My oldest granddaughter is ten, and speed reads. She’s deep into The Hobbit for the third time. When you’re reading, do you hear the words? I ask. She looks up, stares, and nods.

eyes wide open ...

The folded sheet has been in my wallet for years. Her fingers tease open its browned edges. Eyes move down the page. Suddenly, she hesitates at a line. Bites her lip. Reads the line again.

another moonless night

And suddenly I’m back, in a room bruised with polish. A voice on the radio. My mother asleep as I lean back and listen to the sound of words.

hearing voices

She has her great grandmother’s eyes—sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack. Do you love the sound of that line? I ask. She nods, and folds the paper. Holds it tight in her hand. And so it begins. At the beginning.

 

Author’s Note: The phrases “sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack” and “To begin at the beginning” feature in the opening of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. Narrated by the character First Voice, it is widely praised for its aural intensity and beautiful cadence.

 

Publisher’s Note:

Under Milk Wood: A BBC Radio Full-Cast Production of Dylan Thomas’s poetic play for voices, starring Richard Burton as the First Voice narrator and Richard Bebb as Second Voice, was originally broadcast in January 1954, two months after the poet’s untimely death. The completed version broadcast in 1963 includes several passages that were omitted from the original, and Richard Burton narrates as both First and Second Voice; this performance is available on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsMZrXpliY&t=77s

Lew Watts

is the author of Tick-Tock, a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards, and Eira, a collection of haiku that received a 2023 Touchstone Award; both books are from Snapshot Press. Lew is also the co-author, with Roberta Beary and Rich Youmans, of Haibun: A Writer’s Guide (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2023). He is the haibun co-editor of Frogpond and holds an honorary doctorate from Bristol University. Born and raised in Wales, Lew now lives in Chicago with his wife, Roxanne Decyk. His other passions are fly fishing and gin martinis.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡Two dozen of Lew’s haibun (plus his book review of Roberta Beary’s haibun collection Crazy Bitches) appear in MacQueen’s Quinterly; see Index of Contributors for the list.

⚡ The Art of Haibun Prose by Lew Watts in contemporary haibun online 21:3 (30 November 2025)

⚡ Rattlecast 287 (30 March 2025), with editor Tim Green and featured guest Lew Watts discussing haibun for an hour plus (the interview posted to YouTube runs from 06:48 to 1:29:00); Watts reads eight of his haibun, including four from his book Eira.

⚡ Book Review: Eira by Peter Newton in contemporary haibun online 20.1 (April 2024)

⚡ Meet Lew Watts, interview by Vandana Parashar in whiptail: journal of the single-line poem (28 December 2022)

⚡ The Horizon’s Curve, collaborative haibun by Lew Watts and Rich Youmans in contemporary haibun online 16:3 (December 2020)