Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on Remembrance of 9/11

My Dear Friends:

On this 25th anniversary of 9/11, I would like to share a few poems reflecting on how we—Americans and non-Americans alike—remember this tragedy: not only through the lens of individual grief, but also against the heavy sociopolitical and geopolitical landscape shaped by the “War on Terror.”

false dawn

in a bead of grass dew —

September 11

another year

another “thoughts and prayers” —

9/11, grayer

And after ...

Facing south, a sea of white empty chairs, 2,753 in all, flooded the lawn of Bryant Park, Midtown Manhattan. One for each person. Not a breath of air. This burden of hushed silence...

blinds drawn

against the light of dawn

9/11, yet not

FYI: This is a sequel to my haibun below:

An Unofficial Story, A Haibun

for Oskar

ink-black:

smoke trails a life

from the north tower

Another sleepless night. Winter moonlight on the empty side of her bed. From the bedside table, she picks up A Place of Remembrance: The Official Photo Book of 9/11. She stares at the book for a moment. The tears roll down her face as she rips out some of the pages. With a sigh, she puts the torn-out pages in reverse order. When she flips through them, dozens of people are flying through the windows back into the building.

Editor's Choice Haibun, Cattails, May, 2015

Comment by cattails Haibun Editor Sonam Chhoki: The power of Chen-ou Liu’s haibun, "An Unofficial Story for Oskar" lies in its closing sentence: “When she flips through them, dozens of people are flying through the windows back into the building.” It is amazingly evocative image that has echoes of redemption and freedom from the tyranny of time.

Retracing and Reflecting

for those who have journeyed heavily across the landscape of the heart

the light of dawn

on September Twelfth

the time it takes 

for leaves to zigzag

to the dust-choked ground

off the tower

one after many sped downward —

Muslim lives

and our world ripped by the day

before and forever

the footprint

of each tower that once stood

now surrounded

by four walls of water and grief

an Afghan woman's look

FYI: The dedication alludes to Melvina Young's remark:

Sadness takes its own time. It can't be hurried along. It can't be rushed. It "moves heavily across the landscape of the heart" until time and love can carry it further into the distance. 

Added:

Ground Zero silence --

yet this golfball-brained man

closes his eyes, snoring

FYI: The New Republic, September 11, 2026: Trump Falls Asleep Onstage at September 11 Ceremony

One Man's Maple Moon: Battledress Tanka by André Surridge

English Original

from the beach

at Anzac Cove

a stone

the colour

of your battledress.

Eucalypt, 6, 2009

André Surridge

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

來自澳紐軍團灣

的

海灘

一塊石頭

的

顏色

和你

的

軍服一樣

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

来自澳纽军团湾

的海滩

一块石头

的颜色

和你的军服一样

Bio Sketch

André Surridge was an award-winning playwright and poet who immigrated to New Zealand from Yorkshire, England in 1972. He was President of the Playwrights Association of New Zealand from 1998-2000. Widely published, some of his awards included: 1995 Minolta Playwriting Award,  2007 Elizabeth Searle Lamb Award, 2008 Tanka Splendor Award, and 2010 Jane Reichhold International prize. And his first collection of haiku and senryu, one hundred petals, was critically acclaimed in 2019.

Poetic Musings: Two Pebbles Tanka by Brendon Kent

two pebbles

and the river’s song

this willow

dancing the same way

you always did

(for Martha Magenta)

Love: The British Haiku Society Members’ Tanka Anthology,  2020

Brendon Kent 

Commentary: Functioning like as an extra line, (for Martha Magenta), contextualizes the tanka as a tribute to the haiku poet and NeverEnding Story contributor Martha Magenta known for her "nature-driven minimalist poetry." 

(For example, 

river mist

a damselfly fades

into the blue

Haiku Dialogue, January 30, 2019

Martha Magenta 

L1 sets an immediate, atmospheric scene while this "ephemeral creature," a damselfly, "fad[ing] / into the blue," Ls 2&3, reinforces that sense of transience)

The structure and tone of this tanka reflect her aesthetic and effectively use minimal nature imagery (Ls 1-3) to evoke grief, remembrance, and the "continuity of nature" after her passing (Ls 3-5). The tanka turns gently from nature to personal loss without breaking the imagery, making the homage feel organic.

