Big Thoughts in Small Packaging

Haiku and Senryu

Bobbie Isabel
QuickTalk
2 min readMay 25, 2022

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screenshot of empty photo folder with senryu that reads: memories pervade/consciousness like open apps/baring hidden files.
Photo and poem by author.

It was late March when I decided to start putting my writing out in the world. I had always kept it hidden, like scars of self-inflicted wounds. There weren’t many, but they were deep, and I was afraid the people around me wouldn’t understand everything that was going through my mind. Also, it took time and a lot of emotional work to write these longer pieces.

Then I found two different prompts on Twitter: #haikuchallenge by Baffled and #haikuseed by Haiku Seed Journal. These daily prompts pushed me to write more often, think deeper, and be more concise with my thoughts. Eventually, they made composing longer poems easier and less draining. Here are a few of the short pieces that speak to me most.

Prompt: downpour

joy pain and sorrow
felt year-round yet in springtime
tears hide in downpours

Prompt: crack

trauma driven crack
filled with golden filligree
broken in her strength

Prompt: could

the damage of could
awash in the memories
of painful regret

Prompt: hold

forgotten childhood
memories of woodland walks
holes left in the heart

Prompt: guess

guess and check movements
relationships take us through
just like learning math

Prompt: mistake

feel how you must on
the whimsy of emotion
you are no mistake

If you’d like to see more of my short verse pieces, they’re on my instagram. Everything else is on Medium or on Blogger. All links can be found here:

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Bobbie Isabel
QuickTalk

Healing myself through poetry and writing my first novel in the process. If you'd like to support me, https://ko-fi.com/bisabelwrites