the part of
   town th
    at us
      ed to
        be h
          er
        e

Published by

Alan S. Bridges

Alan S. Bridges began writing haiku in 2008 after a chance meeting with poet John Stevenson, Managing Editor of The Heron's Nest, on a cross-America train trip. Alan especially likes train and fishing haiku, and is assembling haiku for a book. Alan's haiku have been published widely and he won the 2013 Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition. In 2014 he was named a judge of the Haiku Society of America Gerald Brady Senryu Contest and won an honorable mention for the 25th ITO EN Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest-- His haiku will appear on ITO EN bottles of green tea later in 2015. Also in 2015, Alan won first prize for the Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku Contest.

14 thoughts on “”

  1. For me, this catches both an experience and the feeling that goes with it. Well done. Bill K

    more dead-end streets
    than I remembered . . .
    my home town

  2. Alan, this is topical here in North Texas.
    Lots of news footage and year-after survival stories on the 12 plus tornadoes that hit.
    Biggest was an F4 and on the ground in Rowlett four more than 4 minutes. Several have rebuilt or patched together their lives, more have not.

    Effective use of form, and that dangle-behind “e”.
    Jan

  3. An elegant concrete haiku, Alan.

    I think Carlos Colon would have appreciated this one.
    Did you know he was a fan of your work?

    1. Thanks. I was lucky enough to meet Carlos as we checked out of the hotel at the HSA meeting in Schenectady last year.

  4. Recognised this as a concrete poem but tornadoes didn’t come to mind. I saw the ku as a plume of rising smoke and the name of Aleppo. No doubt a sign of a good poem is its capacity for differing interpretations.

    I like the way the juxt of this ku sits between its linear information content and unorthodox shape. I felt compelled to read a cut/juxt after ‘here’ despite there being no obvious indicator. Was this meant deliberately as a way of illustrating the narrator’s sense of disbelief at seeing the disruption or destruction of the world as they know it?

    Nice haiku, Se?or Bridges.

  5. How interesting, Alan – perhaps it's because we don't get tornadoes here in Ireland, but I read this as the narrator walking down an old, familiar path that eventually disappears because it is now overgrown. It worked for me with that reading, but I like the fact that it's tornado-shaped even more! :)

    marion

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