life or a "last fling" of activity is felt before hibernation. To me, the exciting times to write haiku are those of change, transition and life/death. It also is a time in which our mortality is experienced--the ebb and flow of life and death.

blink

blink

bill tells the story of his stroke on Super Bowl Sunday. a baseball player, golfer and high school honor student. much of that taken away as he sat in a recliner during halftime. he is a new advisee of mine at the College. six years, and only a sophomore. he takes one course at a time. one day at a time, he laughs. dark glasses. a white cane. he finds the buildings on campus by the colors and shapes of air conditioning units on top. recently, they repainted our building a different color, throwing off his internal map. he found his way by the different scents of flowers and shrubs bordering the sidewalks. "you turn left at the roses, then right at the mock orange. it's easy."

i saw bill only a few more times. we chatted about the new plants on campus.

humid stillness
in the bush
the frog's blink

w.f. owen

This is a haibun published in the chapbook by the same name by The Central Valley Haiku club, 2002; Frogpond, XXVI: 1, 2003 and in Contemporary Haibun 3, 2003 (Red Moon Press).

The story is from the time I taught at Texas A&M University for eight years in the late 1980's and remains among my favorites . . . None of us knows what can transpire in the time it takes to blink . . .