Haiga: Ordered

For information about this memorial, please see KYSO Flash, issue 6, Fall 2016.

"Cartoon" haiga: to woo me

—haiga published in Prune Juice, issue 11, Nov. 2013

"to woo me" first published in Fire Pearls 2, 2013

artwork courtesy of friend Karen A. Smith

Haiga: spill your tanka

artwork courtesy of Karen A. Smith; dedicated to Sanford Goldstein

—Prune Juice, #10, July 2013

This is known as a haiga, sort of; haiga typically refers to a marriage between illustration and haiku, though mine contains a tanka (or kyoka) instead. I call this one, not surprisingly, a "cartoon haiga." 

Most poets in the tanka community probably are very familiar with the concept of "spilling." The expression above is attributed to Sanford Goldstein, scholar/professor, translator, and tanka master of the past few decades—also candid mentor and kind friend to many of us. I'm not a terribly prolific writer; Sanford told me several times to get myself to a cafe (as he himself would do) and then "spill" (without "thinking")! Maybe someday I'll better heed his advice, though I suspect I'll always prefer my own home, where my words tend to come out in the form of occasional sputters instead of flowing out.

For those in the U.S.: H A P P Y  T H A N K S G I V I N G!