Poetry Pea - haiku and other English Language Japanese short forms

Join host Patricia on the Poetry Pea Podcast for a Poetry Pea Salon with award-winning haiku poet Melissa Dennison, reading from her book Caravan: A Trail of Haiku.
Discover the surprising poetic possibilities of snails, from silvery trails in the frost to the frustrations of a gardener. Melissa reads her haiku and discusses the inspiration behind her work, exploring seasonal references (kigo), juxtaposition, word associations and the art of finding poetry in the smallest details.
Patricia and Melissa take a closer look at individual poems, discussing how contrasting seasons can deepen a haiku, how a single word can open up unexpected associations, and how poets can guide readers towards new ways of seeing the world.
Melissa Dennison is a member of the Haiku Foundation’s Re:Virals team and was named among Europe’s top 100 haiku poets in 2025 and 2026.
Whether you write haiku, enjoy reading Japanese short-form poetry, or are simply curious about how everyday observations become memorable poems, this episode offers inspiration and insight into the craft of haiku.
In this episode:
Melissa Dennison reads from Caravan: A Trail of Haiku
Writing haiku inspired by snails and the natural world
Kigo, seasonal contrast and juxtaposition
Word associations and the layers of meaning in short poetry
Exploring the poet’s intentions and the reader’s interpretation
Find Caravan: A Trail of Haiku via the link in the show notes.
Listen, enjoy, and perhaps look twice at the next snail trail you see.
The Poetry Pea Podcast celebrates haiku, senryū, tanka, haibun and other forms of short poetry, bringing poets and readers together to explore the craft and joy of writing.
Keep writing. Ciao!

Looking for tanka and kyōka inspiration? In this episode of Poetry Peacast, Patricia shares a selection of English-language tanka and kyōka to inspire your own Japanese short-form poetry writing.
We explore how tanka can capture memory, childhood, grief, renewal, humour and everyday life – and how kyōka can use wit, satire and the conventions of traditional Japanese poetry in unexpected ways.
Among the poems we hear are Yomono Akara’s satirical kyōka set in Yoshiwara, along with tanka by Reid Hepworth, Marion Clarke, Vandana Parashar, Colette Kern, Jenny Shepherd, Tim Cremin, Eve Castle, Ann Curran, Agus Maulana Sunjaya, Mona Bedi, Neena Singh, Joshua St Claire and Sara Winteridge.
Patricia looks at what makes these poems work, including concrete imagery, the movement between external observation and emotional response, juxtaposition, sensory detail and the all-important turn in a tanka.
If you’re writing tanka, kyōka, haiku or other Japanese short-form poetry, there are plenty of ideas here to get you reaching for your pen.
The Poetry Pea tanka and kyōka submission deadline is 15 October, but if you’ve missed this call-out, don’t worry – there will be more opportunities to submit your work to Poetry Pea.
The episode also points listeners towards other journals accepting English-language tanka and kyōka, check out the show notes .
Listen, read, write – and keep writing.
#tanka #kyoka #haiku #JapanesePoetry #shortformpoetry #poetrywriting #PoetryPea

Join Patricia on the Poetry Peacast for S9E38, featuring haiku and senryu inspired by paragliding in Interlaken, Switzerland, with David Cox as editor of the August Video Prompt.
Discover the poems selected by David Cox, as Patricia explores the beauty of the Swiss Alps, the history of Interlaken, the spectacular Jungfrau region, and even a few James Bond connections. From silent paragliders floating between church steeples to fleeting shadows on mountain trails, these haiku capture the many ways poets interpret a single moment.
This episode also features bonus haiku and senryu about flying, wind, kites, sky and the natural world, including work by Swiss poets Gregor Graf, Valeria Barouch and Gerard Krebs.
Whether you write haiku, senryu or simply love short-form poetry, join us for a celebration of poetic observation, imagination and the inspiration we find in the world around us.
In this episode:
August 2026 Video Prompt, curated by David Cox
Selected haiku and senryu inspired by paragliding
Interlaken, the Jungfrau and the Swiss Alps
Bonus poems about wind, sky, kites and nature
Haiku by Swiss poets, including Gerard Krebs
Poetry, travel, and the art of noticing
Enjoying the Poetry Peacast? You can support Poetry Pea by becoming a member, purchasing the Poetry Pea Journal, making a donation, leaving a review, or sharing the podcast with your poetry-loving friends.
Poets featured today:
Gregor Graf
Valeria Barouch
Gerard Krebs
Ryan Cohen
Alicia Samson
Anna Yin
Tracy Davidson
Shilan Amir
Norbert Kovacs
Paul Callus
Rohan Buettel
Jacek Margolak
Joanna Ashwell
Kim Klugh
Tom Bierovic
Melissa Dennison
Denisa Hansutova
Federico C Peralta
Tony Williams
Brent Partridge
Debbie Strange
Issa
Taigi
Kim Russell
Eavonka Ettinger
Diana Salusia
Emil Karla
Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
 
