Special Feature: Selected Poems for Father's Day

My Dear Readers and Friends:

Today is Father’s Day. To celebrate, I’m sharing a curated selection of haiku and tanka. These poems capture the changing faces of fatherhood and challenge us to rethink the impact of fathers in our world.

her tiny voice --

the apartment fills

with dad-dads

John Hawk

a toddler climbs

onto father's shoulders

to reach the kite

Goda V. Bendoraitiene

the foster girl

colors me into her life

Father's Day card

Chen-ou Liu

father's newspaper

a constant refuge

from conversation

Mike Gallagher

all that remains --

dad's Chevy leaving

a trail in the dust

Marion Alice Poirier

shooting star -- 

father’s ring

slips off my finger

H. Gene Murtha

I’ve this memory --

riding my father’s shoulders

into the ocean,

the poetry of things

before I could speak

Michael McClintock

fifty years on ...

dad's old guitar and me

get in tune at last

Natalia Kuznetsova

withering

the sunflowers still

in offering

at my father’s tomb --

it’s shorter than I

Kaleidoscope, 2007 

Shuji Terayama

To conclude today's Special Feature post, I would like to share with you the following tanka written for my late father:

alone again

on this winding road home

in slanted moonlight

I try to imagine my place

in the world without Father

FYI: This is a sequel to my tanka below:

Father's breath

fades into forever ...

I gaze out 

his hospice window

at the moon, its fullness

Haiku Page, 11, 2025

reprinted in Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, February 12 2026

One Man's Maple Moon: Van Gogh Tanka by André Surridge

English Original

they made

Van Gogh want to dream

these stars ...

he’s there now amongst them

his smile thick with paint

Commended, 2009 Kokako International Tanka Competition

André Surridge

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

他們讓

梵谷想要夢想

這些星星 ...

他現在就在它們之中

他

的笑容濃重得像是塗了厚厚的顏料

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

他们让

梵谷想要梦想

这些星星 ...

他现在就在它们之中

他的笑容浓重得像是涂了厚厚的颜料

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.

To the Lighthouse: Literary Device: Objective Correlative

An objective correlative is a literary device in which a writer uses a specific arrangement of objects, situations, or events to evoke an emotional response without directly naming the emotion itself.

The concept was first introduced by the 19th-century American painter Washington Allston, who explored the relationship between the mind and the external world. However, the term was popularized by poet and critic T.S. Eliot in his 1919 essay "Hamlet and His Problems." Eliot defined the objective correlative as "a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion." He argued that the artist's task is not to state emotion directly, but to discover an external equivalent through which that emotion can be experienced.

In poetry, particularly haiku, the objective correlative often appears as a carefully chosen image or juxtaposition that allows readers to discover emotional meaning through perception rather than explanation.

For example,

her last letter

in cursive ...

willow in the wind

hedgegrow, 142, 2023

Kelly Sargent

This haiku presents two distinct images: "her last letter / in cursive" and "willow in the wind." Rather than explicitly describing grief or farewell, it allows the emotional connection between the two images to emerge through association.

L1, "her last letter," immediately suggests finality, absence, and separation. L2, "in cursive ...," shifts attention away from the letter's content and toward its physical form. The ellipsis slows the reading, allowing the flowing movement of the handwriting to linger before the haiku turns outward toward the natural world.

L3, "willow in the wind," echoes the visual quality of cursive writing through its graceful, curving movement. The looping lines of handwriting and the bending branches create a subtle correspondence between human expression and nature. The willow also deepens the emotional atmosphere: its movement suggests vulnerability, tenderness, and remembrance.

Importantly, the willow is not merely a symbol of grief. It functions as an objective correlative because the emotion is embodied in a physical image. The reader experiences the feeling through the interaction between letter, handwriting, wind, and willow rather than through an explicit statement of sorrow.

By leaving the relationship between the two images open-ended, the haiku creates space for reflection. Its restraint gives it an elegiac quality, allowing feelings of farewell and memory to arise indirectly.

Another two haiku from mine below:

her side of the bed

slanted winter moonlight

in the crease

L1, "her side of the bed," immediately establishes both intimacy and absence. The relationship is implied, but the haiku does not explain what has happened. L2, "slanted winter moonlight" adds coldness, distance, and seasonality without directly assigning an emotional meaning.

L3, "in the crease," is the haiku's most powerful detail. A crease is a physical trace—a mark left behind by a body that is no longer present. The moonlight illuminating that crease draws attention not to emptiness itself, but to the lingering evidence of a former presence.

The haiku avoids the more familiar image of an empty pillow or an untouched side of the bed. Instead, it focuses on a subtle remnant of human presence. The emotion emerges from the arrangement of bed, moonlight, and crease rather than from commentary or explanation.

no reply yet ...

a spider repairing

its moonlit web

L1, "no reply yet ...," creates an immediate human situation: waiting, uncertainty, anticipation, and perhaps anxiety. The ellipsis visually extends the moment of waiting. The cut after the first line creates a meaningful shift from the human world of unanswered communication to the natural world.

