This month’s featured work is a contemporary haibun by Norman Smith. This Japanese form combines a brief prose piece with a haiku. The prose is usually simple, reflective, and focused on a moment, journey, or observation. The haiku at the end deepens or contrasts with the prose rather than merely repeating it.
Norman said: “I capture fleeting thoughts and moments. This poem is about all of us and how we interact with art and music.”
He travels slowly to places that will inspire him. He started writing for his school magazine ‘The Retfordian’. Then, as a student, he wrote short stories in The Irish Mountaineering Club Magazine. While working in Japan, he became fascinated by the haiku; the short, intense poems still fill him with joy.
You can read the Haibun here.
Somewhere Else Writers Group 