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Featured Writer: Michele Root-Bernstein

First-person reflections on the art of writing haibun

BirdGirl’s Haibun Confession

I blow into haibun on the personal essay
soon realizing that strong prose
cannot support haiku of no account
that all parts of the incantation matter
and I have some work to do

learning the poetic craft
I leave out peanuts daily
to coax my wildlife into the open
which is the best advice I have to give
practice
deepens
haiku
deepens
haibun

I take to heart
what someone somewhere said
every third line or so of a poem
every page of prose
should hold surprise or intrigue
like the birdfeeder gone in the night
the presence of its absence
a trail of millet and cracked corn to follow
the story brief and ambiguous and
carefully incomplete

not to say that I haven’t written some haibun stretching to a page or more
or wondered aloud what things mean
but what suits me best brings to mind
the little brown wren with a pert tail
gleaning bits of hard-to-see suet
that fall to ground from above

hopping over the question of styles
old or new
I’m keen on however voice and mood
explore leaps of thought
that set the moment fluttering
on wings

if all goes well
prose and poem
find their sweet spot
a shuddering in the core of my body
my only clue
that what sings for me
might sing for you
too

  eyeshine of
a raccoon      disappearing
                                  seeds                                            

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The following haibun by Michele Root-Bernstein appeared in Modern Haiku 50.1 (winter/spring 2019) and received a Modern Haiku Award for best haibun of the issue.

Prepositions

When making up a secret language of nouns and verbs easy to draw like little pictures of all only necessary things there nevertheless comes a time when you may want to express certain abstract notions of relationship.

bindweed clinging [to] preconceptions

A preposition I tell my nine-year-old daughter is a connection word that completes a circle of thought though she looks at me by me through me and wrinkles her nose.

sparrows feeding [on] my mind

Pronouns may be dealt with another day articles too but the question is how do you draw a figment of imagination as in away and before who can say what about that she’s gone and come back from her make-believe country with an iconography of liaisons to play with and for and because of.

squirrel chasing [after] my own heart

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About the Author

Michele Root-Bernstein published her first haibun in 2011 and has appeared sparingly since in English-language journals, anthologies, and haibun contests. In 2019 her haibun “Prepositions” received a Modern Haiku Award. Her first collection of haiku, Wind Rose, will be published in the spring of 2021 as a Snapshot Press eChapbook Award winner. Michele is currently book editor for Modern Haiku and facilitator for the study group Evergreen Haiku. She lives in Michigan with her husband and other sentient beings.