The natural landscape depicted in the tanka doesn’t just reflect emotion; it becomes the medium through which the memory is kept alive (L5).

One Man's Maple Moon: Two Pebbles Tanka by Brendon Kent

English Original

two pebbles

and the river’s song

this willow

dancing the same way

you always did

(for Martha Magenta)

Love: The British Haiku Society Members’ Tanka Anthology,  2020

Brendon Kent 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

兩顆鵝卵石

以及河流的歌聲

這棵柳樹

像往常一樣隨風起舞

你一直都是這樣

(獻給瑪莎‧瑪金塔）

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

两颗鹅卵石

以及河流的歌声

这棵柳树

像往常一样随风起舞

你一直都是这样

(献给玛莎‧玛金塔）

Bio Sketch

    

Brendon Kent lived in Botley, an old countryside village in Southern England (circa 890 A.D.) Born in the late 50's he had written poetry for many years preferring the "short forms." Brendon's haiku/senryu were published worldwide in many leading books and journals. He was a member of the British Haiku Society.

Biting NOT Barking: Honored Dead Haiku by Cor van den Heuvel

English Original

after the speeches

the honored dead return

to their silence

Dark, 1982

Cor van den Heuvel 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

演講結束後

褒揚的死者回到

他們的沉默

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

演讲结束后

褒扬的死者回到

他们的沉默

Bio Sketch

Cor van den Heuvel (March 16, 1931 - September 12, 2024) authored hundreds of haiku and haibun, including one of the most controversial works of the 20th century, one-word haiku: tundra. In addition to more than a dozen collections, he edited or co-edited a number of influential anthologies, most notably three editions of The Haiku Anthology, as well as Baseball Haiku. He also won three Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, a World Haiku Achievement Award at the World Haiku Festival, and the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.

A Room of My Own: A Day, As Usual

written in response to the Great War's/World War I's slogan: the war to end all wars.

war after war news

lengthening the morning chill

Remembrance Sunday

Remembrance Parade

shoulder to shoulder to shoulder

headless shadows

FYI: "It was the British author, H.G. Wells, that coined the expression: 'The war that will end war' to describe World War One, which had broken out in Europe in September 1914. Wells believed the conflict would create a new world order that would make future conflict impossible."

And Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law: Today, it monitors more than 110 armed conflicts and provides information about parties, the latest developments, and applicable international law. Some of these conflicts make the headlines, others do not. Some of them started recently, while others have lasted for more than 50 years.

Added:

a thin layer of dust 

on the Unknown Soldier Statue

Remembrance day

Added:

Remembrance Day

an armless veteran sighs

what is life worth?

Special Feature: Selected Poetry for Reflections on Remembrance Day through the Lens of Gaza and Ukraine

                                                                                                        war after war news ...

                                                                                                        Remembrance Day parade

                                                                                                        long and longer

                                                                                                        Chen-ou Liu

Peace-loving people around the world this morning remembered the slaughter and losses in the battlefields of World War I, also known as the Great War that was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.”

news the war to end all wars rolling 

Helen Buckingham

"Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences." (The Washington Post, Nov. 11: Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages)  

no-man’s land

the rattle of a troop train

returning empty

Ernest J. Berry

war zone ...

amongst the rubble

an empty birdcage

Mohammad Azim Khan

"This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today,” said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgium’s Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought." (The Washington Post, Nov. 11)  

taking me out of the war the war

H. Gene Murtha 

fall leaves

burying toy soldiers

her small son

Fonda Bell Miller

poppies at dusk

in my dream, he says yes

the boy lost to war

Richa Sharma

watercolor poppies

blowing across the field ...

why

is it so hard

to learn from history

Rebecca Drouilhet

"...Then, as now, the quest for deterrence sparked a pre-war arms rivalry, marked by corruption and price gouging. Military lobbies and leagues (today’s ‘think tanks’), funded by arms companies and financiers, promoted deterrence as indispensable. Ex-politicians, military wonks, and Defence public servants crossed over to lucrative jobs with the military lobbies and arms companies, and promoted deterrence as indispensable. And deterrence failed...

