{"id":117124,"date":"2025-08-28T23:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117124\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T23:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T23:20:13","slug":"asahi-haikuist-network-david-mcmurray-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117124\/","title":{"rendered":"ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK\/ David McMurray"},"content":{"rendered":"

children wave goodbye school of fish darts away captain\u2019s horn echoes
–Julie Ann Lebitania (Sorsogon, Philippines)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

wind chimes
dappled with sunlight
garden Buddha
–Chen-ou Liu (Ajax, Ontario)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Queen\u2019s Gambit
a sunbeam skims over
the chess clock
–Ramona Linke (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

sinking sunray
following its path
swallows
–Uchechukwu Onyedikam (Lagos, Nigeria)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

glimpses of courtyards
where lives go on in secret–
different from ours
–Alan Maley (Canterbury, England)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

clouds of haiku
as I lay dreaming
in the grass
–Melissa Dennison (Bradford, England)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

wedding day approaching
bride begins to count
just a summer dream
–Justice Joseph Prah (Accra, Ghana)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

late day sun
the groom loses himself
in the bride\u2019s shade
–Maya Daneva (The Hague, Netherlands)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

often I cast shade
on my photographs\u2026
crepuscular
–David Cox (Principality of Andorra)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Blackberry lilies
Nearby a postbox
languishing
–Murasaki Sagano (Tokyo)<\/p>\n

——————————
FROM THE NOTEBOOK
——————————<\/p>\n

bell cricket:
I don\u2019t stay much longer once sensei
started breaking kids\u2019 arms
— Jerome Berglund (New Orleans, Louisiana)<\/p>\n

The haikuist \u201cgrew up in a rather rough and rowdy area with a lot of scrapping at the dojo\u2026 and studied taekwondo for a brief time.\u201d Laila Brahmbhatt passed a sleepless night in New York.\u3000 Krzysztof Kokot kept vigil in Nowy Targ, Poland.<\/p>\n

Independence Day
homeless bookmark their shadows
on empty streets<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

blown out candle
over the sick bed
the shadow fluttered<\/p>\n

Crickets sing nostalgically on autumn nights from dusk to dawn signaling the deepening of the season and the death of life. An avid fan of the game of cricket in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Ashoka Weerakkody explains that sticking one\u2019s leg out at the wicket is a way of calling a batsman out.<\/p>\n

Cricket Club
Wedding March–
leg before wicket<\/p>\n

Monica Kakkar wore her best clothes in South Riding, Virginia.<\/p>\n

frills and finery\u2026
stirring the summer lake
fiery finale<\/p>\n

Martina Matijevic didn\u2019t need a wide-brimmed sunhat this summer in Vidovci, Croatia.<\/p>\n

straw hat
in the closet\u2019s shadow–
summer\u2019s end<\/p>\n

Murasaki Sagano observed office workers crane their necks to view electronic stock boards showing share prices on Wall Street.<\/p>\n

Nihonbashi crowd
steamy business suits
black parasols<\/p>\n

Chen-ou Liu rallied in Washington, D.C. Wieslaw Karlinski rested in Namysl0w, Poland.<\/p>\n

the Capitol in shadow
a gray-haired man chanting, peace
the only battle!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

tired pilgrim
on a roadside stone
the shadow of an oak<\/p>\n

At a park in Minsk, Belarus, Philmore Place waited in line behind a tanker truck to buy a drink made from fermented bread. Stuck behind a long queue of discount shoppers, Satoru Kanematsu couldn\u2019t find any shade. Shannon Wallace waited too long in Mississauga, Ontario.<\/p>\n

queue for kvass–
the child shows his tongue
everyone who looks<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Wiping sweat
to join a long line
buying rice<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I waited until
perfect ripeness of the fruit
rotting on the floor<\/p>\n

Teiichi Suzuki has an acute sense of taste for two pleasures in life.<\/p>\n

Cold tofu–
falling to pieces
humbleness<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Cold sake–
to become older
humility<\/p>\n

