Under the Bashō 2025
Poet's Personal Best Haiku
Editor: Don Baird
The author's listed in this section have each identified a single haiku from their body of self-penned work that they regard as their personal best and may be regarded as a prime example of their haiku mastery and guiding haiku aesthetic.
Each haiku included in this section is accompanied by the author's own commentary on the chosen haiku explaining what makes it stand out for them at this time as their personal best achievement as a writer of haiku.
It is realised that the way that they write haiku will change as they hone their skills and mature their art and thus we open the invitation again year after year to reflect their changing perspective.
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- Category: Personal Best
refugee train
small hands starfished
against the glass
1st Place, Triveni Awards 2024
This poem arose out of my despair at witnessing the plight of the world’s displaced children, who are facing traumas not of their own making. Their voices unheard, they use “starfished” hands to silently plead for mercy as the train pulls them away from everything they have ever known. In this instance, I felt that “verbing” was a dynamic and fresh approach not only to convey the shape of hands, but to reference the locomotion techniques of starfish. The children are dissimilar, and yet akin, to starfish. Though unable to regenerate limbs blown off in war, they are ruthlessly uprooted and battered by forces beyond their control.
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- Category: Personal Best
wiped dust
risen by the winds
clouds of love
This haiku feels closest to my inner world. It says a lot with very little—about memory, love, and the quiet way emotions return when we least expect them. Its simplicity carries depth, and that balance is what I strive for in my haiku. Right now, this is the poem that best expresses my evolving voice.
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- Category: Personal Best
dark waiting rain clouds
the mourning dove’s pulsing call
kneads them like bread dough
My great-grandmother called mourning doves “rain crows,” because she believed that they predicted rain. But the one’s in my backyard could also be called “sun crows” or “wind crows” or “humidity crows” and so on, since they’re always uttering their cooOOoo-woo-woo-woooo’s, though perhaps they do so with more frequency when rain is on the way.
I can’t remember which came first in the writing of this haiku: that some clouds remind me of bread dough or that the dove’s pulsing call reminds me of the act of kneading dough. But when I discovered the combination of this image and verb, I felt delight and gratitude. And I was surprised. Kneading changes the dough by working air into it and by stretching the gluten strands so that the mass has structure and rises. When doves knead the rain clouds with their calls, they’re not only weather predictors but weather influencers.
How you feel about my haiku will probably be influenced by how you hear about the mourning dove’s call. As plaintive? Auspicious? Ominous? Comforting? A blend of those feelings? Something else?
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- Category: Personal Best
Scream of silence
In the empty corner
Of my room.
Замижи сега, 101 хаику / Shut your eyes now, 101 haiku, 2023
This was my first haiku - the one that opened the door. It taught me that silence can scream, and emptiness can be full. It`s where my journey began, and it still echoes within me.
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- Category: Personal Best
broken down backhoe
inside its rusting bucket
a butterfly wing
Modern Haiku, Vol. 50.2, summer 2019
Appeared in chapbook, what the sky holds, (buddha baby press, Windsor, CT, 2002)
I was walking through the parking lot of my favorite pizzeria and there was a dismantled backhoe. And there was an orange wing of a monarch butterfly. It eventually became one of the first haiku that I got published when I started submitting poetry professionally. It contains themes that have stayed in my poetry style, including the intertwine of the past and present, and a juxtaposition of nature and human civilization. The backhoe is not a living thing but has a “lifespan,” and a butterfly has such a short time on earth. The two contrasting images help my readers to contemplate their existence and appreciate the moments they have here and henceforth.
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- Category: Personal Best
deep in a forest
we pause to listen
to mushrooms
Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2022
Perhaps what makes this ku likable is the reader probably expects us to listen to birdsong. Surprise! I took things in a different direction.
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- Category: Personal Best
Starry night—
the generations of women
who did needlework
First Place, 3rd John Bird Dreaming Award for Haiku, Australian Haiku Society, 2025
I wanted to compose haiku which will compare the sky stitched with stars and the generations of women who did needlework. Many working-class women sewed to earn a living. Privileged women stitched as a necessary accomplishment and to relieve themselves from boredom and isolation. This haiku poem reflects my nostalgia for crafts such as needlework that are being replaced by machine-made.
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- Category: Personal Best
over the bridge...
the fisherman`s rod
disturbs the moon
The Haiku Foundation - Haiku Dialogue, (Foreground Focus – Blur the Background, June 2023)
The haiku is inspired by a porcelain ornament from my godmother. It is a chinese fisherman with a rod and a little fish, but the rod is broken and the fish is separated from it… it is a very old ornament. All the bookshelves and the way the statue was sitting in front of the books created a fantastic image in my mind, the statue came to life, the books created an imaginary bridge and the broken fish was the moon… It didn't need much… just a spark.
