This week, Haiku By Two is thrilled to be presenting the haiga of Sarah Bloom. Sarah is a professional photographer who lives in the Philadelphia area of Pennsylvania and her haiga will appear on this page for the next five days. Check out more of her work at her website  Sad and Beautiful World.

What is haiga, you ask? I have recently learned that haiga is the marriage of a haiku and an image. Traditionally, this would be a watercolor painting and a calligraphy haiku although today’s haiga are much more varied. But whatever the medium or approach, the image and the haiku work together for a complete affect.

Let’s welcome Sarah as she describes her approach to haiku, photography and haiga:

I have written poetry since I was a child and for a while in my twenties, was actively submitting and reading throughout the city of Philadelphia. I’ve dabbled in haiku off and on, and even spent a whole day on Twitter once using only haiku! I love the simplicity of its form and the way it forces me to condense my overabundance of description into something quiet and calm. I tend to ramble, so restrictions are good for me.

I have begun to look at my photographs in a similar way, to stop trying to force too much meaning into them but rather, let the meaning emerge. I’m drawn to lines and shadows lately.

For this exercise I decided to pick 5 images of mine that already felt like haiku to me, and create the poem as an extension of the image.

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