You’ve Written Your Haibun—So Now What?

Revising for Precision, Resonance, and Ma

By Billie Dee, Drifiting Sands Haibun #32, June 2025

You’ve written your classical haibun: a title, a narrative, one or more haikai parts. You’ve revised, proofread, and spell-checked. You’ve combed through for excess adjectives, wandering prepositional phrases, and any lingering traces of “telling” instead of “showing.” So—now what? 

Now, you revise again. 

But this time, your goal isn’t just technical clarity—it’s emotional resonance, tonal balance, and structural harmony. A strong haibun is like a well-crafted piece of jewelry:

• the narrative is the setting—elegant but unobtrusive; 
• the haikai are the gemstones—precise, luminous, irreplaceable; 
• and the title is the presentation box—subtle, intriguing, never overbearing.

Let each element do its work. 

Haibun Writing is Distillation 

Each revision should peel away what’s unnecessary to reveal the haibun’s living core. This isn’t prose with haikai slapped on—it’s an interwoven form, where verse and narrative exist in dynamic tension. Revision clarifies that relationship. It sharpens language, deepens tone, and allows ma (space) to emerge. What remains unsaid matters as much as what is written.

1. The Role of the Prose 

Haibun prose is not conventional storytelling. It resists exposition and avoids overt traditional poesy. Instead, it evokes. Think: distilled poetic memoir or a moment of bare awareness. When revising, consider: - Compression: Can a phrase be tighter? Does each line carry its weight? - Rhythm and flow: Read aloud. Where do you stumble or rush? - Suggestion over explanation: Does your prose leave room for the reader to dream (ma)? 

2. The Haikai Element: Expansion Through Juxtaposition 

The verse isn’t there to summarize or tidy up. Its job is to extend the piece—temporally, emotionally, imagistically. A haikai that echoes the prose too closely flattens the whole. - Check for disjunction: Does the haikai offer a new angle, mood, or moment? - Experiment with placement: Sometimes, moving a verse to the beginning or middle can shift the emotional axis. - Consider alternates: A strong prose section may invite a more resonant or surprising ku. 

 3. Cutting for Impact: The Power of Ma 

Ma is the breathing space between lines, between thoughts. It’s silence as structure, suggestion as invitation. When revising: - Prune aggressively: Cut not just for brevity, but to create space.

• Avoid overexplaining the verse: Let the haikai resonate without anchoring it in prose.
• Honor ambiguity: Not confusion, but layered meaning—the kind that invites rereading. 

4. Read It Aloud—Yes, Really! 

This one’s non-negotiable. Read your haibun aloud a dozen times or more, especially with each new draft—to yourself, to your cat, to someone who doesn’t write poetry. (Especially that last one—they’ll tell you where you lost them.) Listen for awkward rhythms, overlong sentences, breathless passages. If you stumble, your reader will too. Reading aloud catches what your eye will overlook. It’s your best editor. Use it. 

 5. Final Polish: A Submission Checklist

• Have I trimmed excess from the prose? - Does the haikai add something new, not just echo the narrative? - Is the tone consistent throughout? 
• Does the title enhance the work without giving too much away? - Have I read this aloud—multiple times? 
• Are there any typos, grammatical stumbles, or formatting quirks? 
• And finally: Is this my best work? If not, wait. Refine again. Submit later. 

What Editors Notice 

Paraphrased from Beary, Watts and Youmans¹, with a few additions from the trenches: 

• Let your originality show, quietly—remember, most tweaks have been tried before. - Don’t mimic another poet’s voice (especially not one judging the contest).
• Don’t title your haibun Untitled. Just... don’t.
• Never ask editors for feedback. If they offer it, treasure it—and respond with humility and grace.
• Don’t take rejections personally. Every editor you admire has a stack of their own.
• Always, always be courteous. Editing is mostly thankless labor. Editors are not your nemesis. 

In Closing 

Haibun revision isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about making space—for breath, for emotion, for the reader. Keep what shines. Cut what clutters. Read aloud until it sings. And when it does? Send it out.

 Then start the next one. 

__________
Footnote:
¹ Beary, Roberta; Lew Watts, Rich Youmans. Haibun: A Writer's Guide. United Kingdom: Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023. 

Annotated Bibliography 

Beary, Roberta, Lew Watts, and Rich Youmans. Haibun: A Writer’s Guide. United Kingdom: Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023. ISBN 978-1-913139-82-1.
This compact but comprehensive guide offers clear, contemporary advice for writing and revising haibun. The co-authors—each experienced as poet and editor—address structure, tone, and submission etiquette. Their practical checklists and insights into the form’s evolution are invaluable for emerging and advanced writers alike. 

