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September 30, 2011

MINUTES OF BINDII MEETING

MINUTES OF BINDII MEETING 3 September 2011

http://haiku-bindii.blogspot.com/

Present: Lyn Arden, Marilyn Linn, Alex Ask, Lee Bentley, Athena Zaknic, Belinda Broughton, Pam Brow, Margaret Rawlinson Maeve Archibald, Dawn Colsey.

Apologies: Margaret Fensom.

General Business: Haiku Bindii blog will be posting weekly challenges and a Showcase
selected by members each month. The first Showcase was selected by members.

Anthology: Our anthology is now in preparation. Orders are being taken. If you haven’t yet placed an order at $5 per copy please email Lyn to place your order.

Meeting: Alex Ask ran a workshop Talking about Tanka. Members also workshopped their tanka. Thanks to Alex for an excellent presentation and to members for a good discussion.

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS and events:

22 September: Beverley George will be meeting a group of members at the SA Art Gallery Café at 2 pm. If you would like to come and have not given your name please email Lyn, who will be booking a table. So far these people are coming: Lyn, Maeve, Belinda, Athena, Alex, Lee.

1 October: will be a ginko in Veale Gardens. Further details of the meeting spot will be emailed. If rain is forecast for the day, we will meet at the Box Factory.

5 November: Alex Ask will run a workshop on senryu/haiku. It is envisaged that members will bring in material (both haiku/senryu and any critical discussion material) so we can investigate and discuss ‘what is haiku’, ‘what is senryu’. This should be a good discussion session.

3 December: A booking has been made for our book launch at the Box Factory at 3 pm. So we should invite guests at 3.30 to start at 4 pm.

Minutes taken by Lynette Arden
5 Sept 2011

BINDII HAIKU GROUP

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS and events:

1 October: will be a ginko in Veale Gardens. Further details of the meeting spot will be emailed. If rain is forecast for the day, we will meet at the Box Factory.

5 November: Alex Ask will run a workshop on senryu/haiku. It is envisaged that members will bring in material (both haiku/senryu and any critical discussion material) so we can investigate and discuss ‘what is haiku’, ‘what is senryu’. This should be a good discussion session.

3 December: A booking has been made for our book launch at the Box Factory at 3 pm. So we should invite guests at 3.30 to start at 4 pm.

Lynette Arden
SA Representative AHS

September 28, 2011

MARI WARABINY GINKO

MARI WARABINY HAIKU GROUP
Invites you to join us on a ginko (haiku walk)

Where: Araluen Botanic Park
When: Saturday 29th October, 10.30 am

We will meet under the M. Simons Memorial Pergola.
If you need to be picked up from Kelmscott train station please let me know and I will arrange it. If you would like to meet at my house in Kelmscott, so we can car-pool, please let me know and we can arrange that, maureenjsexton@gmail.com or 0435 024 616.

I think a picnic lunch is the easiest and we can share our haiku and discuss our observations over lunch. So please bring you own picnic lunch, drinks, hat, walking shoes and sunscreen.
You don’t need to walk far, you can stay in one area if you prefer, or for those unable to walk far.

What is a ginko?

“A ginko is a haiku walk through a chosen location where poets write, discuss, revise, workshop, read, laugh, breathe and listen to haiku.” Myron Lysenko

What happens in a ginko?

We gather and have a little talk about haiku and what we're doing.

We head out separately or in small groups to go for a walk and make notes on things we observe along the way, sometimes whole haiku come out at that stage.

We gather back together and share our notes, spend some time writing up our ideas into haiku.

We share our haiku and offer ideas or feedback.
This could be done over a picnic lunch.

Araluen Botanic Park
www.araluenbotanicpark.com.au

Location

Araluen is located in the Darling Range, 35 kms south east of Perth. Follow the signs from the junction of Albany and Brookton highways.
Entry fees are applicable. For information call (08) 9496 1171 or email us (info@araluenbotanicpark.com.au).

362 Croyden Road Roleystone WA 6111.

Opening Hours:
Daily 9am to 6pm

“The park features water-falls and flowing streams, scenic bush walks, gardens, picnic and barbecue areas, heritage landmarks including the Chalet Healy Tearooms and Roundhouse Gift Shop, as well as the Araluen Train.”

September 27, 2011

Haiku – One Moment Please

8 Week Course with Maureen Sexton

When: Every Wednesday from 19th October to 7th December, 12.30 to 3 pm.

