Connecting to nature through poetry and prose
Issa’s haiku “my proxy bathes/in the cold water.../sparrow” is the perfect way to start our exploration into the mini season of Major Cold. This is the last mini season of the 72 Season calendar and the time where athletes begin to engage in Kangeiko.
We have entered the micro-season of “The Spring Water Holds Warmth”, which is the second part of the mini season of Minor Cold. When thinking about this season, I think about ice. Specifically, I think about the factors that contribute to its formation and the haiku written about it.
Tressa Mancini is a photographer from Montana. She shares pictures of the Rocky Mountains and rural landscapes that demonstrate her connection to the land. In today’s interview, we talk with Tressa about her work and the awe that can be found in nature.
January is typically the coldest time of the year and today we look at the poetry of Helen Hunt Jackson, William Carlos Williams, Basho, Issa, and Shiki as they explore the impact of the winter winds.
We have entered the micro-season of “The Water Dropwort Flourishes”, which is part of the mini season of Minor Cold. The water dropwort, also known as Japanese parsley or Seri, is one of the key ingredients in seven-herb rice porridge that is eaten during the Festival of Seven Herbs.
Cold midwinter days provided plenty of time for poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Matsuo Basho, and Kobayashi Issa to reflect on the snow and ice and our connection to it.
“Write single-lines poems about birds”, the tweet said. How do you do that? It turns out in order to understand this form, we need to look at the foundations of haiku.
We have entered the micro-season of “The Elk Sheds its Horns”. Elk actually have antlers, not horns. So we should be referring to this micro-season as "Elk Shed its Antlers". Our exploration into this season will look at the elk, the antlers, and a few haiku.
The forest transforms itself in the winter and to help celebrate the trees' persistence during the winter months we turn to the poets William Carlos Williams, Margaret Widdemer, and Issa for inspiration.
Charles Foster declares “I’m losing confidence in words” in the opening lines of his July, 2021 essay “Against Nature Writing”. In this article, I will explore Foster's argument and then propose that haiku could be the solution.
We have entered the micro season of “The Salmon Gather to Spawn”. This is the last season of the mini season Major Snow. This micro-season focuses on the anadromous behavior of salmon and the myth of Osuke, the king of salmon.
Seas the Day: A Year of Sea Swimming Poetry is Rachael Boughton’s first published collection of poetry and prose that she aptly described as “love letters” to the Sea. These poems are as much about Boughton’s connection to the ocean as they are a celebration of life.
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