Taiga: tanka by Pamela A. Babusci and photograh by Diane Dehler

Copyrighted © by Pamela A. Babusci and Diane Dehler. All rights reserved.

like Monet’s
scintillating lilies
i shiver within
the indigo pool
of your love

—Published previously in Haigaonline (Summer 2014), in the “Waterlily Series” by Pamela A. Babusci and Diane Dehler; reproduced here with permissions from poet and the photographer.

Media: sumi-e ink and acrylic on paper (2013)

Taiga copyrighted © by Pamela A. Babusci. All rights reserved.

if you hurt me
i will bleed
red rain
arranging my stilettos
in order of height

—Published in the haiga galleries at The Haiku Foundation and reproduced here with artist’s permission.

Taiga copyrighted © by Pamela A. Babusci. All rights reserved.

my begging bowl
is for love & nothing more
why is it
overflowing
with dead blossoms?

—Published previously in Simply Haiku (Summer 2007, Volume 5, Number 2), and reproduced here with artist’s permission.

Pamela A. Babusci

is an award-winning haiku and tanka poet and haiga and taiga artist, who also creates abstract and sumi-e paintings. Her haiga and taiga have been featured at Haigaonline and The Haiku Foundation, and have appeared in haiku and tanka journals such as Simply Haiku and Frameless Sky, as well as numerous others. She is the author of two collections of poetry, A Thousand Reasons and A Solitary Woman, and a founding editor of Moonbathing (the first tanka journal in the United States to feature only women poets), which she now edits solo. In 2008, she served as sponsor and judge for the First International Erotic Tanka Contest.

Pamela has illustrated several books, including Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor Awards, Taboo Haiku, Chasing the Sun, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, and A Thousand Reasons. She was the logo artist for Haiku North America in New York City in 2003 and Haiku North America in Winston-Salem, N.C. in 2007. A member of the Rochester Artist Breakfast Group, she has collaborated with figurative and abstract painters in Rochester, N.Y. at art galleries and shows.

Her awards include, among others: Museum of Haiku Literature Award, International Tanka Splendor Awards, First Place Yellow Moon Competition (tanka category, Australia), First Place Kokako Tanka Competition (New Zealand), First Place Saigyo Tanka Awards (U.S.), 21st Mainichi Haiku Contest (International First Prize, Japan), and First Place Mount Fuji Tanka Contest (Japan).

Diane Dehler

is an American poet and photographer, known especially for her flower photography and studies of the lotus, orchid, and chrysanthemum. Her photography has been featured at Haigaonline, and she has several thousand followers on Facebook. Her multi-media video poem, The Lotus, has received 3,000+ views on YouTube, and her blog, Princess Haiku, has received more than 200,000 views.

Ms. Dehler’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was a finalist for the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Prizes 2016, and has been published in numerous venues: The Artemis Review, The Criterion: An International Journal in English, Cultural Weekly, Deepwater Literary Journal, Edgar Allan Poet, From the Four Chambered Heart: In tribute to Anais Nin, Lummox Journal, The Mas Tequila Review, Moonbathing: A Journal of Women’s Tanka, Munyori Literary Review, Pirene’s Fountain, poeticdiversity, Rose Red Review, Skylark, The Taj Mahal Review, and Truck, among others.