Rasmussen, Ray. “A Title Is a Title Is a Title, or Is It?” Contemporary Haibun Online 19, no. 1 (April 2023).
Rasmussen explores the function of titles in haibun—not just as labels but as mood-setters, provocations, or structural tools. An essential companion to any revision process, especially when refining tone and first impressions. 

 __________. “The Role of Modeling in Haibun Composition.” Contemporary Haibun Online 19, no. 1 (April 2023). .
This essay addresses the tension between imitation and originality. Rasmussen offers a nuanced take on how new writers can learn from the masters without copying them, making this particularly relevant to the 'find your own voice' sections of the essay. 

 __________. “Characteristics of Contemporary English-Language Haibun.”     `. https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/chohtmlarchive/articles/Rasmussen_characteristi csofhaibun.html.
A foundational essay summarizing key traits of strong modern haibun—concise prose, evocative haikai, and the importance of suggestion over explanation. Useful for anyone defining or teaching the genre. 

Welch, Michael Dylan. “Moonless Haibun: Prose Without Haiku.” Graceguts. https://www.graceguts.com/essays/moonless-haibun-prose-without-haiku.
Welch explores haibun that contain no embedded haiku—only titled prose. This piece broadens the scope of what haibun can be, while still holding to the discipline of precision and implication. A useful contrast to traditional haibun structure. 

__________. “Fair Use in Historical Haibun.” Graceguts. https://www.graceguts.com/essays/fair-use-in-historical-haibun.
Though focused on a niche concern, this essay provides historical context for haibun practice, showing how contemporary innovation remains tethered to tradition. It reminds writers that the form is both old and evolving.

Haikai Talks: The Spacious Moment—Haikai and the Art of Presence

From a Series written for Triveni Haikai, India, November 2025.

For the next five weeks, we will focus on haikai selected from the anthology Naad Anunaad: an anthology of contemporary world haiku. (Kala Ramesh, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Shloka Shankar, eds. Pune, IN: Vishwakarma Publications, 2016, ISBN# 978-93-85665-33-2), which our Triveni editor-in-chief, Kala Ramesh has graciously invited me to discuss.

Part 1: Thresholds of Stillness

In haikai, presence is not performance. It is not the doing but the "being with"—a quality of attention that listens rather than declares. The Japanese aesthetic of ma is often described as “the space between,” but it is more than pause—it is a living silence, a vital stillness where meaning breathes.
In this first part of our series, we explore haikai that draw us to such thresholds. Here, the world is neither static nor hurried. Instead, it unfolds layer by layer, petal by petal, breath by breath.

mountain behind mountain behind mountain—

petals of a rose

—Aditya Bahl

the cricket cage door

left open starry night

—Alan Pizzarelli

Both poems gesture toward the infinite by way of the intimate. Bahl’s haikai moves from the immense to the intricate, echoing Bashō’s layers of depth, where landscape and blossom become one continuous revelation. Pizzarelli offers a small, almost imperceptible action—a cage door left ajar—that opens to a cosmos shimmering with possibility. In both these poems, ma is not merely a break in sound or a pause in thought—it is the very medium through which presence arrives. 

PROMPT: Where do you find stillness today? What threshold beckons your attention, provokes you to linger? Write a haikai that explores one quiet moment of undistracted presence. Invite us to enter that space with you. 

Part 2: Small Acts, Wide Echoes

The mundane is not the opposite of the sacred—it is often its quietest doorway. In haiku, even the smallest gestures can resound with emotional and sensory depth. The act of cooking, the hush of evening light—these become resonant because of the attention they are given, not because they are grand.

lullaby of rain
another pinch of saffron
in the pumpkin soup

—Alan Summers

stringing beans …

a scrap of twilit sky

through the window

—Anitha Varma

Summers’ poem moves through layered sound and scent—the lull of rain, the golden hue of spice, the warmth of soup. All sensory, all immediate. And yet, the implied repetition in “another pinch” suggests something ongoing, a rhythm of care and noticing. In Varma’s haiku, the domestic act of preparing food is quietly framed by the world beyond—a glimpse of twilight through a window, a reminder that time and place are always entangled. Both haiku model an attention that does not seek to elevate the moment, but to enter it. That entrance—deliberate, unadorned, and receptive—is the hallmark of presence.