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- Category: Personal Best
Nagasaki —
in her belly, the sound
of unopened mail
The bombings of Japan, a nation half starved, disturbs me to no end. I’ve pondered both bombings quite often. I feel the pain; I feel the separation of families, central and abroad. I labor over the moment thousands of people burnt away (instantly). No notice, no preparation — just gone!
What was left unsaid? Was there love on their tongues, hate in their heart? Were there unfinished conversations? Were meals prepared and waiting to be enjoyed?
Suddenly, where did hope go? Where did the last hug go? What happened to them this time when they said “good-bye for now” but turned out to be forever?
Blasted. Left empty. Debris. Dreams, debris; homes, debris; children and parents, debris. What would they say to each other if they all knew this was their last day on earth? This is gut felt. Even the sound of silence rang loud in the smoke. How much was left undone, now gone? It’s disturbing.
Clearly, these two bombings (Nagasaki and Hiroshima) deeply disturb me. This poem is my outcry to the world as the world attempts to reconcile the war to this day. It was written during one evening. Initially, I used the word “mind” where the word “belly” became the final choice. It was more than mind — it was “guttural.”
Award winning, it holds awards from Haiku Now (1st) and the Touchstone Award. At this point, it is published worldwide in many different venues including notable books.
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- Category: Personal Best
a smaller
slice of orange
Gaza sunset
The verse was written for The Haiku Foundation’s Monthly Kukai. The theme for March 2024 — orange.
After dinner one winter evening, my wife cut up a Cara Cara orange into slices smaller than she used to. Smaller sunsets, I thought.
My first draft —
a smaller
slice of orange
winter sunset
The final version —
a smaller
slice of orange
Gaza sunset
Final L3 came about when it crossed my mind that, somehow, the world of the people of the Gaza Strip at that time was similarly getting smaller. Sunsetting.
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- Category: Personal Best
thick clouds--
a gap takes me
to the ocean
Modern Haiku, Issue 46:2, 2015 (Ed. Paul Miller)
Poems come to my mind as a fragrance to a flower… A flow of poetic thought sparks when I capture some image while walking, travelling, or sitting calmly on the balcony. Generally, I write it down in my notebook or on a piece of paper. I still remember a couple of occasions when I jotted down haiku even on the boarding pass, paper napkin, and my palm while traveling! I wrote the above haiku while on a domestic flight. “Haiku is the art of the instantaneous,” said Stuart Quine to Tim Gardiner. The sun was shining brightly over the hills of thick cloud, the edges gleaming with prominence. I could stare through the gaps of the clouds at the blue colour of the Bay of Bengal, the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, from the flight. I had a feeling of amazement and tranquility. Instantly, I transformed the moment into a poetic flow.
It is primarily a haiku with contours of visual imagery. I could feel the exquisite beauty of nature revealing the vastness of the ocean through the gaps in the clouds. The elliptical opening in high to mid-level clouds is known as fallstreak hole or “hole punch cloud”. The poem bridges the pathway between the sky and the sea at the level of the landscape of conscious imagination. The “gap” is a doorway of human experience, architecting one's thought across space and time.
Randy Brooks says, “The writer starts something that the readers finish. What a great haiku does for readers is it invites them into a collaboration of creative playfulness…” I wish to briefly cite the reviewers' comments about the above haiku featured in Nicholas Klacsanzky's Haiku Commentary Blog, May 2028.” It is fascinating to consider how readers interpret the poem in their unique styles.
Lucia Fontana, an Italian poet, author, and founding editor of Incense Dreams, elucidates the Zen feeling embedded in the haiku as she pens: “Since the first reading of this ku, I’ve felt it carries an extraordinary sense of liberation. I can read it again and again and feel each time the movement, as if I’m being pulled by an invisible wind, not mentioned, but there for sure, to the blue of the ocean, breaking through the blue gap of the sky…!
It seems it creates in the mind of the reader a virtual flight, surfing on air currents and seeking the sun. Also, at a deeper level of reading it, the kireji lets us imagine and clearly perceive the recovery of the soul of the author, as if he could have turned his wounds into blessings….
The first line contains bitter sounds — ck, cl, ds — which suggest an imminent storm, or a difficult life-moment. But soon, in the second line, the rhythm of consonants separated by the sounds of long-short-long vowels empowers the dynamic in the ku and brings the openness of the long and open vowels in the last line, of the word ocean, as a natural mantra for all.
