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***ANNOUNCEMENT***
Come join our dVerse LIVE session (video and audio) on Saturday, October 25th from 10 to 11 AM New York City time. We always have attendees from around the globe! A bit shy? Just come and sit in to listen. We’re a friendly bunch! A Google Meet link will be provided on our Thursday, October 23rd OLN prompt. 

It’s Tuesday, and the dVerse Poets Pub is open with snacks and beverages from our well-stocked bar, as well as a selection of delicious poetry.  I’m Kim from writinginnorthnorfolk.com, your host for this week’s Poetics, with a prompt I have been sitting on for at least two years.

In the West, we have four seasons, and we are currently well into the third season, autumn. However, in Japan the year is divided into seventy-two micro seasons of several days each, with poetic names, such as ‘distant thunder’, first rainbows’ and ‘first lotus blossoms’.  You can read the full list here.

My personal favourites are ‘frogs start singing’ and ‘crickets chirp around the door’, mainly because I have yet to hear these sounds.

Image by Christopher Eden on Unsplash

Poems about Japanese micro seasons can be found on Medium and other poetry platforms, such as Natalie Wilkinson’s series ‘A Micro-Season Poem Cycle’, which was inspired by the traditional Japanese calendar’s 72 micro-seasons, with each poem focusing on a specific natural event within those intervals, such as fish emerging from ice or the return of wild geese.

Image by Natalie Wagner on Unsplash

Here are some examples of poems inspired by micro seasons:

‘Nine Oranges’ by Natalie Wilkinson, which captures the feeling of an autumn micro-season, focusing on the golden tachibana leaves and the scent of oranges. 

‘In Water’ by Natalie Wilkinson, which explores the micro-season of salmon gathering to swim upstream, highlighting the intertwined themes of life and death. 

‘Like a Bulb Planted’ by Natalie Wilkinson, which depicts the micro-season when the land begins to freeze, with life force stored deep within the earth, preparing for future growth. 

You can find a collection of these poems in the author’s ‘Micro-Season Poem Cycle’ list on Medium. 

I have also spotted a micro season prompt devised by those lovely hosts at Tanka Tuesday

Your challenge is to make up your own name for a micro season, such as ‘it’s raining again’ or ‘it’s still too cold to plant potatoes’, and write a poem about it, with the micro season’s name as the title. The form is up to you, from free verse to sonnet, but I would like plenty of detail.

If you are new to dVerse and/or Poetics, here’s how to join in:

  • Write a poem in response to the challenge;
  • Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below;
  • There you will find links to other poets, and more will join, so check back for their poems;
  • Read and comment on other poets’ work – we all come here to have our poems appreciated;
  • Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog;
  • Comment and participate in our discussion below, if you like. We are a friendly bunch of poets.
  • Have fun.