PROMPT: What moment of quiet rhythm stayed with you today? What small gesture widened your awareness? Write a haikai that captures the enduring beauty and comfort of a small ritual, the mundane redefined by your presence.

KIGO REFERENCES

A Dictionary of Haiku Classified by Season Words with Traditional and Modern Methods, by Jane Reichhold.

 

Indian subcontinent SAIJIKI, Triveni Haikai, India.

The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words

The World Kigo Database, curated by Dr. Gabi Greve.

The Yuki Teikei Haiku Season Word List

HAIBUN

 The Stillness Left Behind
                           —after Robert Hass

After the matinee, we step out into full sun. We’d just seen a samurai film—not classic Kurosawa, something cheaper. But it held one frame of truth: a dying man on a hillside, closing his eyes and letting go with such authenticity, it did not feel acted.

On the walk to our car, you mutter about the poor production and dubbing, the graininess of vintage black-and-white reels. But I’m not listening to you—only to that warrior’s sigh, to a wind that carries the scent of alfalfa into town.

Later that evening, I walk the arroyo alone. Not to ponder old films, or you—but to think about my mother’s death: the shudder in that last breath. The quiet that took her.

Pines on the ridge sway in the breeze.

twilight hush
a bobwhite's call pierces
then fades

__________
Note: After Robert Hass’s “Heroic Simile” from Praise (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1979). This poem is available online at The Poetry Foundation.

Contemporary Haibun Online 21.2, Summer 2025

tanka prose

Charred

After Vietnam, he never fit in — left his family behind, drifted through the back streets of a series of Midwestern cities. Hobbled by nightmares and pills, he gave what little he had to the three-legged mutt he found in a rail yard. When the Veterans’ Home finally took him in, they made him give up the dog. He hasn’t spoken since.

.....scent
.....of a neighborhood
.. ..barbecue—
 ....in the unlit day room
.. ..an old soldier weeping

haikuKATHA #48, Oct25

Coffin Ship

ground mist
the clicking knees of sheep
punctuate an afternoon

In the drizzly back-country of County Cork, I follow a tattered map
drawn by my great-great grandfather. From the parked rental car
I take my bearings.

As a lad of twelve, he sails from the port of Waterford in 1849.
His sister and mother die in the cargo hold, are buried at sea.
Eager and thin, he arrives in New York and serves two years of his indentured contract, then runs away to the gold mines of Montana.

naked berm
a pair of ravens peck
something shiny

I drive past lines of drying peat, stacked like tilted dominoes. Filling
my lungs with the heady scent of petrichor, I check his map again.

at a dead end
headstones too mossy to read
famine road

__________
Youmans, Rich (ed.), Contemproary Haibun, Vol 19.. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2024

2023 San Francisco International Haibun Contest: Hon. Mention ​

2024 San Francisco Rengay Contest

Interstate

Richard L. Matta, San Diego, California

Billie Dee, San Miguel, New Mexico

 

18-wheelers
shedding 10-ply skin
runaway truck ramp                  Richard

 

big chest, tiny waist
the chrome mudflap chick        Billie

 

watering hole
a singing trout
behind the bar                            Richard

 

biker funeral
his brother-in-law’s
borrowed suit                              Billie

 

hot Harley pipe. . .
the squid’s new ink                    Richard

 

tattoo removal
her last two husbands
finally gone                                  Billie

 

​

Second Place

Judges: Yvette Nicole Kolodjj, Sean Kolodji--comments

Grit and grime permeate this poem about living and dying in the fast lane, driving us into a memorable and vivid portrait that evokes Route 66 Americana. The fish-out-of-water discomfort of a biker donning an ill-fitted ‘borrowed suit’ is relatable. We watch the hot-headed squid (biker jargon for a specific type of reckless biker) impulsively get a new tattoo, new scar, or worse. The poem effectively transitions from tires shedding its skin to the undulating shapely silhouette of the ‘chrome mudflap chick,’ a symbol of the unattainable standards of feminine beauty. The poem ultimately ends with a woman shedding her tattoos and her ex-husbands. The stories of those that occupy this milieu are intriguing—the tone and theme of this poem really stood out from all the other contest entrants.

