Grateful to dear Charlotte Digregorio for featuring my new haiku book on her beautiful blog and also for writing a lovely blurb. 🙏💐Sharing:
Tag: #haiku #poetry #haikupoetry #haikupoem #poem #haiku #poetrycommunity #dailyhaiku #haikuoftheday
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Haiku Girl Summer
Elated to have my #haiku in Haiku Girl Summer again on 24th June in “The Heat is On” with friends.
Grateful to dear Allyson Whipple, editor, and Kathryn P. Haydon, guest editor.
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Flying Fish Haiku Journal
Flying Fish Haiku Journal, issue #2, July 2025 is now live.
Grateful to dear Richa Sharma, Founder & Editor for the inclusion of my #senryu inspired by the recent indo-pak conflict.
Congratulations to the featured poets.
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My Book Launch
Grateful to dear Rachna & Harmeet Singh for organising The Wise Owl Literary Soirée on 22nd June for the launch of my new book of haiku poetry – “A Peacock’s Cry – seasons of haiku”.
The programme was well attended and a great success with an incredibly appreciative audience. S. Man Mohan Kohli, CEO Aroma Group, gave our generous introductions and placed the aesthetic backdrop of beautiful white gladioli on the stage. Grateful to him.I enjoyed an interesting conversation with the talented haiku poet Vandana Parashar about haiku and my creative journey. Creating an awareness about haiku always uplifts my spirits. Thanks to my loving family and friends who made the effort to attend and support my book launch. I am beholden to them. 🙏
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Five Fleas Itchy Poetry
The monsoon itch caught me after very long, and my 2 #haiku were published on 20th June afternoon in five fleas itchy poetry.
Grateful to dear Robin Jacobson, the royal flea keeper for the quick acceptance and publication.
Happy Summer Solstice dear friends.
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Haiku Girl Summer
A lovely surprise from Haiku Girl Summer today to find my rain #haiku featured with friends in the Pleasures of Rain.
Grateful to Allyson Whipple, Editor & Kelly Barnes Sargent, Guest Editor for the honor!
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Haiku Girl Summer
Elated to be in Haiku Girl Summer today in Sweetening the Season, grateful to Allyson Whipple, Editor & Kelly Barnes Sargent, Guest Editor.
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Triveni Spotlight
Honored to be featured in Triveni Haikai India’s Spotlight feature today on 17th June 2025. Grateful to you dear @Kashiana Singh, Guest Editor for selecting this ku which is very close to my heart. Your writeup is brilliant whichnI have shared here.
Many thanks to dear Anju Kishore and Mohua Maulik for hosting this feature and to the Founder of Triveni Haikai India—Kala Ramesh for this space to learn and grow.
Mono no Aware: The Tenderness of Ending
In Japanese tradition, jisei—death poems composed by individuals on the brink of death—offer final reflections on life, impermanence, and the unknown beyond. Often brief, stark, and yet tender, these poems do not resist death but instead accept it as part of the natural rhythm of existence. Through nature imagery and minimalism, jisei endure as a person’s final parable, their distilled teaching to those left behind.
Haiku, too, teaches us to see each moment as both a birth and a death. In its nakedness, haiku captures the bardo moments described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead—transitions between realms, between states of being. Every moment we live contains the seed of both beginning and ending.
The Japanese aesthetic of mujo (impermanence) and mono no aware (“the beauty of transient things”) is naturally embedded in haiku, urging us to see not tragedy, but tenderness in the inevitable cycle of change.
In Indian philosophy, this cycle of life, death, and rebirth—samsara—is also seen as a sacred, continuous flow. Death is not a rupture but a return, part of the great wheel of existence. Acceptance of transitions, whether through mourning rituals, river immersions, or the lighting of a pyre, reflects a deep understanding that endings are inseparable from beginnings.
Thus, haiku echoes a universal wisdom across ancient cultures: to live is to move through endless openings and closings, with tenderness for what must pass.
Haiku strips away all but the essence. A poet can express an entire cosmos of grief, gratitude, and wisdom in just a few words. In contemplating death through haiku, we are also contemplating life—its urgency, tenderness, and fleeting beauty.
Through the acceptance of death, we are offered not despair but profound connection: to one another, to the seasons, and the moment-by-moment act of living.
This month, i bring to you a selection of haiku that speak directly to the themes of death, loss, rebirth, and the bittersweet beauty of transience
– Kashiana Singh
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Book Review by Lakshmi Iyer
Deeply touched at receiving dear Lakshmi’s review about my book. Sharing:
Neena Singh’s ‘A Peacock’s Cry’ is the voice of haiku wrapped in seasons of eagerness, progress, loneliness and abundance. Each of them contribute their own taste and energy. Each of them have their own attributes… consistent, diligent and sufficient. I loved the way Neena di quietly summed up the whole book with equal importance to aesthetics and kigo.
The Foreword by Alan Summers is very technical and bridges the gap so well. He has a very unique way of explaining and projecting in the most simple way. He connects the techniques and guides through the poems.
Dr. Pravat Kumar Padhy’s article on kigo is worth reading. His master’s stroke is the essence of the book penned with intelligent and measured words portraying the significance of kigo.
Teji Sethi’s contribution to the cover page is a delight! It attracts the reader more and more into the mystery of haiku with its beautiful flow of wavy 3D lines…
Though it’s depicting a peacock’s feather, for me it’s much more than that;
a calm soothing touch that is the need of the hour with most of us, the serendipity of an invocation prayer, the awakening at Brahma Muhurat that fills a person with ecstasy and bliss.Priti Aisola’s Gond art relates with the seasonal aspects as though conveying that “we are all connected—humans, animals, birds!”Whether it may be the deer, owl, peacock, egret, butterfly; each of them have their own little story to tell.
No words to describe your poems and your contribution to the Haikai world around us. I always love reading your poems and they have brightened up the sky all the more with the stars!!
– Lakshmi Iyer
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Feedback from Dr Pravat
Dr. Pravat Kumar Padhy, geologist, a celebrated haiku poet and my mentor wrote the essay on Kigo (season words) for my book. On receiving the book, he sent me this heartening message—
Thank you, Neena, for presenting your precious gift – A Peacock’s Cry. I am delighted to read the ‘Foreword’ by Alan. Indeed, it is elegant. The Vedic sage, Yaska, said ” A word does not convey meaning of its own, it gains meaning through its connections.”
Your haiku accomplish the beauty of poetic essence through connection with nature. You discover haiku which are the ‘little drops poetic essence’ (George Sansom’s quote) in your compositions. The poems in the collection are endowed with eloquence, splendour and honesty. The spark of the moment enlightens the reader’s delight. This poetic energy adds special linguistic luminescence to literature. We do not write haiku. We compose it, as it has poetic resonance.
Neena’s creation is a testament of modern literature with traditional values. It is a book with natural beauty!
Grateful dear Pravat! 🙏💐