Cornelia Rossberg ducked in Coburg, a historical city in northern Bavaria near the medieval Thuringian duchies of Germany.<\/p>\n

the call of the falcon
arrow-quick shadow covers
briefly a piece of earth<\/p>\n

Boryana Boteva stood in the lee of towering flower stalks in Sofia, Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

a field of sunflowers
amongst golden traces
humility untouched<\/p>\n

Not having spectacles at hand, Marshall Hryciuk let his colorful imagination fly in Toronto, Ontario.<\/p>\n

red tulips or a cardinal
whichever
deepening in the shade<\/p>\n

Sagano juxtaposed her circular sunglasses and oasis-like street trees. Further down the sunbaked street, the haikuist spotted a sign of autumn: the demure shape of unopened blue bellflower buds.<\/p>\n

Round green shades
trees on a main street
heaven\u2019s islands<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

humbly blooming
by withered sunflowers
balloon flowers<\/p>\n

Rosemarie Schuldes acquiesced in Mattsee, Austria.<\/p>\n

bitter quarrel
a bouquet of blue violets
left at the doorstep<\/p>\n

Charlie Smith and his dog Wendy cooled their heels in Raleigh, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

paws pause
crossing hot pavement
evening walk<\/p>\n

Entering a dimly lit neighborhood coffeehouse, Masumi Orihara was greeted by a smiling barista pumping a big shiny metal coffeemaker.<\/p>\n

espresso machine
gleams in aromatic dusk\u2026
the way of coffee<\/p>\n

At home in Parma, Italy, Mario Massimo Zontini felt a refreshing breeze.<\/p>\n

summer shower
the coolness enters my room
winding around<\/p>\n

Hesitating, Dennison was distracted by two snails in the shade of a pot on her patio.<\/p>\n

signing on
the dotted line…
a pair of snails mating<\/p>\n

Morgan Ophir likely felt as if he had been told to mind his own business in Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n

snail
reflected in a raindrop
turns its head<\/p>\n

Aparna Pathak rolled over unconsciously in Gurugram, India.<\/p>\n

independence day
turning back to him
in sleep<\/p>\n

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) knew what he was doing when he rolled over in his six-tatami mat sickroom to compose: mihotoke ni shirimuke oreba tsuki suzushi<\/p>\n

I turn my back
on Buddha and face
the cool moon<\/p>\n

————————————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n

Cool haiku at http:\/\/www.asahi.com\/ajw\/special\/haiku\/<\/a>. The next issues of the Asahi Haikuist Network appear Sept. 5 and 19. Readers are invited to compose haiku related to autumnal trees or typhoons. Mail your haiku on a postcard to David McMurray at the International University of Kagoshima, Sakanoue 8-34-1, Kagoshima, 891-0197, Japan, or by e-mail to (mcmurray@fka.att.ne.jp).<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"haiku-2\"David McMurray<\/p>\n

David McMurray has been writing the Asahi Haikuist Network column since April 1995, first for the Asahi Evening News. He is on the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, columnist for the Haiku International Association, and is editor of Teaching Assistance, a column in The Language Teacher of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).<\/p>\n

McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

McMurray judges haiku contests organized by The International University of Kagoshima, Ito En Oi Ocha, Asahi Culture Center, Matsuyama City, Polish Haiku Association, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seinan Jo Gakuin University, and Only One Tree.<\/p>\n

McMurray\u2019s award-winning books include: \u201cTeaching and Learning Haiku in English\u201d (2022); \u201cOnly One Tree Haiku, Music & Metaphor\u201d (2015); \u201cCanada Project Collected Essays & Poems\u201d Vols. 1-8 (2013); and \u201cHaiku in English as a Japanese Language\u201d (2003).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"children wave goodbye school of fish darts away captain\u2019s horn echoes–Julie Ann Lebitania (Sorsogon, Philippines) * * *…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[39773,8768,4,450,451,3471,3,19754,452,453],"class_list":["post-117124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-asahi-haikuist-network","tag-asahi-shimbun","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-special","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}