 

Haiku Sequence

Fly Over Town

a gutter spout 

packed with hazelnuts 

red squirrel dawn 

 too cold to snow 

 cutthroat pinochle 

 with the in-laws 

 assisted living 

     an untuned upright 

     in the day room 

six rhubarb pies 

at the Lutheran potluck 

we bow for Grace 

crab apple branch

bristly with hoarfrost 

solstice moon

 

 

Modern Haiku 56.1, 2025

 

Wild Turkey

Mike and the boys drop by so we sit up all night knockin back shots, tellin jokes and countin all the times we got our hearts broke. Old Bob tries to sing along with Johnny Cash but his dentures keep slippin and when we crack up he gets mad and stomps out the door.

It’s getting pretty ripe in here and our eyes are waterin or maybe it’s the old songs and all the stories of when we was kids and had a future or maybe it’s just them onions Mable chopped and fried with the hash browns.

Sam keeps getting sick. I walk him outside so he don’t mess up the rug and then Mike shows us his new Chevy crew cab and says we should go cruisin. We all hop in and that’s the last thing I remember.

     after the fist fight
     eating ripe peaches
     on the back porch

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21.1, Mar 2025

The View from Lipton Seat

Haputale, Sri Lanka

Arms flung wide in cool mountain air
ribbons of chanted Heart Sutra twine
from an old slope-slung monastery

binding us with this singular moment.

     the manicure
     of a tea plantation
     emerging
     from morning mists





            wild elephants

Contemporary Haibun Online, 21.1, Mar 2025

Recently Published Haikai, Jan 2025

haikuKATHA #39, Jan 2025

     first dawn
     the pounding in my head
     in my head

    
     last call. . .
     the barkeep wipes down
     one more year

     taking down the mistletoe widow’s moon

    

Recently Published Haibun

Long-distance Runner

           final sprint         
           pacing each breath

           with stride      

Through the window his nurse watches
a cardinal land on a snowy branch. Smiling,
she turns to plump the pillows.

hospice room         
dawn reflected         
in the bed rails

 

haikuKATHA #39, Jan 2025

RENGAY

Issa's Dream

by Michael Dylan Welch, Billie Dee, and Josh Wikoff

Issa’s dream
the village flooded
with poets                             (Michael)

morning-glory warriors
in the nun’s courtyard       (Billie)

Rorschach test
Bashō’s bucket full
of octopi                               (Josh)

the snail tells me
what’s on his mind            (Michael)

road weary
Santōka trades his raincoat
for sake                                 (Billie)

Shiki’s old mitt the color
of dried persimmon            (Josh)


Frogpond 47:1, Winter 2024, p76.

Bouquet Garni

Up early to beat the heat. Down the path to the tool shed

blackbirds twitter indigo into a blushing dawn.

A silhouette of Grandaddy’s old Allis Chalmers begins

to emerge. The saddleback geese are just waking.

      hornworms
 

      tossed to a Guinea hen—

      six new chicks in tow

Once the cherry tomatoes are staked, I weed the zucchini,

thin out a row of carrots. Now, here comes

our bantam rooster, crowing as he struts through a patch

of tarragon. Marigolds the color of traffic cones peek

from a swath of thyme. My hoe takes care of the bolting sage.

Satisfied, I scrape my boots, tie on a crisp gingham apron.

     first lavender wands
 
             a sprig of parsley

             between my teeth   

Contemporary Haibun Online, 20.3, Dec 2024

The Narrow-Gauge Train to Kandy

                 mountain mist
                 the tea plantation dotted
                 with bowing pickers

At the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, Gautama’s left incisor rests
within seven nested golden boxes behind an altar mounded
with blue lotus blossoms, the intoxicating fragrance of which
induces a state of reverence and awe amidst the clamor
of temple drums and chanting barefoot monks.

                 a procession
                 of painted elephants—
                 iron shackles

Contemporary Haibun Online, 20.3, Dec 2024

Jackrabbit

           quaking aspen
               the dappled sway
                         of muttongrass

It's my tenth birthday and I’m learning to shoot the .22 rifle.
It’s over 100 years old, handed down from father to son
for three generations, and now to me. Even though I’m a girl,
Daddy treats me like his worthy heir. “Act serious,” I whisper
to myself, but I can’t quite contain my grin. 

          wild strawberries
          gleam like pigeon-blood rubies. . .
          stinging nettles

 haikuKATHA #26, Dec 2023

2023 San Francisco International Rengay Contest

Reflections 

     Richard L. Matta, San Diego, CA, USA 
     Billie Dee, San Miguel, NM, USA

fireworks
a blue heron fishes
shooting stars 

depth of the glacial lake. . .
Perseid shower 

      distant splash 

      moonglow shimmers 

      in ripples 

     overhand cast
     spinner glint mirrors 

     the night sky 

the comet’s tail
a large-mouth bass 

this vast stretch
           of Milky Way
                   salmon eggs 

First Place, 2023 (Judge: Gary Gay)

