Meet Hemapriya Chellappan

A very warm welcome from the whiptail team. Tell us a little about yourself - your family, your hobbies, your dreams, or anything else you want the readers to know about you, apart from being a haiku poet. 

First and foremost, I extend my heartfelt thanks to the team at whiptail for the opportunity to speak about my poetry. 

I was born in a small town in the southern part of India and that’s where the inspiration for most of my poems comes from. At an early age, I developed a taste for words and images. Before I found haiku, I was many things but not an artist. I didn’t think art was a career path for me. No one even told me I could be one but then after my marriage, I somehow internalised that I could be an artist, and make a living out of it, and I did. 


What is something that people don't know about your poetry or poetry practice, process, or inspiration that you'd like to share?

I used to write a lot of poetry as a teenager but I showed it to no one. Even though I am not the only poet in the family, I never really related to poetry-things that my father was writing. He was a pro while I was only a fledgling. Then college happened and I shifted away from poetry. 

Before the internet, I didn’t know where to fit in. Then the internet happened and I suddenly found my poetic voice. I found haiku. I figured that haiku shaped my thoughts better than the other forms I was trying to write. I found my niche. As somebody who was just lost in the offline world because of certain social hierarchies, I found the haiku community to be welcoming. I was able to forge genuine friendships as a young woman in my 20s. I felt like I had arrived: This is my community and this is where I’m going to fit in. 


What made you decide to try out haiku and/or tanka on one line versus their more popular enjambed formats? How does it feel different to you?

Before I came across the article, “The Shape of Things to Come” by Jim Kacian, I didn't know such a thing as monoku existed. Then I started to consciously write my poems in one line. Though the results were not always great, I found the practice fruitful. Then I started reading more on the same. I gravitated towards monoku as I'm a girl of few words. It is safe to say that these days, monoku fits my moments better than a three-liner. This may or may not change in the future. 


Many poets still struggle with the dilemma of whether a particular poem will work better as a one-line poem than the enhanced form and vice-versa. What is the deciding factor in your practice? 

As I said, some thoughts or moments demand a one-line format while others deserve a page. Speaking for myself, I try to write a poem in a single line whenever there’s a cut that doesn’t sit well in the tercet. It always reads better. I think it’s up to each and every poet to decide what template fits their words better and there is no right or wrong answer. It’s all about how you feel at that moment. That being said, when in doubt I always take suggestions from fellow poets on what they think is better suited for my poem. At times, I just have an idea and don’t know what to do with it so I show it to my haiku pals Brad Bennett and Pragya Vishnoi during our monthly meet-ups. I’ve learnt to take their feedback more seriously. I also think you have to kind of get to a place as an artist where you separate yourself from your work and treat it as its own person. I like to identify my work as children that have their own personalities, likes, and dislikes, but I can only impose so much on them. They have a life of their own when they go and depart into the world. 


It would be a great help to our readers if you could walk us through your writing process from conception to the eventual birth of a one-line poem. You are most welcome to take a one-line poem or two of yours to discuss how it came to be and/or process.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert but I’ll try to dissect my writing process as I see fit. I also have a bunch of unusual poems. Let's see.


single living the muchness of winter sky


This monoku was first published in Frogpond 45:3. When I wrote this as a three-line poem it was something like this:


single living 
the muchness of 
winter sky 


This is a pretty decent poem but not great, and I’m not a fan of the dangling preposition. Then a light bulb moment happened and I weaved this as a one-liner. Here the word “living” serves as both noun and verb which in turn opens up the poem for multiple readings. 


single    living the muchness of winter sky 


single living   the muchness of winter sky 


single living the muchness   of winter sky 


Let’s take another example:


recovering from toxic romance rain-bent tulips 


This haiku was published in The Heron’s Nest, Vol XXIV, No. 3. Even though this one is a bit long for the monoku department, I decided to keep it as such because it also acts as a concrete haiku (in a way). The tulips bend flat under the weight of rain. I also liked the alliteration when it is read as one line. I also like poems that start like they’re talking about a person but then end up talking about something else altogether. 


summer drizzle small wins 

whiptail, issue 3: Into Oneness 


This one could be a two-liner. I’ve not read many two-line poems in journals and this could be it. 


summer drizzle 
small wins 


But I felt like it didn't pack the same punch as the one-line does. Like the summer rain, just like that, this poem drizzled on me. 


alexa play spring rain 

Frogpond, 45:1


This poem was asking to be written as a monoku. It is an instruction but also a poem. While I was typing this poem the autocorrect was suggesting “plays.” This almost makes the AI a sentient being even though it has not reached that level yet. 


sweet pea tendrils clasping the idea of love 

The Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthology 


when I tried to write this one as a three-liner, this happened...

sweet pea tendrils 
clasping 
the idea of love 


First of all, this poem did not appeal to me structurally, so the only way to make this right was to shape it into a monoku. The word “clasping” is still a pivot having a grip on the rest of the poem. 


Do you have any tips for aspiring poets of one-line forms? 

I don't have any expert advice for beginners but I urge you to read more articles and examples related to the form. There are plenty available online for free to get you started. It's all about the joy of writing. Happy haiku-ing!

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Hemapriya Chellappan is a freelance illustrator residing in Pune, India. She took to Japanese short-forms in the summer of 2019. Her work has previously appeared in The Heron’s Nest, whiptail, Modern Haiku, and Akitsu Quarterly, among others. She currently serves as a co-editor for Failed Haiku.