Haiga Challenge 1 – Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta

Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta (Artwork)Anju Kishore (Poem) Anju’s Comments: To me, Sankara’s haiga feels like a song, perfectly balancing light and dark, object, text, and space. The moon is not there, but is there in the bowl. The beggar is not there, but is there in the stick. Want is in the darkness, and hope is in the light. There is a dream softly taking wing. And we see the mother and the child. The Haiga Challenge is just that. It challenges artists to create imagery relevant to a haikai poem supplied by one of The Abstractaphy Initiative's contributing poets. In this,…

Haiga Challenge 1 – Marilyn Ashbaugh

Marilyn Ashbaugh (Artwork)Anju Kishore (poem) Editor’s Comments: This haiga spoke to me in that the discarded eggshell not only conjures the image of a half-moon but it also speaks to the uncertainty of day-to-day existence for those living in poverty. Eggs go good with pancakes but like the story of the beggar, this one is hollow and lacking in sustenance. The lines between the real and the unreal are blurred by the story. The child goes hungry, but Mother feeds its imagination. The Haiga Challenge is just that. It challenges artists to create imagery relevant to a haikai poem supplied by…

Haiga Challenge 1 – Reid Hepworth

Reid Hepworth (Artwork)Anju Kishore (Poem) Anju’s Comments: Reid’s haiga makes me think of drooping eyelids, heavy with sleep. Or hunger. Or fatigue. Or all of the above. Whose eyes are they? The mother’s, the child’s or both? Or is this a view of the moon from those eyelids, with the mother’s voice blurring the line between reality and imagination? This minimalist abstract effortlessly sets the wheels in my head turning. The Haiga Challenge is just that. It challenges artists to create imagery relevant to a haikai poem supplied by one of The Abstractaphy Initiative's contributing poets. In this, the inaugural issue…

Pancake Moon

By Anju KishoreBengaluru, India pancake moonstories the beggar feedsher toddler Published in THF Haiku Dialogue 3/23