The spider repairing its web in Ls 2&3 is an especially effective objective correlative. A damaged web suggests disruption, while the spider's patient act of repair suggests persistence and quiet resilience. The spider is not simply a symbol attached to the speaker's emotion; its actual behavior corresponds to the emotional condition of the haiku.

The adjective "moonlit" adds atmosphere without explanation. It also creates a subtle parallel between the speaker and the spider: both exist in a quiet nighttime moment, one waiting beside a device for a response, the other working to restore its fragile structure.

The strength of this haiku lies in its restraint. It does not say, "I am anxious" or "I feel abandoned." Instead, it presents a human silence and a spider's repair, allowing the reader to discover the emotional connection between them.

The objective correlative is especially compatible with haiku because haiku relies on concrete images and indirect suggestion. A successful haiku does not force an emotion upon the reader; it creates the conditions through which the emotion naturally arises.

The strongest objective correlatives do not function as simple symbols. They do not say, "this object means sadness" or "this image represents loneliness." Instead, they allow external reality—a crease in a bed, a willow moving in wind, a spider repairing its web—to become the physical form through which human experience is felt.

Added:

his last call missed ...

the porch chime 

in a winter night wind

Added:

a weeping willow

leans slightly downstream

life between gigs

A Room of My Own: Orphanage Gate Tanka

hand-me-down shirts

with elbows worn thin

in dim twilight

each boy's gaze tracks the couple 

past the orphanage gate

Added:

this fresh morning

I wake alone to the world

of broken dreams ...

yet outside new leaves bud

from an oak stump

Added:

alone

in California golden light

slanted through the room ...

I close my eyes, listening

to the child in my mind's corner

Added:

I waved at her

beyond the departure gate 

yet she didn’t turn ...

memories of her packed

into the folds of my mind

Added:

across the sky

streaks of orange, pink, and violet ...

burning letters

I wrote to her years ago

but never sent

Added: Politics of Distraction, XV

"peace deal" news on mute—

fold after fold

of ceasefire-strike thoughts

into a thousand

rainbow origami cranes

FYI: This tanka is a sequel to mine below:

Politics of Distraction, XII

flip-flopping

on the ceasefire deal

amid camera clicks --

a dove's feather caught spinning

in the White House's wire fence

NeverEnding Story, June 12 2026 

Added: Politics of Distraction, XVI

smell of muggy noon -- 

the Reflecting Pool's blue sky 

turns algae green

Butterfly Dream: Silhouette Haiku by Marion Alice Poirier

English Original

silhouette

through the closed shade

a crow's caw

Marion Alice Poirier

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

側影

穿過遮光簾

烏鴉的叫聲

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

侧影

穿过遮光帘

乌鸦的叫声

Bio Sketch

Marion Alice Poirier is a lifetime resident of Boston, MA. She began writing haiku in 2001 and eventually began to teach haiku in workshops on Poetry Circle and Emerging Poets. She also write short poetry and have been published in on-line haiku and short poetry journals like Tinywords, Hedgerow and The Heron's Nest.

Butterfly Dream: Muggy Noon Haiku by Kanchan Chatterjee

English Original

muggy noon ...

the ceiling fan starts

to creak

 

Wales Haiku Journal,  Autumn, 2021

Kanchan Chatterjee

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

悶熱的正午 ...

吊扇開始運轉

吱吱作響

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

悶熱的正午 ...

吊扇開始運轉

吱吱作響

Bio Sketch

Kanchan Chatterjee writes haiku, tanka and haibun, and has won several international awards. He has been published regularly in various online haiku and other poetry journals. His haiku appeared regularly in NHK’, Japan's "Haiku Masters." His poems were featured in a few Indian poetry anthologies, such as Beyond the Fields. His first book of haiku, Scattered Leaves, was published in January, 2020.

One Man's Maple Moon: Picture Scroll Tanka by Aya Yuhki

English Original

rewinding

a picture scroll of memory –

could I relive

those happy days

with my dog

White Flowers in the Sky, 2005

Aya Yuhki 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

倒帶

一段記憶的影像捲軸 —

我能否重溫

那些快樂的日子

陪伴我的狗

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

倒带

一段记忆的影像卷轴 —

我能否重温

那些快乐的日子

陪伴我的狗

Bio Sketch

Aya Yuhki was born and now lives in Tokyo. She started writing tanka more than thirty years ago and has expanded her interests to include free verse poetry, essay writing, and literary criticism. Aya Yuhki is Editor-in-Chief of The Tanka Journal published by the Japan Poets’ Society. Her works are featured on the homepage of the Japan Pen Club’s Electronic Library.

