Harriot West: Two Haibun

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Maybe

he’s looking at me but I can’t be sure. I feign interest in the drummer’s solo, slide my index finger down the inside of my lover’s arm.

candlelight
the horn player's
swollen lips

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The Way Things Were

There she is on eBay—the doll mother never let me have—poor Barbie, dismissed in the house where I grew up as cheap, not for the plastic she was made of but for her perky in-your-face breasts.

sepia shadows
a young girl tugs
at her tee shirt

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I’m interested in your take on West’s haibun. If you like them, could you offer a few words as to why it works for you? Please feel free to comment in the space below.

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Biography:

Harriot West lives in Eugene, Oregon. She says she rarely manages to write a prose poem that feels complete without adding at least one haiku. Her haibun and haiku have been published widely and anthologized. Her books and poetry have received a number of awards and she’s one of the haiku poets featured in A New Resonance 5: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku. Her collections include: Shades of Absence, Into the light,

Read this interview for Harriot West’s reflections on haibun. -> reflections on haibun