Resolutions or Regrets

In the last NLP post of 2025, I suggested that we write haiku on any subject. People love the haiku form, and by the end of the year we received 219 submissions. There was spirited interplay among the contributors—not just critical reactions to each other’s poems but enthusiastic reshufflings. I won’t have space to single out all worthy entries, but I’ll give credit to as many as I can with the briefest of editorial comments.

Wit and high spirits were on display. I quote with delight this adaptation of a famous Bashō haiku by Las Vegas resident Paul Michelsen:

Even in Vegas—
ecstatic tourist soundtrack—
I long for Kyoto.

Pamela Joyce Shapiro’s “City Haiku Sequence” was the most popular entry, earning extra kudos for “morning’s metronome” and “the bridge / a jeweled tiara”:

the dawn light scatters
birds in silhouette and song
city streets stirring
~
runner’s rhythmic steps
in the cobblestone alley
morning’s metronome
~
naked homeless man
talking to his reflection
people hurry by
~
rush hour traffic
dusk settling on the bridge
a jeweled tiara
~
safe in our towers
cobblestone streets are silent
something unknown howls

Josie Cannella’s swinging saloon doorway wins the prize for best metaphor for the turn of the year:

The saloon doorway
between this moment and next
swings only one way

Winner of the award for best metaphor about writing a haiku is Josie’s “Inside Baseball,” which conjures up the image of a catcher flashing signs:

Counting on fingers,
shooting for five, seven, five,
and something brilliant.

I admire the precision of Christine Rhein’s “Overnight”:

Heavy rain, then ice,
glazed drive to the hospital,
countless frozen tears.

The last word of “Frosty,” one of Michael C. Rush’s many impressive poems, puzzled me, but I like it just the same:

iconographic
anthropocentricity:
niveomorphos

Diana Ferraro’s “Seasonal Sorrow” is a hymn to sibilance:

Silent summer moths
Spiraling over the shelves
Soft sweaters swallowed

Musical, too, is the effect of Anna Ojascastro Guzon’s “At Sunrise.” The concluding rhyme is dandy:

Your soft silhouette
as you walk to the bus stop
softens the backdrop.

I agree with Paul Michelsen, who felt that the poem would be even better if “soft” didn’t appear twice.

An example of poets piggybacking on each other’s submissions is this haiku by Michael C. Rush—

The ice on the road.
Then the truck, the sister, wrecked.
Winter is a poem.

—as amended by Emily Vogel:

Sisters will get wrecked.
Then the snow just keeps falling.
And of course, the truck.

John Davis Jr.’s “Christmas Absence” won plaudits. The last line is terrific:

Missing yellow bulb
darkens tinsel-laden limbs:
Lost daughter, come home.

I agree with Michael that John might well want to “lose the title,” and I am cheered by linda marie hilton’s response to the plight John describes:

only one spent light bulb
dims the other merry ones
find and replace it.

For next time, I suggest writing poems composed of resolutions or regrets. The start of the year is a time for resolutions, and a reading of Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence” may prove inspiring. The poet’s encounter with an aged leech-gatherer lifts him from dejection. Here’s how the poem ends:

I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
“God,” said I, “be my help and stay secure;
I’ll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!”

Meanwhile, John Ashbery’s poem “Wet Casements” ends with this striking resolution:

I shall use my anger to build a bridge like that
Of Avignon, on which people may dance for the feeling
Of dancing on a bridge. I shall at last see my complete face
Reflected not in the water but in the worn stone floor of my bridge.

I shall keep to myself.
I shall not repeat others’ comments about me

Then there is “Regrets, I’ve had a few,” a phrase in Sinatra’s “My Way,” that is frequently quoted out of context. There are songs against regret: “Je ne regrette rien” (Edith Piaf) and “No Regrets” (Billie Holiday) are two. Nevertheless, regrets are inevitable and can make for a good poem even if they are listed in an anti-regrettable mood: For example, “I resolve not to regret my failure to practice the violin or go out for the swim team or ask Ellen to the senior prom.”

May I suggest the sonnet as an appropriate form for either resolutions or regrets?

Deadline: February 28, or two weeks after this post goes up. Thanks, everyone.

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