Tuesday, September 13, 2022

My Book Release!!

I am absolutely thrilled to announce the publication of my first collection of poetry!



Upwelling - haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun
by Lorraine A Padden

Moments of awareness, radical reflection and culpability.


Here's a blurb I wrote about it:

Haiku and related short form poetry often invite us into moments of awakened appreciation for the transcendent wonder of our natural and human worlds. We pause in mysterious beauty, wistful remembrance, and enduring hope. What if these poetic forms could also illuminate the shadow side of our existence, bringing us into closer relationship with the undeniable suffering that also rests at the core of our lived experience? What might arise as we contemplate moments of marginalization, oppression, and injustice? These poems are an invitation to reflect and perhaps inspire our own compassionate and healing personal and social action.


And, here's a blurb that Alan Summers, master poet, teacher and founder of Call of the Page provided for the back cover:

"Padden’s work levers up the world as one continuous haiku of a cry sometimes in and out of other phrases, sometimes haibun, and always extended exhalation. The pain and the poignancy is caught in blatant and determined observation, peeled back as “the otherwise” in someone’s life that could be in us too. Sometimes the filter comes fully detached, as we cannot always turn away from what is really going on: this is a book to defy the wind of society to blow it all away."

Finally, I couldn't be happier to include my sister Pene's stunning wood block print on the cover.

You can find my book here:

Thank you for receiving my news, and much gratitude for your interest in my work!

Friday, August 19, 2022

Plaiting

Thank you so much Rich Youmans for referencing my work "Vanishing Point" in your marvelous essay in Contemporary Haibun Online, "Plaiting Poem & Prose, The Art of Braided Haibun." My piece first appeared in Frogpond 44:3 and was also included in Contemporary Haibun 17. I'm honored to take part in the shape shifting discussions as the prose/poem relationship continues to evolve...



Thursday, August 11, 2022

Just out in Time Haiku - a new twist on the rengay form -- thanks to Alan Peat, my brilliant writing partner and to Diana Webb, Editor!

Watershed*


dumped-

under the garbage patch

mercury dolphins


earthwork mosaic the satellite view


in the oil spill

vivid as plastic

a cormorant’s eye


algae bloom weeping red


making weather 

road-leaping flames

lick at blisters 

 

bombogenesis an original destruction story

 

comfortable sofa

the news comes live

from a basement bunker


press blitz

the broadcast

goes dead


Alan Peat

Lorraine A Padden


*A rengay variant consisting of alternating haiku and monoku followed by a final double haiku.


Time Haiku, Issue 56, August 2022

https://www.facebook.com/TimeHaiku/


Saturday, August 6, 2022

Onomatopoeia in Action!!

Delighted to have a poem recently published in Haiku Dialogue, The Haiku Foundation's weekly blog that invites poets to respond to various themes and prompts. My haiku below plays with onomatopoeia...



thwack

the measured response

of grade school nuns

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Just out - Modern Haiku!

Delighted to have a poem in the current issue of Modern Haiku!



reclining Buddha

another bud

awakens


~Lorraine A Padden


Modern Haiku 53:2, page 71





Sunday, June 12, 2022

Discussing my poetry!

Many thanks to Geoff O'Keeffe and Zen Peacemakers International for inviting me to share and discuss my work-in-progress collection of haiku and related short form poetry titled "Upwelling" -- hope you enjoy the video of our conversation.



Link here: https://zenpeacemakers.org/zpi-publishing/upwelling/


Saturday, June 4, 2022

I'm so honored to have the chance to share and discuss my work! Please join the live chat onThursday, June 9, 2022!


Facebook Live: Peacemaker Chat with

Lorraine Padden

Exploring her recent poetry collection:
"Upwelling"

Thursday, June 9, 2022, at 12:00 PM U.S. Eastern

(Approx. 30 minutes)

Please join our Executive Director Geoff Shōun O'Keeffe, in a Peacemaker Chat on Facebook Live with Lorraine Padden, an award-winning haiku poet, dancer, singer, and non-profit leader who is also an active member and student of the Zen Peacemaker Order. Lorraine will share some of her latest poetry from “Upwelling,” a collection-in-progress that arose in response to the growing epidemic of undeniable violence and suffering exercised upon our natural and human world.

