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Ann Collins's avatar

I hear the collection telling the story of your autumn days—like a journal in haiku. I love that.

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

A journal in haiku! That's lovely. Thank you, Ann.

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Mama's avatar

,i love walking down your streets with your lyrics in my mind!

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

Anytime!

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

I have so many favorites that I can't highlight them all. One of them:

"not thunder—

but the blunder of trashcans

rolling down driveways."

The pictures are gorgeous. I really liked being able to read the haiku all in a row, but still get the pictures at the beginning and the end. Like Ann says, they tell a story all together like that.

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

Oh the thunder/blunder... That is one of my favorites too. It came from an inktober prompt, the word of the day was "blunder". And my oldest daughter used to say that thunder was the sound of God rolling his trashcans down the driveway. And so the rhyme suggested the image.

I like the way the word prompts get me moving but the haiku they inspire still tend to be nature diary. The prompts help me get into that space where I'm thinking metaphorically and seeing things through new lenses, but my mind is still really processing what I'm seeing in the world around me, my nature obsessions which I record with my camera.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Margaret.

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Margaret Ann Silver's avatar

I love your daughter's interpretation of thunder--how dear.

I love reading haiku but tend to feel anxious about writing them, like "not enough words!!!" But that's part of the point, right--that they are enough--overbrimming--even though they are so small?

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

I really started writing them just as an exercise. And kept writing because I wanted to figure out if I could do it better. And they're short enough to write in one sitting. What's been surprising to me is how much I've come to like it as a form. I really didn't like them all that much before I started writing haiku. But when I started reading haiku with an eye to writing them, then I started to really *see* them.

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Tony Brunello's avatar

Wonderful stuff. And the closing is the title:

Red skies shiver

at midnight —catching cold fire

from silvery stars

I just love the image. In my eye I saw something different. I swim each morning and I enjoy a gorgeous sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico--right at the edge of our outdoor Aquatics complex. In November we experience cold--and the walk back off the pool deck is very chilly--but somehow worth the moment. The sunrise--and the colors--are my "Red sky shiver." Thank you.

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

I knew I wanted the title to be a line from one of the poems, and then that line just had to be the one. I love the connection with the sunrise: someone even asked if my aurora photo was a sunrise or sunset. It truly looked like it could be-- except that it was midnight and the sun had set about seven hours before.

We used to go to the beach at Padre Island or Galveston when I was growing up and I remember some of the sunrises over the Gulf of Mexico. I'm more of a night owl in general, but the sunrise is lovely when I can catch it.

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Jennifer Degani's avatar

I like the one about fighting time and the earth tilts anyway. It made me chuckle.

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

It made me laugh too. Might have also been a little inspired by our reading about Galileo who muttered 'and yet it moves.'

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Terry's avatar

These are lovely!

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

Thank you, Terry.

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