Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

This is a fifty pound, winner-takes-all responsibility. I would like to have distributed a little here and there for the many haiku in issue 11/3 that gave me an instant chuckle or the fleeting enjoyment of fine imagery. But I came back again and again to those half dozen or so which lingered in the air, as it were. They did so because they drew me into some imaginative space warmed by feeling. For example, I particularly liked Caroline Gourlay’s ahead in line - / his laughter from behind / catching me up.

I eventually settled for one which positively stretched my imagination, even at the risk of mystification:-

in a darker wind
hands in each other’s pockets -
rhododendron leaves

Reader, before you hear me out, what do you make of this offering from David Cobb?

There is clearly an autumnal sadness here. The second line suggests a familiar intimacy, rather than a new and passionate one, and perhaps cold hands, too. Rhododendron leaves are large and mournful. I recall them bordering the avenues and rides of unkempt estates. Perhaps the couple have been taking a melancholy turn in some such solitary place. For romantics this may be the final episode in a grande affaire. Or maybe they are a well bonded couple facing some tribulation together.

Thanks to the poet’s skilful hospitality each of us may make something different of this haiku from out of our own personality and experience, and the reading may therefore be the stronger and more cathartic.