The conversation will explore Haiku and its related short forms as tiny gestures that bear witness to much greater truths—gestures offered in the hope that resilience, resistance, and compassionate action may arise and prevail.

To join this live event, please go to this Facebook page.
This is a free event and open to anyone with access to Facebook.

Please note that the above scheduled time is in the U.S. Eastern (New York) time zone. Please check your local time by entering your city HERE.

 

Friday, June 3, 2022

walking meditation

Thank you Sean Lynch for including my poem in this week's Nick Virgilio Haiku in Action offering. Greatly appreciated and congratulations to the other featured poets!


Thursday, May 19, 2022

air raid shelter

Thank you Sean Lynch for selecting one of my poems for this week's Haiku in Action theme...why is that cat meowing? Congratulations to all featured poets!!


Wednesday, May 18, 2022

fog on the beach

Another fine harvest of haiku and I'm honored to have one of mine featured among them. Thank you Carole MacRury for the invitation to reflect on The Language and Scent of Flowers. As published in Haiku Dialog...

fog on the beach

the musk

of damp rose hips

~Lorraine A Padden

Sunday, May 15, 2022

It was all about the minnows.

So very happy to be included in the latest issue of Zee Zahava’s ‘Lost Paper’. 'Water' was the theme for this collection of short non-fiction prose -- and there are so many compelling stories here. Very grateful to be among them.

It was all about the minnows. I abandoned my sandwich on our blanket mid-picnic and followed the grass to a short wall rimming the lake. A fallen willow branch, thin like my father’s bamboo fly rod he liked to whip in the backyard, lay at my feet. I used to chase the small yellow training weights flickering in the grass after each cast. The lake that afternoon seemed full of those pale darting fish and I just knew my rod could catch them. By the third stroke of my imagination I’d lost my balance and tumbled into the water, losing the willow and a shoe. The next summer my father gave me a short fly rod for my eighth birthday and a few backyard casting lessons from his end of the line.

- Lorraine A Padden

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

A trio in Kingfisher


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you Tanya McDonald for including three of my poems in the current issue of Kingfisher. Quite an honor. And, you've gifted us all with another fabulously eclectic and moving collection.

attic walls papered over the hush of cobwebs

clipped wings the hallway chatter about makeup

stained glass the half-empty church

~ Lorraine A. Padden

 

Friday, May 6, 2022

farmer's market

Happy to have a poem featured in today's Haikuist Network in the The Asahi Shimbun! Thank you David McMurray!


farmer’s market

the syncopated greens

in a reed basket

 

~ Lorraine A. Padden

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

plein air

 Another fabulous selection of work this week in Haiku Dialog, and I'm so thankful to be included....

plein air

the universe

in her thumbprint

 

~Lorraine A Padden

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

out of body experience

This poem of mine appeared in the journal tsuri-dōrō, Issue #6, Nov/Dec 2021 -- not even six months ago. How irrelevant the geography might become.


out of body experience

the long drive

out of Texas

 

~Lorraine A Padden

Saturday, April 30, 2022

headstone

Very happy to have a poem in this week's Haiku in Action, a feature of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association. Thank you so much Sean Lynch for including my work. https://www.nickvirgiliohaiku.org/



Sunday, April 24, 2022

March wind

 

Honored to have a poem in Scarlet Dragonfly Journal!


ill-fitting jacket

Very happy to have a tanka in Gusts, a new journal for me.



ill-fitting jacket

a scarecrow

that can't

live up to

my grandfather

 

~Lorraine A Padden 

GUSTS




Thursday, April 7, 2022

Two sakura haiku

My poems selected for the Consulate General of Japan in Toronto 2022 Sakura Haiku Challenge. So many wonderful poems. I'm honored to mingle among those beautiful blossoms.