Butterfly Dream: Last Letter Haiku by Kelly Sargent

English Original

her last letter 

in cursive ...

willow in the wind 

hedgegrow, 142, 2023

Kelly Sargent

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

她的最後一封信

是草寫

柳樹在風中搖曳

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

她的最后一封信

是草写

柳树在风中摇曳

Bio Sketch

Kelly Sargent is a widely-published poet and the author of Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023), a collection of haiku and senryu. Honors in 2022 and 2023 include: The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems (nomination),The H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryu Contest (honorable mention), Golden Haiku Poetry Contest (recognition), and The Mukai Haiku Festival Poetry Competition (winner).

Poetic Musings: New Leaf Haiku by Eric A. Lohman

turn of a new leaf over and over climate conference

 

Trash Panda, 5, 2023

Eric A. Lohman

Commentary: This climate haiku works effectively because it uses the monoku (one-line haiku) format to create a "looping" effect that perfectly mirrors its subject.

The opening phrase, "turn of a new leaf," is a classic idiom for change, but in the sociopolitical context of a "climate conference," it becomes literal (foliage/nature) and ironic (the lack of actual progress). And by placing "over and over" in the middle, the haiku creates a circular rhythm. The reader's eye repeats the phrase, mimicking the repetitive, cyclical nature of these conferences where the same promises are made and broken.

Furthermore, in a one-liner, the lack of stops allows the "leaf" to "turn" right into the "climate conference," suggesting that the rhetoric is just part of a spin cycle. This haiku captures a specific modern frustration—the performance of change vs. the reality of repetition.

And my vertical climate haiku below could be read as a narrative and thematic prequel to Eric A. Lohman's horizontal one-liner above:

climate

talk

after

talk

leaf

on

leaf

Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, May 12 2022

Chronological Shift:

The vertical haiku captures the agonizing, passive passage of time before or during the climate event. The horizontal one-liner captures the frantic, repetitive aftermath.

Escalation of Frustration:

The vertical structure isolates the word "talk" to show quiet disillusionment. The horizontal structure crams the words together to show overwhelming political fatigue.

Accumulation to Action:

The phrase, "Leaf on leaf" in the vertical haiku shows the physical pileup of unaddressed time. This accumulation directly triggers the manic, cyclic action of turning the leaf "over and over" in the horizontal one-liner.

A Room of My Own: Bigger Splash Tanka

In memory of David Hockney (9 July 1937 – 11 June 2026)

Inspired by "A Bigger Splash" (1967)

a cloud of droplets

from the blue swimming pool

and the diver gone ...

how long a life can linger

after the one who made it 

FYI: The New Yorker, June 16 2026: David Hockney’s Hidden Depths: Remembering a master of color and light who understood life’s shadows.

One of his best-known paintings, “A Bigger Splash,” which Hockney made in 1967 and which became part of the permanent collection of the Tate in 1981, shows a modernist house flanked by a pair of skinny palm trees, before which extends a brilliant-blue swimming pool equipped with a yellow diving board. There is no one in sight, but the surface of the water bursts with evidence of someone having just dived in, disappearing into the cool aqueous depths. The painting is suggestive of heat, with the palm trees offering no shade, and of a full-body relief from that heat: someone—probably male, probably young, almost certainly beautiful—is about to emerge from the pool’s sublimity, gasping with pleasure.

...what Hockney’s best works can make a viewer feel: the splash of water that, in reality, takes seconds to dissipate, captured over weeks of careful brushwork, then held in place forever on the canvas. Just as Hockney did, these works draw us in with their winning superficies only to hold us rapt with their enduring depths.

Added: Politics of Distraction, X

At an outdoor briefing, "military operation," "little excursion," "self-defense strikes" amid camera clicks in unseasonal heat.

smoky haze

war after war

of this wor(l)d

FYI: NBC News, June 11, 2026: Trump says U.S. will hit Iran ‘very hard’ tonight and take ‘total control’ of Iran’s oil industry.

And this gembun is a sequel to the following:

Politics of Distraction, IX:

blocking the blockade

to break the strait blockade ...

in gathering dark

a gin-soaked flight to nowhere

through the un/truth of this war

NeverEnding Story, April 18 2026

Added: Politics of Distraction, XI

the flat TV

mounted on the side wall

of a bookstore

blasting, a great deal! ...

layers of dust on Trump books

Added: Politics of Distraction, XII

flip-flopping

on the ceasefire deal

amid camera clicks --

a dove's feather caught spinning

in the White House's wire fence

Added: Politics of Distraction, XIII

this golfball-brained man

behind the Resolute Desk

loves inflation ...

a MAGA sign, Donald Trump

                              $20,28 per gallon

The New Verse News, June 12 2026

FYI: The Hill, June 10, 2026: Trump embraces May price spikes amid Iran war: ‘I love the inflation’

Added: Politics of Distraction, XIV

smoky haze ...

the 40th deal to end

the war of this wor(l)d

FYI: ABC News, June 16: US-Iran agreement confirms Trump trend on the art of the deal

The agreement between the United States and Iran fits with a pattern from Donald Trump where the signing of a deal appears to be the major goal and the details often seem a distant secondary consideration. 

