Heart window display on Valentine's Day. Taken by me. Reminds me of
Hopper.
Last week, while I was rehearsing Beethoven's 5th, I saw a call for submissions from Haikuniverse. From midnight of Feb. 14th to midnight of Feb. 15th, they posted one micro poem (they are loose about the definition of haiku) per hour. When I saw the call, I thought, "Surely I can come up with a few little lines involving love without too much trouble."
I kind of wanted to write a real haiku, where the love emerged naturally from natural images, and a season was implied, but the deadline was already looming, as was the symphony performance, so when the idea of early spring (the season we are in down here, and a season associated with love) led to daisies, which led to "he loves me, he loves me not," I went with those ideas and sent in my submission. I'm calling it a senryu because after the first line, it's more about people than nature, but I'm happy with it.
Today, I received a kind, but puzzling rejection email, which informed me that Haikuniverse had received "over 450 submissions from 225 poets" for its "Halloween themed" call, and they were sorry I had not made the cut, but encouraged me to try again for their general call. Luckily, I had already seen my poem among the 25 selected for the Valentine's Day postings. Of course, the editor who sent the email was very apologetic, but I totally understand. I have gotten rejection letters for accepted work before, and I also did it by mistake when I was a reader.
I'm grateful to everyone at Haikuniverse who chose my poem, and I enjoyed all of the 25, though I think my favorite is the Sasquatch personal ad. Please go check out the whole series--they are a quick, varied, thoroughly enjoyable read.
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