Featured Haiku from Windfall 1 & 6

Welcome to a new series of featured haiku. This series draws from the journal Windfall: Australian Haiku, which was an annual print journal edited by Beverley George and published by Peter Macrow’s Blue Giraffe Press between 2013 and 2022 (ISSN 1839-5449).

For the featured poems this time I have selected two that explore quite different views of oyster catchers. Both have vivid visual images and use repeated sounds well. Both delight with surprising twists in their last lines.

rock pool
a sooty oyster catcher
scissors through sky
– Lorraine Haig
Windfall 1, 2013

Lorraine’s poem opens at ground level. The rock pool shows a coastal location – a liminal zone between land and ocean. Then the view shifts to a seabird – not a seagull, but a less common sooty oyster catcher. It’s easy to imagine this bird with its all-black plumage and orange beak, eye and feet, foraging on a rock platform. L3 provides a twist. The bird is in the sky, and perhaps it is a reflection in the rock pool that the narrator sees. The choice of scissors through for the action of the bird is fresh and adds to the surprise of L3. The alliteration of ‘s’ sounds and assonance of the ‘oo’ sounds contribute to the overall euphony of the poem.

oyster catcher’s skull …
empty eye socket gathers
raindrops and stars
– Dawn Bruce
Windfall 6, 2018

In Dawn’s poem, the opening line is melancholy. Only the skull remains of a once-vibrant bird. L2 reminds readers of the life of the creature. The consonants in the first two lines sound sharp, adding to a sense of harshness. Wondering how an eye socket in the skull of a bird can gather something spurs readers on to the closing line, which brings a touch of magic. It seems a tiny pool of water is reflecting stars.

Leanne Mumford