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MITSUAKI KOJIMA |
Realizing a beautiful autumn day was taking shape overhead in Aomori, Tatsuko Toshima asked herself where she should visit. Having traveled to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World, German professor Horst Ludwig found himself asking a more practical question.
Where to go?
dragon shaped
floating clouds
Niagara Falls
giant parking area
Now, where's our car?
Chicago-based haikuist Miriam Solon visited Japan three years ago and continues to write retrospective poems about her impressions.
I pet the green frog
Japan is very friendly
Oh, they're poisonous?
Toshio Matsumoto asks a rhetorical question about his innermost feelings in a haiku that takes place in the space of a lightning flash over Osaka. Also in an introspective mood, Quebec poet Marco Fraticelli discovered a second or two of intense meditation.
Lightning
highlights my abyss
What did you see?
Just before
my echo
in the darkness
Nobuko Masakawa successfully communicated with a crow in Osaka. In the woods near Madison, Wisconsin, Tom Dean spotted wild turkeys that in turn appeared to be watching him.
Copying its caw
crow on the telegraph pole
copies mine
In the woods
silent watchers
wild turkeys
Writing from the volcano-covered island of Kailua in Hawaii, Susan Marie LaVallee spent a tranquil evening watching houselights go on. In Nagoya, the same autumn night was noisier for Satoru Kanematsu.
One light then another
deep in the valley
a twinkling darkness
Deep darkness
after the fireworks
insect songs
Takashi Ikari took a walk from one part of Tokyo to another listening closely all the while to the sounds of autumn insects. Anna Akamatsu heard classical music in the winds that swept near her home in Kawasaki.
Cicadas
the chorus of Ueno differs
from Meguro
Autumn wind
on the morning street
Mozart plays
Noriko Yoshida went to Canterbury, England, this summer to teach haiga, watercolor sketches that accompany haiku. Her student Louise Bruxton sketched the coastal town, and Rosalba Luongo sat down for a cup of English tea.
Crowded street
browsing here and there
sudden shower
English seaside
toes curled round
sandy pebbles
Summer morning
mulberry leaves
cup of tea
Want to try composing haiku ?
Back numbers
The next issue of the Asahi Haikuist Network appears Oct. 7. Readers are invited to send haiku for the autumn, contest announcements, club meetings, and haiku anthologies for review to David McMurray at the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, 5-3-2 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8011, by fax to 03-5541-8539, or by e-mail to ＜is@asahi.com＞.
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ASAHI WEEKLY