Welcome to our mini-series on The Auroras & Blossoms Haiku Anthology, which celebrates the poets featured in volumes 1-3.

Today, Isabella Mori and Steven-Mark Maine are telling us what inspired the haiku & senryu they sent us.

Isabella Mori

Isabella Mori lives in Vancouver, Canada, and is the author of three books of and about poetry, including Not So Pretty Haiku. They also write fiction and nonfiction. Publications have been in places such as The Group Of Seven Reimagined. Isabella is the founder of Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize.

Website: https://moritherapy.org

Isabella has nine haiku and senryu featured in Volume 1:

Three of my senryu in this collection are all about beginnings – a song not sung yet, the first fish moving onto land, a new connection in the brain. I still feel the sense of freshness, like a bracing morning breeze, that inspired these poems.

The other senryu was written in an old hotel that, beginning in the 1930s, was the place for travellers visiting a then bustling paper mill town. The view out of the window was fascinating – the machinery, noise, and steam coming out of the still operating mill, and beyond it the ocean, still and serene.

The two autumn haiku can come from the fullness that accompanies that season – the harvest, the crackling fireplace. Comforting. Abundant.

Early spring is the inspiration of the other three haiku, and thus we come back to beginnings. The interlacing of the seasons in last year’s leaves under the blossoming cherry tree; the first daisies (always an exciting moment for me); and the lingering cold that I know won’t last because the rhododendrons are about to bloom.

Steven-Mark Maine

Steven-Mark Maine is a poet / author who usually spends his time sleeping, writing, or baking. He is currently working on his debut novel.

Website: https://universeodon.com/@StevenMarkAMaine

Steven-Mark has six haiku featured in Volume 1:

Hey, Steven-Mark A. Maine here. That’s two first names, not two middle ones. Just thought I’d get that out of the way.

Honestly, the biggest inspiration behind my poems, as cliche as it sounds, is my wife. I haven’t really had anyone as fully supportive of my writing as her, and I honestly wouldn’t have written these if she wasn’t in my life. She’s been the main driving force behind why I don’t just give up writing is because she loves what I write so much.

I mean, one of my haiku (“Salt,” to be exact) is fully inspired by a true story. No, I will not tell that story here. You’ll just have to read it.

So yeah. I know it’s cheesy. I know that it’s an age-old stereotype. But hey, plenty of writer’s have cited their spouse as inspiration, is it so wrong if I do too?

Isabella and Steven-Mark, thank you for sharing what inspired your haiku & senryu. We are honored that you sent us your work.

See you soon for the next instalment in our series.

In the meantime, don’t forget to pick up your copy of The Auroras & Blossoms Haiku Anthology: Volume 1!

The Auroras & Blossoms Haiku Anthology

Cendrine & David

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