Thank you for listening, and as always, keep writing!
Visit Poetry Pea for more haiku, senryu, poetry prompts, journals and community features.

Welcome back to the Poetry Peacast! After a rather unfortunate disappearing act by my voice, I’m back behind the microphone with a special episode celebrating haibun from Tendrils, Volume 3, the Poetry Pea journal of haibun.
In this episode, I read the Editor’s Choice and Honourable Mentions from the journal, outstanding haibun by Cathryn Daley, Mark Forrester and Sara Winteridge.
I explore what makes a successful haibun, particularly the relationship between prose and haiku. I look at how the haiku can bring its own distinct “utterance” to a piece, add emotional resonance and create a dialogue with the prose rather than simply illustrating it.
I also share some thoughts on stand-alone haiku, drawing on Sean O’Connor’s discussion of contemporary haibun and his definition of haibun as a prosimetrum: a combination of prose and poetry.
Featured works include On Repeat, Largesse and Sara Winteridge’s haunting The Order of Things, which explores grief, dementia, memory and the natural world.
If you’re interested in writing haibun, haiku or short-form poetry, there’s plenty here to think about – and hopefully plenty to inspire your own writing.
You’ll find links in the show notes to Tendrils, Volume 3, Sean O’Connor’s article on contemporary haibun, and Vandana Parashar’s We, the People.
Thanks for listening, and as always, keep writing!

Welcome to the Poetry Pea July Video Prompt, featuring a wonderful collection of haiku, senryū and short poetry selected and curated by guest editor Matt Snyder. Thank you Matt.
This month’s episode comes to you from the beautiful Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland — Tolkien’s Rivendell — where the July Video Prompt was filmed.
Patricia begins with a bonus poem of her own before sharing the poems chosen by Matt for this episode and the forthcoming Poetry Pea Journal 3:26.
There's a little mention of Patricia’s insistence that a kigo, or seasonal word, is essential when writing haiku. You may disagree — and that’s perfectly fine. Poetry needs a little healthy disagreement now and then!
If you enjoy the episode, please subscribe, leave a review wherever you listen, or head over to YouTube and leave a comment. And if you’d like to support Poetry Pea, you can find membership and donation links in the show notes.
Thank you for listening, and most importantly, keep writing.
Poets featured:
Sandip Chauhan
Alicia Samson
Soumya Mukherjee
Joanna Ashwell
Lakshmi Iyer
Tracy Davidson
Rohan Buettel
Valerie Green
David Cox
Kim Klugh
Vikram Kolmannskog
Editor’s Choice
Neena Singh

Yvonne Hardenbrook, Haiku in English the first hundred years, Kacian, Rowland and Burns
Jennifer Sutherland, Chrysanthemum, Issue 27 from April 2020
Dina E Cox, Full of Moonlight, Haiku Society of America 2016 Member’s Anthology.
Linda L Ludwig, Little Marvels, 2024
Sōseki trs Ueda[i]
Fred Schofield, Blithe Spirit, Vol. 9 No.2 June 1999
Bona M Santos, PPJ Autumn 2020
Ben Oliver, an Honourable mention from journal 3:24
Daniela Misso, from episode 22 of the fourth series.
Roberta Beach Jacobson, PPJ Autumn 2020
Bisshie

[i] Modern Japanese Haiku Makoto Ueda, University of Toronto Press, 1976