Global Haiku • June 2018
Dr. Randy Brooks

Skipping Stones

by
Karmina C. Gant

Preface

Before you begin reading this booklet filled with my selected haiku, I would like to acknowledge that only a few of them are based on my own true incidents. While writing haiku I was always searching for inspiration from past or present events. I have always enjoyed overdramatically telling stories without leaving a single detail out. I have had plenty of interesting life experiences equally wonderful and horrible so I figured writing haiku about them would be no problem. Boy, was I wrong. Writing haiku was like telling stories but only giving out a few of the most important details and then not even getting to finish the ending. To appreciate the writing and reading of haikus, I had to teach myself to leave room for the reader to finish the story themselves. I had to learn to appreciate the imagination of others. I had to tell myself that a great story doesn’t always have to include every single detail. While writing haiku I tried hard not to be overly dramatic. Although, I thrived on escaping to a pretend life. Writing haiku became fun once I stopped trying to base my haikus off my own personal life experiences but instead escaped somewhere else as someone else.

I strived to create poems that left room for the readers to share the experience with me. Sometimes I stressed about writing too much, sometimes I worried I didn’t write enough. But, in the end I learned it’s not the amount of words or syllables that matter the most. What matters the most is that the readers can find delight in reading my poems. While reading them, I hope they can make them their own. I selected the title of this book based off a haiku I wrote my second day of class, when I started to grow in the art writing haiku:

skipping stones
from their sixth-grade classroom
two boys are missing

Completing a class on haiku has brought me a newfound joy and more importantly an appreciation of the talent of writing haiku. I can only hope that this pleasure is portrayed through these selected poems included in this booklet. 

Karmina Gant
Millikin University
Decatur, Illinois

her father’s silence
after coming home past curfew
loud and clear

crisp air
cousins playing hide-n-seek with
rosy cheeks

field of wild flowers
I picked some for her
Grandma’s house

track practice
only she knows her flushed cheeks
are not from running

cool autumn breeze
he reaches for my hand
sweaty palms

time heals
until then I will keep reminding myself
to breathe in and out

watching her sleep
I smile at the way she curls up
my small dog

slowly dying
I think to myself about
the plants in the garden

kitchen counter
tiny hands swatted away
from the candy bowl

watching caterpillars
do they know
how much more they can be?

looking at the sky
she always feels so small
when he speaks

1963 Corvette
dad loaned me his car
first date

hospital waiting room
crying and hugging
it’s a boy

watching the sun linger
she asks him to stay
a little longer

they fall in love
in an instant
polaroid

inside an old wallet
his memory of her
imprinted and faded

dusty attic
staring at old photos we ask
grandma how it all began

watching her sleep
I smile at the way she curls up
my small dog