HAIKU DIALOGUE – World of Animals – Domestic Creatures (Pets and More)

Thanks so much to Guest Editor Vidya Shankar for this amazing look at motion & stillness! Now we turn to the world of animals, with returning Guest Editor Nancy Brady… happy writing! kj

World of Animals with Guest Editor Nancy Brady

As a child, all I wanted to do was learn to read, and I couldn’t wait for first grade because that was when reading was taught. Unfortunately, my younger sister didn’t appreciate the fact that I’d rather read my book when she’d rather play outside so she’d hide it. We’d play, but I finally had a work-around for missing books. I’d randomly choose a volume from our family’s Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedia. At the time I just thought I was the weird kid. In retrospect, I suspect I wasn’t the only one who spent time with random volumes of encyclopedias. Regardless, I discovered all sorts of things including my favorites:  animals.

Whether it was learning about wombats (still my favorite marsupial) or another kind of animal, I found (and find) the natural world fascinating.  Even now, I find myself watching Nature on PBS as they present programs featuring all sorts of animals, from the smallest to the largest and often those that are being rehabilitated or are in danger of becoming extinct. This brings me to the subject of the next couple of prompts – I am looking for haiku about animals of all kinds, from invertebrates to vertebrates. Each prompt will have a particular focus. Please join me in exploring the zoological world.

For inspiration, listen to They Might Be Giants’ “Mammal”.

Prompt: Domestic Creatures (Pets and More)

Who hasn’t had a pet at some time? Was it, perhaps, a pet rock or those sea monkeys advertised in the back of comic books? My first pet was a pair of goldfish that I received as a birthday present in the second grade. Suffice it to say, they didn’t last too long (a week or two) under my overzealous care. Basically, it was my first close experience with death, and the sound of Dad flushing them down the toilet remains with me to this day (although neither Mom nor Dad ever really explained what happened, but I digress). Fortunately, that was not the last pet I had, and it hasn’t been the last time I dealt with death. It is a part of life unfortunately, and that includes the death of pets.

Hamsters, parakeets, dogs, cats, or others, tell me about them. Yet, there are some animals that many consider only as pets but are actually working animals. They have become tamed by humans over many years. Domesticated animals have helped mankind from the earliest days of humanity. Early man domesticated many of the animals we are familiar with today. No matter where in the world we live, we live alongside animals like horses, cows, pigs, chickens, deer, and caribou. For example, some farms in New Zealand raise deer for food while other farms raise dairy cows for milk and cheese. There are so many ways that humans and animals interact every day. What I am looking for in this prompt is haiku about animals in your world which are either pets or domesticated animals.

Here are some considerations for writing about these animals in our lives. What made your pet so special? What could you learn from your pet? What kind would you choose if you have never had a pet or even if you are about to add another to your home? What do you see when you see a farm animal? Do you ever interact with any other animal than a pet? Can they also be both a working animal and a pet? In other words, this week’s prompt is to write about those animals that are domesticated and their effect upon us.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday, February 28, 2026.

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry. (The Submit button will not be available until the Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in.) In the Poem box, with your poem(s), please include any special formatting requirements & your name & residence as you would like it to appear in the column. Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

Join us next week for Nancy’s selection of poems on the topic Domestic Creatures (Pets and More)…

Bios:

Guest Editor Nancy Brady is a pharmacist by profession, a haiku and senryu poet by nature. She often found inspiration on her treks back and forth to work as a pharmacist; her first book of haiku, Ohayo Haiku, was a foray into publishing haiku. Three Breaths, her second book, is a mix of haiku, senryu, alternative forms, and other poems. Her work has appeared in journals all over the globe (both print and electronic) and has been rejected by many more. Nancy also writes other genres and has published a children’s book, The Adventures of Aloysius, in November 2023. It is catalogued in the Library of Congress. She also reads lots of novels. Her favorite is, and remains, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, but she is also a big Harry Potter fan. Now retired from the pharmacy profession, she works part-time for the local Board of Elections and volunteers at Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Center. She, her husband Rob, and their cat, Regulus Arcturus Black, live in Huron, Ohio, a block from Lake Erie, where the bird population is constantly changing.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Banner Photo & Prompt Photo credits:  Rob Smith

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.