This ku has a strong Zen feeling, showing a meditative journey from full to empty (thick clouds/gap) and it is a reminder to us to not be afraid of emptiness since we ourselves are nothing else but little fluctuations of matter around this vacuum.”
Hifsa Ashraf, poet and editor from Pakistan, discovers the meditative element in the poem: “This is really simple to interpret, as it is all about the thought process. Thick clouds may indicate a lack of awareness or oblivion or unconsciousness. A gap is a sort of reflection of those thoughts that go through the filtration process. Awareness of our own thoughts (mindfulness), in other words, crystallized thoughts. I see the meditative element here as well where the person is having some deep experiences that facilitate him to think deeply and have concrete thinking….”
Poet, Laughing Waters from Italy rejuvenates rewinds her feelings with inspiration: I’m living next to the ocean, so I can really relate to this haiku. In this haiku, line one sets the entire mood. Thick clouds so often can be seen on the horizon. They are also very symbolic. It seems that even the weather feels the mood of the poet. Something is about to come—good or bad, we don’t know. The future is hidden from us.
Next we move to line two. It is very clever. It brings hope for the better. Its not just clouds, but we see an opening, and line three gives us more. Now we know we are on the beach and we see an ocean. Overall, I really enjoyed this haiku. Its inspiring. Here’s a tanka written in inspiration:
a dark horizon—
heavy clouds
chasing each other
we fall in warm sand
and laugh
My humble summarization: It has been a delightful poetic spark from high above the sky, illuminating the beauty of nature in its splendid manifestation, embedding the spirit of science and spirituality.
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- Category: Personal Best
Suduko
Rubik's Cube
you
Issa's Untidy Hut – Wednesday Haiku 9-26-2012
The poem came to me all of a piece which is itself a puzzle. Is the you not only the subject of the poem but the real author? I still find the seven syllable spareness very satisfying. That others do as well is gratifying.
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- Category: Personal Best
ebbing tides
internal chaos
of missing you
16th Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest, November 2024
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- Category: Personal Best
the long sigh
of an ebbing wave…
summer’s end
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- Category: Personal Best
morning serenade –
the blackbird sings
under my window
The Japan Society (Haiku Corner 2023 - Week 27)
Summer. I live in a building surrounded by grass, bushes, and tall trees. Many different species of birds live in this environment, and I love listening to them and watching them.
I am often awake until morning, and that year there were a lot of blackbirds, and they were whistling very early before dawn. Their cheerful song inspired me to write a haiku.
There is also a metaphor in the verses. I leave that to your imagination.
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- Category: Personal Best
old friends
the unfinished melody
of a skylark
Frogpond 47:2 Spring/Summer 2024
‘This haiku holds a special place in my heart. I wrote it while considering how through life we not only nurture and value ongoing friendships, but we also lose friends, either through passing or simply from losing touch. There is an ebb and flow to life and sometimes someone is taken from you when you feel that there is so much more that you could have shared. I hoped that in these few lines I could capture the essence of how special friendship is and how the song of new and old friends continues in this cycle of time and experiences with these bonds. I think that this poem, that came with only a few tweaks from my first version, carries a universal message that everyone can relate to.’
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- Category: Personal Best
high tide
a wreath of stones
captures the ocean
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- Category: Personal Best
full moon
our bed
half empty
paper wasp: a journal of haiku 14(4) spring 2008
Author comments:
I am returning to haiku and other forms of poetry after putting my creative work on the back burner for many years. I've been revisiting my early poems, published and unpublished. This particular haiku was one of several that paper wasp: a journal of haiku published in 2008. It was my first poetry acceptance. I was delighted then, as I am now sharing the poem again.
Close to 20 years later, it's a little hard to recreate my mindset on the day I wrote it, but I suspect this poem was inspired by circumstance. At the time I was working on a social science master's degree, and my university campus was located 100 traffic-clogged miles away from the home I shared with my husband. At that point I was staying near campus for most of the week and only driving home on select weekends. So, even though my marriage was solid (and remains so after three decades), my husband and I spent most of our nights apart, "our bed / half empty."
I'll also mention that my husband and I were (and still are) cinephiles with a special fondness for horror movies. I liked leaving the poem open for an interpretation related to lycanthropy (one partner's absence linked to the "full moon"), alongside other possible readings.
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- Category: Personal Best
a teddy bear
falls from the stroller—
silent crowd
Presence, issue #77, November 2023