Added:

thunder rumbling

his talk of war turns dark

then darker still

Added:

a skinny girl

drags her Disney Princess

by its hair ...

the doll’s eyeless face turns 

to the orphanage window

Added:

lying on her back

arms and legs splayed open …

a refugee dead

then the shelter left alone

with its rows of empty beds

Butterfly Dream: Belly Dancer Haiku by Susan Constable

English Original

belly dancer

the glitter of gold

in her navel

A Hundred Gourds, 1:2, March 2012

Susan Constable

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

肚皮舞孃

她的肚臍閃爍

金光

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

肚皮舞娘

她的肚脐闪烁

金光

Bio Sketch

Susan Constable (1943–2026) was an award-winning Canadian poet whose haiku and tanka appeared widely in global journals. She authored the acclaimed collection The Eternity of Waves and served as tanka editor for A Hundred Gourds (2012–2016). Constable also co-edited multiple anthologies and judged numerous international short-form poetry contests.

Butterfly Dream: Wildflower Seeds Haiku by Deborah Karl-Brandt

English Original

wildflower seeds ...

harvesting the memory  

of butterflies  

 

Honorable Mention, THF-Kukai October 2023

Deborah Karl-Brandt

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

野花種子 ...

採收

蝴蝶的記憶

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

野花种子 ...

采收

蝴蝶的记忆

Bio Sketch

Deborah Karl-Brandt works as an author, editor, and educator. Her poems have been published widely, and several have won awards. In 2025, she was selected as a fellow at Confluence. Her new book, Wild Rabbit Moon, was published in 2026.

One Man’s Maple Moon: This Life Tanka by Peggy Heinrich

English Original

strange, this life

no parents no mate no boss

to struggle against,

at night I fall asleep

to a chorus of frogs

Simply Haiku, 9:1, Spring, 2011

Peggy Heinrich

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

奇怪, 這樣的生活

沒有父母伴侶老闆

需要與之抗爭, 

夜晚, 蛙鳴

伴我入眠

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

奇怪, 这样的生活

没有父母伴侣老板

需要与之抗争,

夜晚, 蛙鸣

伴我入眠

Bio Sketch

Peggy Heinrich's haiku have appeared in almost every haiku journal both nationally and internationally and in many anthologies. Awards include Top Prize in the Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest in both 2009 and 2010. Peeling an Orange, a collection of her haiku with photographs by John Bolivar, was published in 2009 by Modern English Tanka Press. Forward Moving Shadows, a collection of her tanka, with photographs by John Bolivar, was published in 2012.

Biting NOT Barking: Flag-Covered Coffin Haiku by Nick Virgilio

English Original

flag-covered coffin:

the shadow of the bugler

slips into the grave

Selected Haiku, 1988

Nick Virgilio

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

覆蓋國旗的棺材：

一位吹號手的影子

滑入墳墓

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

覆盖国旗的棺材：

一位吹号手的影子

滑入坟墓

Bio Sketch

Nick Virgilio (June 28, 1928 – January 3, 1989) was an internationally acclaimed poet who played a pivotal role in popularizing haiku in the United States. Following his debut publication in American Haiku in 1963, Virgilio composed thousands of poems over a career spanning more than two decades. His seminal 1988 collection, Selected Haiku, remains one of the most influential volumes in American haiku history. To explore his legacy further, read Cor van den Heuvel’s 1990 essay, "Nick Virgilio and American Haiku: Creating Haiku and an Audience," originally prepared for the International Haiku Forum in Matsuyama, Japan.

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on LGBTQ Rights in Trumperica

My Dear Readers and Friends:

On this first Sunday of June, I’m sharing a few poems reflecting on warning, struggle, and the joy of resistance in Trumperica:

On the Brink of Trumperica, IX

the White House

pronounces, only two sexes ...

trans youth trapped

between black-and-white Kansas

and rainbow-colored Oz

NeverEnding Story, January 27 2025

The following gembun is its sequel:

Trump Empire, Inc., XCIII

A Family Values banner tangled with the flagpole atop the White House roof, silhouetted against the sunset.

only two sexes ...

clouds drift through bands

of hazy gray

And the following is the sequel to the gembun:

Trump Empire, Inc., XCIV inspired by The Guardian, May 31, 2025: Four queer business owners on Pride under Trump: ‘Our joy is resistance’

near the White House gate

a rainbow-haired teen's waist 

wrapped in a flipped flag

under the guards' dark-glassed stare

she pirouettes timelessly