Welcome to the PoetryPea Podcast, your go-to show for English-language haiku, senryu, and other short-form poetry. In this special episode, we’re embracing the lighter side of verse with a delightful collection of funny senryu.

When community member Melissa Dennison asked for more humour in her life, we thought—what better way to celebrate the joy of poetry than with poems that make us laugh, smirk, or even groan? Whether you're a poet, a poetry lover, or just someone who enjoys a clever twist in senryū, this episode is for you.

🪲 What’s happening at Poetry Pea?

• We’re currently accepting submissions for creepy crawlie haiku. Visit our submissions diary to find out how to send us your best insect-inspired verses.
• Check out our latest video prompt on the Poetry Pea YouTube channel, this month hosted by the wonderful Amy Watson, who’s taken over from the equally fabulous Linda Ludwig. Be sure to show Amy some love—and don’t forget to add your poem in the comments!

✨ Want to help shape the podcast?

Support us by becoming a Poetry Pea member. Members enjoy special opportunities to influence episode themes, submit work, and support the ongoing work of spreading high-quality short-form poetry worldwide. Details in the show notes. If you can't do that, and I understand, maybe buy us a coffee, or spread the love about this podcast on social media, and leave a review wherever you listen.

🎧 Hit play, have a laugh, and enjoy the magic of funny haiku and witty senryu—because poetry can be profound and playful.

In this very special episode of the Poetry Pea Podcast, we bring you our first ever live salon event — and it's all about Zōka, the generative force behind haiku and nature itself.

Featuring readings from the anthology One Thread and a conversation with its editor, Janice Doppler, this gathering celebrates the power of becoming, creativity, and poetic presence.

Hosted by Patricia, with guest poets including Don Baird, Kala Ramesh, and our very own Vandana Parashar and friends, this episode is both a showcase and an invitation to explore Zōka for yourself.

Want to join us next time? Members get first dibs on seats — details in the show notes

What happens when alphorns echo through the streets of Zürich? They inspire short form poetry from around the world — and this week’s episode features some of the best!

These original haiku and senryū were written in response to June’s Video Prompt — a monthly moment of creativity on our YouTube channel. ✍️✨

Featuring voices like:

🖋️ Daniela Misso

🖋️ Lakshmi Iyer

🖋️ Rupa Anand

🖋️ Sara Winteridge

🖋️ Amy Watson

• more from Switzerland’s own haiku poets!

🎧 Listen now to discover the power of poetic echoes — and how alphorns brought the mountains to the city streets.

👉 Don’t forget: July’s prompt is live! Write your response and leave it in the comments to be considered for the podcast and journal.

Every month, except December, there is a short video on the Poetry Pea YouTube channel and you are invited to leave your poems, as many as you want, in the comments section under the video. The poems that are chosen by our editor Linda Ludwig, are featured in podcasts and of course in the Poetry Pea Journal.

Submission criteria.

show notes

🐛🕷️ Creepy Crawlies Have Entered the Chat…

This week on the Poetry Peacast, we’re getting under your skin — in the best possible way — with a fresh collection of haiku and short form poetry inspired by the little creatures that wriggle, buzz, crawl, and fly.

🦋 Featuring poems from Poetry Pea Journals past (and a few haiku legends), this episode explores beauty in the overlooked — from dragonflies to snails to crickets (yes, even cockroaches get a cameo).

💚 Special shout-out to Liam Maguire, whose presentation on insect haiku actually inspired Patricia to write about bugs (gasp!), and to Linda Ludwig, who’s wrapping up her time as editor of our Video Prompt feature. We’ll miss her guiding hand — let’s make her final month unforgettable.

🎧 Tune in now & find out why these “deceptive little poems” are anything but simple. Then, get writing — August's Creepy Crawly submission is open! 📝

Liam Maguire’s presentation

show notes

What does healing sound like in haiku?

This week, poet Julie Bloss Kelsey joins me to read from her deeply moving collection, Grasping the Fading Light: A Journey Through PTSD — winner of the 2021 International Women’s Haiku Contest.

Her work brings vulnerability, strength, and beauty to the page. Together we explore grief, trauma, recovery, and resilience — through the gentle force of haiku, senryū, and tanka.

This is an episode full of humanity and hope. You might think it’s not for you — but poetry this honest speaks to all of us.

Also available to watch on Poetry Pea's YouTube channel.

shownotes

An episode of haiku poetry presented by Liam Maguire on the topic of creepy crawlies. Honestly he does a brilliant job. He's inspired me to write and I hope he'll inspire you to write too. Check out the submission diary.

You can read the slides on the YouTube version or check them our at Buy Me A Coffee, where you can support the work of the podcast in many ways.

Show notes

Without zoka, there is no haiku…

Zoka — the creative, the generative force that animates the universe — is more than a concept. It's the heartbeat of haiku.

In this week’s Poetry Pea Podcast, I reflect on Janice Doppler’s brilliant essay, “Following Bashō, Following Zoka,” and the powerful conversations it’s sparked within our community. I talk about my own grappling with the idea — from my strict Catholic upbringing to gradually recognizing zoka in my writing, even before I had the language for it.

We’ll explore what haiku can be when we allow transformation, transience, and seasonality to rise above static images or generic kigo. 🌀

What does it mean to feel the seasons in an urban space? How can we write haiku that breathe and evolve with nature — not just describe it?

🎙️ Tune in and journey with us through change, through poetry, through zoka.

Show notes

This week on the podcast from Poetry Pea we have:

• a reply from Bruce Feingold regarding my problems with the Touchstone awards

• a bit of data research from Bill Fay

• some haiku & senryū written for the latest flashk

• the poems chosen by Linda L Ludwig from May's prompt video

Thank you to all the poets who have had their work chosen.

Thank you to Anne Fox for the video.

Thank you to Linda for all the work she puts in for the video prompt.

Thank you to all the editors who took part in the flashku submission, Robert, Vandana, Lev, Shane, Richard and Samantha.

show notes

Do you ever feel like there’s just not enough time for you?

I’m in one of those seasons. When I sat down to plan this week’s episode, I thought I’d explore the poetry of Chiyo-ni — and oh, the rabbit holes I found! That’s going to take more time. But today, I just needed a slower pace… and maybe you do too.

So, I offer you something gentler:

✨ a jazz-infused session of haiku and senryū,

✨ poems to breathe with,

✨ words that settle the heart.

You’ll hear work from Lenard D. Moore, Stanford M. Forrester, Jennifer Gurney, Debbie Strange, Lakshmi Iyer, and many more — including the unforgettable lines of Chiyo-ni herself.

🎙️ This episode isn’t a workshop or deep dive — it’s a quiet conversation with the poems I’ve been holding close lately. Think of it as late-night jazz… in haiku form.

show notes

The point of today's podcast is to get you excited to write haiku and senryū for the second volume of The Poetry Pea Anthology, “Little Marvels.”

As you’ll know from the podcasts I’ve already published the topic is belonging and alienation this year. If you haven’t listened to themHere they are:

• A Reading with Roman Lyakhovetsky
• The Poetry of Alienation
• Belonging in Poetry

The anthology will be in print and PDF format. Submission will be by invitation only and the only way to get your invitation is by signing up to the mailing list. It won’t be long til the invite goes out so hurry, hurry, hurry.

For your inspiration today I’m with a poet from North Carolina. You met him before on a podcast in series 7, where he read to us from his book “A Million Shadows at Noon”. 

show notes