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Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday: Haiku from the EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration

Yay Images

It’s still Poetry Month! Hope you are enjoying April wherever you are.

One thing I love about Poetry Friday is the web of connections we make each week. Last Friday, I was so focused on celebrating The Poetry Friday Anthology of Celebrations with Janet and Sylvia, and rounding up posts, that I almost missed something special: the inaugural “EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration” from The Haiku Foundation celebrating International Haiku Day (April 17).

Lucky for us, Joy Acey and Diane Mayr were on it and shared the link. Here’s the description from The Haiku Foundation:


"Welcome to the largest collaborative poem on the internet. This year’s theme is the Year of Light, as designated by decree of the United Nations. Please add your poem(s) in the Comment box below, ideally at dawn at your location, but any time that you are able… ."

A “seed” poem was offered:

will anyone
not be taking up his pen?
tonight’s moon


— Onitsura (1660 – 1738)

That writerly challenge might have been issued three centuries ago, but I couldn’t resist! I took a break from rounding up posts (the sun had just come up here) and went outside to exhale and invite a haiku moment that I could add to the thread.
Here was my contribution:


april morning
the reach of seedlings
toward the sun


©Robyn Hood Black. All rights reserved.


More than 400 haiku from around the world were posted! I appreciated seeing some familiar names and asked a few of my poet friends if I might have permission to share some of their entries. Each one generously obliged (such a great group of folks). Many participants posted one poem, as I did, while others posted several. Some also shared previously published work that fit with the theme.

Enjoy this sampling...



a streak of light…
my cat alarm clock
goes off


©Diane Mayr. All rights reserved.



sun rise radiates
through a dew drop on the limb
a prism rainbow


©Joy Acey. All rights reserved.



a flicker of light
from my pen to yours
rising sun


©Peggy Bilbro. All rights reserved.



heat lightning
a fox
in the blink of an eye


©Michael Henry Lee. All rights reserved.



first light what’s not to believe

©Michael Henry Lee. All rights reserved.



morning fog
the sober glow
of streetlights


©Ben Moeller-Gaa. All rights reserved.
A Hundred Gourds 1:2 (2012)



morning prayers
the rising sun between
my hands


©Kala Ramesh. All rights reserved.
Ambrosia– Journal of Fine Haiku, Spring 2009



slipping in
beneath the kitchen door
– first sunlight


©Kala Ramesh. All rights reserved.



first light
the ethereal phrase
of a wood thrush


©Tom Painting. All rights reserved.



You probably recognize Tom Painting’s name – In addition to being an award-winning poet, he is the teacher behind our Student Haiku Poet of the Month series here.

Be sure to tune in next month, when it will be All-Haiku Every Poetry Friday! We’ll spend a couple of those days with Tom’s students, and then we’ll welcome international students at the end of the month with Kala Ramesh (see her poems above.

Many thanks to all the poets sharing their work here today. If you are new to haiku, The Haiku Foundation is a treasure of resources. For more great poetry of all kinds, paddle over to No Water River, where the amazing Renée has the Poetry Friday Roundup!
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