Wednesday, March 30, 2022

a journey

Thank you Marietta McGregor for including my poem this week and for the inspirational theme of pilgrimage...

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Two poems in "Presence", Issue 72, March 2022

Delighted to have two haiku in the most recent issue of Presence--and to find compelling work of many friends also included.


pushing it out of the way snowdrops


kindling in the hearth

we both reach

for the match


~Lorraine A Padden

 



Wednesday, March 23, 2022

dew

Thank you Marietta McGregor for including my poem in the Haiku Foundation Dialogue just out today.
Congrats to all the many fine haiku writers featured this week.

Thursday, March 17, 2022

loosening brush strokes

Delighted to have this poem included in The Haiku Foundation's weekly Haiku Dialogue: Finding Peace and Contemplation in quiet spaces...a gallery. The prompt for this invitation included a photo of a gallery at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts which is affiliated with the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art where I received my MA. One of Edouard Manet's still life paintings completed just months before he died is part of the Clark collection--Moss Roses in a Vase--and it inspired this poem:


loosening brush strokes still life in the vase


Published at the The Haiku Foundation

Sunday, March 13, 2022

last call

Happy to have this one land in Modern Haiku. This wasn't last night because you know, daylight savings and all....


last call

a hint of lysol

in the chardonnay
 

published in: Modern Haiku 53.1 Winter-Spring 2022

Friday, March 4, 2022

The Beaten Path

Thank you so much Ian Storr for including this haibun in Presence 71. Grateful to share the page with such wonderful work.


The Beaten Path


It’s after 7pm and the heat’s finally dissipated enough to consider taking a jog around the Basilica of San Giovanni. In August the air quality isn’t too bad since most Romans drive their diesel out of the city for a few weeks of polluting elsewhere. So I lace up my sneakers and head out.

Stations of the Cross

Pausing at a light, a white electric Fiat pulls up next to me. The driver gets out and waves, saying something about a man he saw following me for the last few blocks. The walk sign is on but I’m still on the curb trying to understand the driver's thick regional dialect. 

after each stop

I ask where the man is now and he points down the street behind us. The driver steps onto the sidewalk. He says I need to be careful. He offers to give me a ride home. 

a candle blown out

 

~Lorraine A Padden

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

RBG

Honoring Women's History Month, I am thrilled to have this poem in the March issue of brass bell:


RBG
the outspoken pattern
of a lace collar


Thank you Zee Zahava and congratulations to all featured poets!

brass bell: a haiku journal 

Friday, February 25, 2022

Edgeless States

Honored to have this rengay in the currents issue of Frogpond 45.1. Thank you so much Kat Lehmann Blount for collaborating with me!


Edgeless States


butterfly tattoo

his hidden desire

to unfurl


the stretch of wings

unburies a name


crossing the t

on a new

pronoun


sans serif

a former frill

shifts into self


the bell’s sound

fills out its shape



blissing out

among the clouds

their new voice

 

~Lorraine A Padden (San Diego, CA)
~Kat Lehmann (Guilford, CT)

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

zigzag hummingbirds

Delighted to have a piece in the current issue of trash panda. Thank you Lisa Johnson and congratulations to all featured poets!




Sunday, January 30, 2022

crack in the blinds

First time published in Wales Haiku Journal, the current issue Winter 2022. A fine group of poets and I am honored to be featured among them.

crack in the blinds
an octopus moon
finds its way


~​Lorraine A Padden






Wales Haiku Journal



 

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

seventh summer

The Red Moon Anthology is available now! I'm thrilled to be included, and congratulations to all featured poets!


seventh summer

we measure his height

in sunflowers



~Lorraine A Padden


string theory: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2021, edited by Jim Kacian and the Red Moon Editorial Staff

Friday, January 21, 2022

softening embers

Delighted to have a poem in this week's Haiku in Action. Congrats to the other writers!