Special Feature: Selected Haiku and Tanka about the Many Faces of Women for International Women's Day

My Dear Readers:

In celebration of International Women's Day, I am pleased to introduce you to the following haiku and tanka that show the many faces of women fo all ages, different classes and races.

A woman has many faces as she goes through her life. It's like we need more than one hair-do. We have many, many changes in the evolution of our lives. We have, we learn, and we grow; we view life differently, and life views us differently.

-- Sharon Stone

Selected Haiku and Tanka:

kindergartener  --

grandmother smoothing her hair

into place

    

Donna Fleischer

stacked stones

the steps I must climb

to my goddess self

Jackie Chou

red camellias --

the assurance

of my breasts  

Fay Aoyagi

You have yet to touch

This soft flesh,

This throbbing blood --

Are you not lonely,

Expounder of the Way?

Akiko Yosano 

in the waves

no trace, where I swam

with a woman

Seisha Yumaguchi

rain on the roof

the rhythm of our lovemaking

slower paced

Joanne Morcom

nights of rain --

lonely, I fall asleep

holding my breasts

Yoshiko Yoshino

sleepless night

I turn my nightgown

inside out

to join the scarred moon

in my dream of passion

Luminita Suse

a plastic rose

rides the old car’s antenna --

spring morning

Elizabeth Searle Lamb

street corner

unkempt panhandler shows me

her Purple Heart

John J. Dunphy

breast-feeding

a gesture of something

beast-like

pitiful to think tenderly

that it is called a child

Fumi Sait

my body

wasted by winter

if only I

like fields burned over

had hope for spring

Lady Ise

do not ask

forever of me ...

i am capable

of loving you to death

one day at a time

Pamela A. Babusci

Haitian woman,

spawn of powerful genes --

work your spell

use your voodoo fingers

to enliven this old man

John Daleiden 

vigil candlelight

flickers in a woman’s eyes

No Means No

   

Chen-ou Liu

My Country,

I will build you again,

If need be,

with bricks

made from my life

Simin Behbahani

Thai massage

at the women’s prison --

she works on my feet

and plans her escape;

I can feel it

Bob Lucky

this moon

watching her dance

on the shorelines

as if

the stars exist

Robert D. Wilson

Enacted on Feb. 28, 1909, the first official "'Women’s Day' was established as a day to engage in political action," and it was intended to provide time and space  for "mobiliz[ing] women, particularly working women, who were routinely subjected to inhumane working conditions, sexual harassment and poverty-level wages in sweatshops, to demand change." (Christine Sismondo, "International Women’s Day was born of a labour movement to combat inhumane work conditions. As the pandemic rages on, that challenge is more real than ever," The Toronto Star, March 6). 

To conclude today's International Women's Day" Special Feature post, the following two pandemic poems are written to address some of these pressing challenges, local and global:

One Hundred Eighty-Seventh Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

written in response to the "shecession (she-recession)" 

in her eyes

the thousand-yard stare ...

once a manager

now the Commander-In-Chief

with kids fighting in quarantine

One Hundred Eighty-Eighth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary

written in response to "In Myanmar Protests, Women Are on the Front Lines" (Hannah Beech, The New York Time, March 4) 

smoky twilight ...

between a police phalanx

and rows of men

with their three-finger salutes

a masked nun in white

Happy Reading

Chen-ou