 __________ 

The Tour Boat’s Wake 

     Michael Dylan Welch, Sammamish, WA, USA

     Billie Dee, San Miguel, NM, USA

San Diego Zoo—
a slow line
for the pandas 

a row of make-out cars
at Sunset Cliffs

     the Coronado Bridge
     curving over sailboats. . .
     the tour boat’s wake 

     sun glint on bay chop
     we paddle our kayaks past
     the USS Midway 

low-riders on parade
in Old Town 

orchid show
the Spreckels Organ
shakes Balboa Park  

Honorable Mention, 2023 (Judge: Gary Gay)

RENGAY

Office Supplies

by Tanya McDonald, Billie Dee, and Michael Dylan Welch

the paperclip
bent into a heart—
hold music                               (Tanya)

out of whiteout
winter afternoon                     (Billie)

fiftieth birthday—
my manager’s doodle
on the pink slip                      (Michael)

hole-punch confetti
stuck to the janitor’s shoes (Tanya)

printer jam
the instruction manual
in broken English                   (Billie)

retirement speech
into the shredder                  (Michael)


Hedgerow #140, Dec 2022, p16

2021 HSA Garry Gay Rengay Award

Perseverance
by Deborah P Kolodji and Billie Dee

backyard bird call
Perseverance
lands on Mars

blast of solar wind
the dank of withered reeds

... .Venusian clouds
.....a biplane circles
.....the sky above me

.....the half-moon betta
.....sipping air
.....Europa’s hidden seas

cardinals at the feeder
snowfall on Pluto

Kepler’s star
the iron in my blood
blood red

3rd Place, HSA Garry Gay Rengay Award, 2021

Split Sequence linked Haiku

This new variation on linked haiku sequences is explained by its innovator Peter Jastermsky. Try writing some yourself with a trusted partner and discover how addictive this form can be.  This excerpt is copied from the Frogpond website:

__________

An Introduction to Split Sequences
(complete PDF version) 

by Peter Jastermsky

Here is a sample excerpt from the opening page of this essay:

This essay will offer a brief history of the split sequence, with examples of collaborative and solo versions, as well as a brief how-to primer on writing a split sequence at the end.

I created the split sequence form in 2017. Having just written a selection of haiku and senryu, I looked at the poems in front of me and asked myself, “What would happen if I did this?” I took one of the haiku, split the three lines apart, and placed a haiku between each of those three lines. The line format became 1/3/1/3/1/3. After some tweaking, and adding a title, I realized that I had created a linked piece of some kind. But what was it?

Garry Gay created a linked verse form, the now famous rengay, in 1992. Perhaps the aspect that has been rengay’s staying power is its communal aspect. My 2017 discovery is also a linked form maintaining certain elements of renku. Over time, the rengay caught on with poets, and that communal form is strongly being written 30 years later. Linked verse brings us together. So let’s share a split sequence!

A split sequence starts once an original three-line haiku is picked that you judge will be suitable in its individual lines to split into thirds.

[essay continues for several more pages] . . .

. . .

Jastermsky, Peter. "An Introduction to Split Sequences." Frogpond 45.1, Winter 2022, 91-95.

Space Cowboys!

Two new split-sequence linked haiku written by Deborah P Kolodji and me have been published in Eccentric Orbits #3, a speculative/scifi poetry anthology released by Space Cowboys Publishing. Many thanks to editors Wendy Van Camp and Ken Goudsward.

 

What Knockers
     Billie Dee, New Mexico, USA
     Deborah P Kolodji, California, USA

electric storm

     darkness
     your face for a split second
     in a flash of light

Igor shambles

     Tesla coil
     the stench of fresh grave goods
     clings to his cowl

 into the windmill

      the world tilts 
     air circulates 
     in an Abby Normal brain 

 [with apologies to Mel Brooks and the late greats Marty Feldman and Gene Wilder, staring in Young Frankenstein]

__________

 One Arm of the Spiral 
     Deborah P Kolodji, California, USA
     Billie Dee, New Mexico, USA

galactic neighbors

     how many light years
     between your planet
     and mine

the brown dwarf

     dark nights together
     a lack of heat
     or energy

 lurks

      peering
     into the void
     feeling the gravity

 

__________

 

Here's a link to a new YouTube reading that we performed at the opening party for the book: What Knockers. (scroll to 14:10)