That war is a black hole, that sucks in everything – rationality, proportionality, and humanity itself. That war is a black hole that sucks in everybody – the courageous and the cowardly, the virtuous and the vengeful, the innocent and the guilty. All buried.

And thus, that whoever wins the war, the war always wins." (Pearls and Irritations, Nov 11: Remembrance Day through the lens of Gaza and Ukraine)

This Remembrance Day, the great juggernaut of war is crushing thousands.

no man's land

between barbed wire fences

the kraa-kraa-kraa

of ravens scratching

at the soldiers' hearts

Chen-ou Liu

FYI: "no man's land" is the concluding tanka of my tanka prose, "Independence," nominated by the Tanka Society of America for the Pushcart Press Competition.

drifting snow

each of the war dead

has their story

Marianne Paul

Butterfly Dream: Father Haiku by Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

English Original

Remembrance Day

different stories

about my father

Prize Winner, 19th HIA Haiku Contest, 2017

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

陣亡將士紀念日

關於我父親

不同的故事

Chinese Translation (Simplified) 

阵亡将士纪念日

关于我父亲

不同的故事

Bio Sketch

Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă is a teacher and writer in Botoșani, Romania. His haiku has appeared in several  journals and anthologies. He coordinates the Sakura Haiku Club activities in his hometown, proposes the themes for the monthly Romanian Kukai, and takes part in the organizing committee of the International Haiku Contest "Sharpening the green pencil." 

Special Feature: Selected Poppies Poems for Remembrance Day

                                                                                                at the edge

                                                                                                of his childhood river

                                                                                                face to to face 

                                                                                                with a heron on one leg ...

                                                                                                armless Afghan War veteran

Today is Remembrance Day, and the Remembrance Day symbolism of the poppy began with a poem written by a World War I brigade surgeon, Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who was struck by the sight of the red flowers growing on a ravaged battlefield. 

"In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

The poppy symbol made its first appearance in 1921, and this year, 2021, marks the 100th anniversary of the poppy campaign to support war veterans. To reflect on this historically significant and sociopolitically critical Remembrance Day. I would like to encourage each of you to take time to rethink the politics of war memory and commemoration through the poppies poems selected below:

Selected Poems:

                 a poppy ...

          a field of poppies!

the hills blowing with poppies!

Michael McClintock

dreading

the call that says

he’s gone ...

two petals left

on the last poppy

Kirsten Cliff Elliot

poppies bloom

among the rows of crosses

a fleeting cloud

Chen-ou Liu

watercolor poppies

blowing across the field . . .

why

is it so hard

to learn from history

Rebecca Drouilhet

          poppies

            again

           & again

           & again

the open fields & the sky

A A Marcoff

To conclude today's Remembrance Day Special feature post, I would like to share with you my thematically different and emotionally and politically challenging white poppy poem:

Collateral Damage

for Susan Sontag

white poppy

pinned to her son's first suit

Remembrance Day

Inside the top drawer of her husband's wooden desk, there is an old photo album. It starts with pictures of toy trucks, toy soldiers, toy tanks, and other delights of boys from the neighborhood playing in the sunlight. It ends with the picture of a new military cemetery with a row of white crosses in winter mist.

Note: First introduced by British pacifists in 1926, the white poppy is used as a symbol of peace and worn as an alternative to (or complement to) the red poppy for Remembrance Day.

Chen-ou

Special Feature: Selected Haiku for Remembrance Day

My Dear Readers:

To celebrate 100th birthday on Remembrance Sunday. I would like to encourage each of you to take time to rethink the politics of war memory and commemoration through the haiku selected below:

news the war to end all wars rolling

Helen Buckingham
(Note: "The war to end all wars" was a term for the First World War. Originally idealistic, it is now used mainly sardonically)

