Friday, December 28, 2018

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal

Volume 2:1, Autumn/Winter 2018-2019

 

 

 

 
 Welcome to the second Autumn/Winter issue of Autumn Moon Haiku Journal. The quality of the submissions has continued to be important and I thank those who submitted and were accepted for sharing their haiku moments with others around the world. In looking over these and other submitted haiku, a few issues occurred to me: haiku seems to be based on a balance between sensibility and phrasing. Phrasing should be poetic and not simply conversational. Haiku phrasing should not be overly flowery (which verges on sentimentality) nor overly telegraphic (which even results in poor English), undermining both haiku as poetry and haiku as clearly expressed insight. Sensibility expresses a haiku moment. As it is in much poetry, haiku should be almost musical in its nature. One of the reasons I have included the original language the haiku was written in, is to give the reader, perhaps, a sense of the music inherent in the given language. The music reflects the heightened experience that the poet had in his or her haiku moment. Sensibility is how each individual poet engages with the world. Although it is the same world that each poet engages, their sense of feeling, though often familiar, is decidedly their own. When these issues are considered and expressed by a distinct sensibility, the result leads to what most would consider great poetry.

                                                                                                                                   Bruce Ross, December 2018


vespers –
a flock of crows crossing
the valley

vecernie –
un stol de ciori
traversînd valea

          Maria Tirenescu, Romania


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