Cafe Haiku: The Magazine of the Cafe Haiku Group (Mumbai, Thane, Hyderabad and Chennai), 2024

A Decade of Joy – Retrospective by Debbie Strange

To celebrate my ten years of publishing (after a lifetime of writing!), Rohini Gupta kindly invited me to share a haiga retrospective of my journey along the haiku path. For this initiative, I’ve created ten new haiga incorporating images from my abstract photography exhibition, The Poetry of Light. Though the subjects of these photographs are ordinary (fabric, jewellery, glass), they are transformed into dreamscapes by employing diffusion and shallow depth-of-field techniques. These blurred pictures represent my ongoing struggles with vision, and they have not been digitally manipulated. They also showcase the use of colour therapy in my daily art practice, which increases endorphin production, helping to mitigate the effects of chronic illness. The artworks fall into the non-representational tangential haiga category. For further information on the six recognized categories of haiga, please see: https://www.gendaihaiku.com/kacian/haiga.html

I extend my thanks to the Café Haiku team for this lovely opportunity to share my work!

 2014

 

on the tundra
caging a winter sky
caribou bones
 
3^rd Place, 2^nd Annual “aha” Awards, 2014
 
This is one of my earliest published haiku, so it holds a special place in my heart. We have two ecotypes of woodland caribou in Manitoba, and the boreal woodland caribou is a threatened species.

2015

 

stone cairns
a faded cap drifts
downriver
 
1^st Place, Harold G. Henderson Awards, 2015
 
On one of our adventures in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, we discovered many cairns along the Athabasca River, with notes imploring hikers and canoeists to be on the lookout for a young man who had slipped over the waterfall and perished.

2016

 

fog deepens
the sound of rabbits
nibbling night
 
Grand Prize, World Haiku Competition, 2016
 
I used to have a huge perennial flower garden, and keeping rabbits at bay could be a chore. When I discovered a nest of five baby cottontails in the leaf mulch under my rose bushes, I could hardly be angry at their mother!

2017

 

glassy lake
flocks of snow geese
pull up the moon
 
1^st Place, Autumn Moon Haiku Contest, 2017
 
This sketch-from-life haiku evokes fond memories. We were camped beside a lake in mid-autumn. A huge harvest moon was on the rise, accompanied by the soft calls of snow geese overhead. Their loose skeins gave the appearance of reins, pulling the moon out of the water.

2018

 
frozen trough
I cup the warm breath
of my horse
 
1^st Place, Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest, 2018
 
“Rival” is a special Percheron draft horse in my life, whose charcoal gray coat is spattered with white stars. He is powerful, yet gentle, and when he snuffles his warm breath against me, I feel at peace with the world.

 

2019

 
alpenglow
a pika gathers stems
of light
 
Commended, Little Iris Haiku Contest, 2019
 
We’ve only had the good fortune of seeing a wild pika once, but what an experience it was! The light was turning the mountains to rose-gold, when we heard a squeak coming from behind some rocks. A little “rock rabbit” appeared, with a mouth full of backlit plant stems to add to its “haystack” of food.

2020

 
prairie town
rusted rails lead us
into sunrise
 
Museum of Haiku Literature Award, Blithe Spirit, Volume 30, Number 2, 2020
 
As anyone who has lived in a small prairie town will tell you, walking on the rails is almost a rite of passage! There is something compelling about the way they beckon you into the distance, sparking imagination as to what might be ahead.

2021

 
fireflies the synchronicity of it all
 
1^st Place, Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition, 2021
 
Whilst lingering around our campfire, mesmerized by bright sparks illuminating the dark night, we noticed that not all of them were born of the flames. It was a wonderful experience to feel part of something so magical.

2022

 
skinny-dipping the moon snail’s umbilicus
 
Runner-up, The David Cobb Haiku Award, 2022
 
Summers spent at the cottage with my sisters were happy times filled with love and laughter. One night while my mother kept watch, we girls frolicked in the moonlit water, naked as mermaids. We had to beat a hasty retreat, though, when we saw the lanterns of night fishermen winking at us!

2023

 
drifting sands
sometimes the poem
writes itself
 
Winner, Drifting Sands Wearable Art and Haiku Contest, 2023
 
One of my favourite things to do when we are beachcombing is to write words and poems in the sand. I decorate them with leaves, feathers, stones, and shells, hoping that someone will find these little offerings before the tide rises.