Art museum visits are gold mines of poem ideas for me. This week I visited the Farnsworth in Rockland, Maine. An Andrew Wyeth painting named “Two Sisters” spoke to me, so I sketched and wrote notes for a future poem.
There’s a wonderful Frank Benson exhibit going on now. I was surprised to learn Benson also made etchings. “Crows in Rain” inspired the beginnings of a haiku. I’ve now learned that haiku evolve, at least for me. They look simple, but I must write many versions before I think I’ve arrived.
The same thing happened with the haibun I share today. Haibun is a Japanese form that combines prose with haiku. My poem began with a walk in the pine grove behind our house. By the time I had finished working with two kind editors, my visit to Japan had crept in. My first published haibun appears in this month’s issue of the online magazine A Hundred Gourds. The issue includes many Japanese forms of poetry. Here’s the link.
Sample the other poems in Renee's Poetry Friday candy dish at No Water River.