taking me out of the war the war

H. Gene Murtha

news of war
wrapped on a fish --
the smell lingers

Carl Seguiban

after the bombing
ruins of a bridge
linked by the fog

Nebojša Simin

a drizzling rain ...
washing their blood
into their blood

Michael McClintock

war dead
exit out of a blue mathematics

Sugimura Seirinshi

ceasefire --
a soldier comes home
wrapped in moonlight

Arvinder Kaur

memorial day
the parade lengthens
by a new war

Gail Oare

army of sunflowers
again peace becomes
war somewhere

Dietmar Tauchner

the road
to a war cemetery
morning glories

Chen-ou Liu

shadow on the Tomb
of the Unknown Soldier
Remembrance Day

Chen-ou Liu

Veteran’s Day
he salutes with his
missing hand

Edward Huddleston

Special Feature: War and Peace Haiku for Remembrance Day

                                                                       Living Sepulchres

                                                                       One frosty night when the guns were still
                                                                        I leaned against the trench
                                                                        Making for myself hokku (haiku)
                                                                        Of the moon and flowers and of snow
                                                                        But the ghostly scurrying of huge rats
                                                                        Swollen with feeding upon men's flesh
                                                                        Filled me with shrinking dread.

                                                                        Richard Aldington

My Dear Readers:

Today, we commemorate Armistice Day and Remembrance Day through the study of three haiku essays:

I Snapshots: Haiku in the Great War by Sandra Simpson

An essay examining the role haiku played in the poetry of the World War I and considering the way haiku can be used as tool for remembrance and honoring

Selected Haiku:

bursts from our guns

the town on the horizon

a brief vision of light

Julien Vocance

Anzac parade

shoulder to shoulder

headless shadows

Andre Surridge

even the names

in the shade have faded --

memorial park

Lorin Ford

war

memorial

no higher

than

a boy

Sandra Simpson

war memorial --

the silence in a hand

saluting

Carole Harrison

half light --

the whispers of soldiers

on Anzac Day

Anne Curran

II Haiku and War by Paul Miller

"In the first part of this essay I will examine the landscape of war haiku. I will look at its history, discuss why poets might choose haiku instead of other genres for their impressions of war, look at who is writing war haiku, and point out some major themes. Additionally, since a haiku’s small size often means that its specific war is left unmentioned, I will discuss the sometime use of particular referents—and how those can help build a vertical axis. In the second part, I will move from the landscape of war haiku into the important questions that the poems and poets themselves raise. I will discuss the differences between the haiku of war participants and those who comment from the sidelines, look at haiku that take a moral stand, ask questions concerning authenticity—including creating a definition of authenticity that extends beyond war haiku, and examine the thorny question of historical revision. I will also discuss why any one of these issues can potentially cause a haiku to fail."

Selected Haiku:

after the bombing

ruins of a bridge

linked by the fog

Nebojša Simin

Spring evening.

The wheel of a troop carrier

Crushes a lizard.

Dimitar Anakiev

spring dewdrops

cling to a blade of grass –

Iraqi children

Chen-ou Liu

talking to the tree

outside the window

about rain, about the war

Marlina Rinzen

fall leaves

burying toy soldiers

her small son

Fonda Bell Miller

war dead

exit out of a blue mathematics

Sugimura Seirinshi

III Changing the World One Haiku at a Time: Review of Kamesan’s World Haiku Anthology on War, Violence and Human Rights Violations by Chen-ou Liu

This is our reply to violence: to make haiku more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. Changing the world one haiku at a time.

-- Chen-ou Liu paraphrasing Leonard Bernstein

Selected Haiku:

long-stemmed roses

he's back

without his leg

Melissa Allen

sun dogs

on the winter horizon ...

another body count

Francine Banwarth

suicide bomber

a head of lettuce

splattered with blood

Robert Lucky

a drizzling rain ...

washing their blood

into their blood

Michael McClintock

all that remains --

dreams of jungle,

sand, sky

Marilyn Hazelton

only american deaths count the stars

Scott Metz

A machine gun --

in the middle of the forehead

a red flower blooms.

Saito Sanki

To conclude today's "Armistice Day and Remembrance Day" post, I would like to encourage each of you to take time to rethink the politics of war memory and commemoration:

Collateral Damage

for Susan Sontag

white poppy

pinned to her son's first suit

Remembrance Day

Inside the top drawer of her husband's wooden desk, there is an old photo album. It starts with pictures of toy trucks, toy soldiers, toy tanks, and other delights of boys from the neighborhood playing in the sunlight. It ends with the picture of a new military cemetery with a row of white crosses in winter mist.

 Kokako, 24, April 2016

Note: First introduced by British pacifists in 1926, the white poppy is used as a symbol of peace and worn as an alternative to (or complement to) the red poppy for Remembrance Day.