Haiku on the Horizon

I returned home from another tired Thursday.

She was happily munching on snack and bottled water in her car seat, so I stopped at the mailboxes to retrieve whatever still gets sent, and low and behold, there awaiting me was the most pleasant surprise, the next issue of Contemporary Literary Horizon.

Busy, tired, fountains, playground, doggy, tired, boats, water boiled or bottled until further notice, and then late at night, I dove into Don Riggs's essay on haiku. It comes with plenty of fun samples and the inside dope that he demands 250 of those 5/7/5 [redacted]ers, 25 per week, when teaching a 10-week creative-writing class. I can hear Don's voice in my head, where with some irony, he is introducing the students to the possibility of writing all 250 the night before the quarter's homework is due.

Thank you, Dr. Daniel Peaceman, for another wonderful issue of your transcontinental, trilingual project.

Thank you, Don for adding a touch of Nicole Kline's haiku, and allowing my nostalgia for past schools and itinerant appointments to blend in with the mix.

Philadelphia, when you're looking for your Poet-in-Residence, and if you're bold enough to consider someone on the margins of the short list--with apologies to all the other less recognized Philly poets, and I'll blog you all up soon--be sure to stop by any class taught by Don Riggs, and you'll see we are dealing not just with a poet but with a scholar who speaks a foreign language and would have a wonderful voice for leading us all further into poetry.

Or, if you prefer, just try the lesson Don mentions in the essay, the one about sitting for a half hour and writing haiku about anything you see. And yes, you're encouraged to choose the same subject twice.

I might just try that
right now. If you don't mind this
rather weak haiku.