Global Haiku • Fall 2018
Dr. Randy Brooks

Author’s Bio

Melanie Wilson is a current junior BFA Stage Management and BA Spanish double major. Prior to this class, she had never written any poetry, and was not too keen on the idea of reading it. After a semester full of haiku, she has come to enjoy the shortness and the quirkiness of the haiku.

Coffee and Crumbs

by
Melanie Wilson

Author’s Introduction

In my semester’s haiku collection, Coffee and Crumbs, I have selected the haiku that I feel mostly strongly connected to, in addition to the haiku that best represent my strengths as a writer and the progress I have made. As I wrote, I took something unexciting and ordinary that happened to me, and tried to connect it to something on a larger more global scale. This could mean nature, politics, or the human experience in general. Titled from a line in one of my haiku, Coffee and Crumbs aims to explore the ordinary things in life, and how the natural energy of the world is connected to human emotions and experiences.

umbrellas up
just in case
the sky falls today

lily pads float
in the moon’s reflection
summer night

you take me under your wing
I follow you
duckling

knees bend
shoulders straighten
am I good enough?

dirty dishes pile up
we fall asleep
on the couch

millions of stars glistening
another road
not taken

crowded bus stop
she counts
gray hairs

hearts beating fast
he runs
alongside me

new job
changing her dress out
for pants

funeral day
coffee and crumbs
at the bottom of my cup

yawning
the cat on the carpet
me at the desk

wet leaves
cling to my boots
I get another phone call

she walks up the stairs
bringing with her
the cold air

another pie in the oven
trying to get it right
this time