Dodoitsu | Twittle | Monoku | Haiku | Tanka | Naani | Rondelet

Tender Heart of Motherhood

Celebrating Mother’s Day with micropoetry

We all had a mother, mother is our earth. Ubuntu: I am because you are. JGB

In his astutely powerful poem, Birth, James G Brennan reminds us of our common origin and how we are all connected. With Mother’s Day being celebrated on May 9th (some countries celebrated it in March), it’s timely to reflect on what the words, mother, motherhood and mothering, mean to us. Perhaps even more so given the gender debates that are being thrashed out in some houses — private, public and parliamentary.

I’m a mother. I have three adult children. At the time of writing, I have one grandchild but that is about to change with two more due any day now. Motherhood is high on my family’s agenda. We don’t need the commercialisation of Mother’s Day to remind us of its significance. We see it in the pregnant bellies and the preparations being made to welcome the new arrivals into our family. Nothing is being left to chance. It’s a feat of micromanagement. But more importantly, it’s ‘feathering the nest’ with the promise of love, nurture and belonging.

I wanted to acknowledge Mother’s Day and, more particularly, new mothers but hadn’t settled on how I should go about it. I was still in that place of indecision when I read Somsubhra Banerjee’s wistful, tender-hearted poem, Blossoming Friendship, about the ‘sprouting birth’ of a friend.

Then one day, the tree noticed, that green thing, is that a sprout? rising firmly from the earth, friendship blossoming. SB

I learned that Som’s poem was a series of dodoitsu verses — 4-line Japanese micropoems with a 7–7–7–5 syllable scheme. Having read that, it wasn’t long before ‘tender heart of motherhood’ was delivered by the universe to my brain. Decision made. A dodoitsu is born. 💕

Tender heart of motherhood Safe harbour in her warm arms Sweetness in her melody Honey in her kiss

But I’m a twittler. In fact, I’m the original twittler! The temptation to convert a dodoitsu into a twittle — a 100-letter, 4-line micropoem — is irresistable. And easier than expected. If only all deliveries were that painless!

Tender heart of motherhood Safe harbour in her warming arms Sweet melody in her lullaby Soft kisses like honeyed charms

I must say it’s handy that I’m Australian using UK spelling. The ‘u’ in ‘harbour’ gives me the exact letter count I need for a twittle! 😊

Why stop at twins? Triplets it is! A monoku no less. Well less, in that it only has 17 syllables arranged in a single line of verse. It’s the baby of the bubbas. 👶

Tender heart of motherhood safe harbour honeyed sweetness in warm arms

Of course, we can’t talk about micropoetry without monoku’s better known 5–7–5 twinlet, haiku.

Tender motherhood Safe harbour in her warm arms Honey in her kiss

And last but certainly not least since it’s the chunkiest bub of them all, tanka -

Tender motherhood Safe harbour in her warm arms Honey in her kiss Sweetness in her melody Lullabying encharmed hearts

Oops, hang on. What’s that? There’s another one on the way? Oh yes, of course, how could I forget, naani? That would be almost as bad as throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Except this time all I need to do is throw one syllable out of the dodoitsu to give me a 25-syllable naani. Can you work out which syllable is missing?

Tender heart of motherhood Safe harbour in warm arms Sweetness in her melody Honey in her kiss

Oh my goodness, can you believe that? You’ve just witnessed the birth of sextuplets! Six different forms of micropoetry — dodoitsu , twittle, monoku, haiku, tanka, naani. What a beautiful family!

But let’s not forget this is about Mother’s Day, so we need something to commemorate the special event — another micropoem of course — a rondelet.

Mother’s Day wish Our lives are blessed by the peace dove Mother’s Day wish We all have someone to cherish, that children of the world know love and heaven rains hope from above Mother’s Day wish

© Carolyn Hastings 2021

So what is a micropoem?

Technically, a micropoem is any form of poetry constructed with no more than 280 characters — the maximum character count for a Twitter tweet. To give you some indication of what that means, out of the seven micropoems I’ve presented here, the haiku is the shortest with 65 characters and the rondelet is the longest with 193 characters. Yes, there’s still plenty of room for even longer micropoems but I’ll leave that to you to work on — I need a nanna nap!

Surprise me!

While I’m napping — or more likely, being run off my Geema feet — I would love you to surprise me with some of your own micropoems. Any form, any topic — Mother’s Day would be lovely but you decide what feels right for you. Anywhere on Medium is fine. Just remember to tag me into your post so I can find your poem. I might be like most mothers and have eyes in the back of my head but that won’t help with cybersight (did I just make up a new word?!)!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed my celebratory collection of micropoems. 🙏 💕

Motherhood Updates

May 1st 2021

I am delighted to announce that the first of the babies has arrived! 👶 A girl — Ellery Amelia. Born on April 30 2021 at 11.57pm (AEST). All safe and well. 🙏 ❤️

May 11th 2021

I am delighted all over again to announce the arrival of my second granddaughter — Alina Nadia. 👶 Born on May 10 2021 at 3:46pm (AEST). Mother, father, and baby all doing brilliantly well. 🙏 ❤️