MITSUAKI KOJIMA

The new year started with the sound of a ship's whistle for Satoru Kanematsu in Nagoya. For German poet Angelika Wienert, the special day began with a fresh cup of tea and spring poetry.

New Year starts
sound of steam whistles
from the port

The kettle whistles ...
reading spring poems
this winter day

Writing from Vancouver Island in Canada, Angelika Kolompar started her year in a light-hearted mood, noting that the demarcation of one year into the next isn't really that profound. In Tokyo, Mitsutaka Oi also thinks New Year preparations shouldn't be taken too seriously.

12:01
the young man takes a bath
in last year's water

New Year's Day
continuity of
toilet roll

Yutaka Kitajima spent a noteworthy day at the piano in Niigata. Noriko Yoshida combined haiku poems with artist strokes in Tokyo.

Quietness
first notes of the year
piano

Brushing
the first haiga
dawn is breaking

While surfing the Internet, Michio Tajima stumbled onto the Asahi Haikuist Network Web site and decided to pen her first haiku in English. The last words on the first and third lines rhyme, a poetic technique that helps to emphasize the word both. Matthew Doye was similarly inspired to share his first haiku. Robins are usually a first sign of spring, making him quite happy when he saw one already in his garden in Somerset, England.

Crispy breeze
first sunrise
both to seize

Winter bird
hunting in the snow
red on white

Angelee Deodhar chose to emphasize timing in her poem composed in India making it clear which sound was heard first. I recommend cutting the adverbs first and then, because the lines of the poem do the same thing even more effectively.

Pure, clear sky
first the temple conch
then the New Years' bells

Half the world's population likely wear T-shirts and sandals because of poverty and heat, but Kazuko Utsunomiya notes that doesn't mean it is necessarily easier to live in cold Osaka.

Expensive
these winter clothes
empty purse

Paul Faust put on an extra blanket in his home in Hyogo Prefecture, but vegetable farmers in Tokyo had to face the cold winds unprotected writes Kiyoshi Fukuzawa.

The new year begins
there blows a fresh, frozen wind ...
an extra blanket

Old farmer
faceless in the cold
picking broccoli

Using colors in her poetry, Reiko Nishimura hints at the arrival of spring.

Daffodils
soft yellow firm green
her memento

Want to try composing haiku ?

Back numbers

The Asahi Haikuist Network next appears on Feb. 3. Send haiku 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>.