Belonging & Missing
NovPAD 2024 • Days 24 & 25
This month’s theme: “Where I Am: Poems of Place”
11/24 • Belonging
Where civic pride is orange and blue and anyone who moves the chains is counted with the worthy few who earn our love if they sustain their excellence—and we complain about the game like it’s a sport— that’s where I hear my home refrain and noise of the belonging sort.
This is a huitain written in iambic tetrameter (4 stressed “feet” per line). I like tetrameter for short, structured poems because it tightens up the lines and requires more work to hit the end rhymes at the right time.
11/25 • Missing
cold hands
an empty chair
fireside
slender flames
flicker beneath
falling leaves
an empty chair
holding spaceThis is a haiku linked with a tanka, or "hainka," a relatively new combined poetry form pioneered by poet Pravat Kumar Padhy. Hainka poetry explores nature as well as human aspects like love, emotion, etc. This combination needs to use coherent images that portray the “link and shift” of both haiku and tanka. The linked verse can be written using a short/long/short /long/long sequence like modern English language haiku and tanka poems rather than a strict syllable count of 5/7/5—5/7/5/7/7.
See his full article on Writer’s Digest
Thank you for reading Mimesis Kinesis! The poetry here is always free to read, but I do offer paid subscription options for anyone who would like to support my work. Or, you can simply buy me a coffee and help me stay awake so I can write more. Whether you choose to pay or not, I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to spend time here.
Beautiful and poetic "Hainka". It exhibits an emotional touch. The symbiotic is spledid and at poetic best. I feel humbled as many attempted the new form that I introduced.
Congratulations, Mark.
Pravat Kumar Padhy, Ph.D
Loved that first one and I agree about the use of tetrameter. It has a nice kind of galloping pace that also allows for a little description and isn't too sing-songy in my opinion.