Where: The Art House, 63 Railway Avenue, Kelmscott (walking distance from Kelmscott train station)

Cost of the full course: Full $200, Concession $160. Open to negotiation under certain circumstances. Email or phone Maureen to book your place: maureenjsexton@gmail.com or 0435 024 616. Places are limited, so book early!

This course will examine the following:

What is haiku?

What is the essence of haiku?

Where did haiku come from?

Why write haiku?

How to write haiku?

What is haiga? How haiku fits with images and drawings/paintings.

Is haiku good for your health? A haiku a day keeps the doctor away?

The following quote from Marcel Duchamp, is especially relevant to haiku:
'It is not what you see that is art, art is the gap.'

Bring your lunch if you would like to.
Maureen is the WA Representative of HaikuOz (The Australian Haiku Society)
and runs the Mari Warabiny Haiku Group in WA.

haikumariwarabiny@gmail.com
http://www.wapoets.net.au/pages/mariwarabinyhaikugroup.html
--
Maureen Sexton
Phone: 0435 024 616
Website: www.maureensexton.com.au

September 24, 2011

Ginko (Haiku Walk)

Ginko (Haiku Walk) with Graham Nunn
Sundays 16, 23, 30 October and 13, 20 and 27 November
9am – 10.30am

Haiku poets sketch from life, in order to develop their powers of observation and description. A traditional way to develop these skills is by participating in Ginko (a Haiku walk).

Graham Nunn will lead you through various walks around the cultural precinct, while you jot down notes about what you can see, hear, smell, touch and taste. After the walk you will turn your notes into Haiku and share them with the group. This six-week series will introduce you to Haiku and help develop your poetic eye.

Venue:
Participants will gather at

Queensland Writers Centre
Level 2, State Library of Queensland

Fees:
Flat Fee $95

Bookings:

You can book online at:

http://bit.ly/o7FNcX

or contact QWC by calling 07 3842 9922.

September 22, 2011

Third Australian Haiku Anthology - Call for Submissions

Call for submissions

It is now five years since the publication of the Second Australian Haiku Anthology (2006). That followed the First Australian Haiku Anthology developed and published on line by John Bird and Janice Bostok in 1999 and subsequently published by paper wasp in 2003. Another edition of work by Australian haiku poets, now so well represented in contests and publications around the world, is timely. Thus, submissions for a third edition are invited from published haiku poets living in Australia or from Australian haiku poets resident overseas.

The deadline for submissions is: 30 September 2011

paper wasp editors/publishers
Katherine Samuelowicz, Jacqui Murray

Supported by AHS

Please submit:
1. a maximum of five, previously published, haiku
2. 12 pt typed
3. clearly marked with your name, postal address and email
4. include full publication details,
5. full details of any contest and/or award any haiku may have won and,
6. a brief personal biography

Email address for entries:
ksamuelowicz@optusnet.com.au

Postal address for entries:
paper wasp
14 Fig Tree Pocket Road
Chapel Hill
Qld 4069
Australia

The publishers hope the anthology will be available for Christmas 2011. The editors/publishers reserve the right to select entries on the basis of merit and space. No correspondence will be entered into.

September 14, 2011

Snipe Rising From a Marsh – Birds in Tanka

SNIPE RISING FROM A MARSH – BIRDS IN TANKA: An Atlas Poetica Special Feature

Call for submissions:

Tanka poets are invited to submit to a new Atlas Poetica Special Feature, Snipe Rising From a Marsh – Birds in Tanka. (This title is taken from a poem by the Twelfth Century Japanese master Saigyo.)

Tanka on offer should place a particular species of bird in a specific location or physical setting. The bird featured could share permanent residence of such a place with the writer; it may have been encountered on the poet’s travels; the bird might be migratory itself.

A place name must be attached to every tanka submitted, as well as a biological name for each species featured – given in Latin – along with a common name widely used in the identification of such a bird.

The due date for submissions will be December 12, 2011.

Comprised by 3 – 5 tanka per poet, contributions should be emailed to editor Rodney Williams at williams.rodney.a@edumail.vic.gov.au, using a title line that begins with “ATPO submission_Birds in Tanka”.

The poems offered are to be included in the body of the email, without attachments. Poems submitted cannot have been published previously, nor can they be currently under consideration elsewhere.

25 successful contributors will each have a single poem included when Snipe Rising From a Marsh – Birds in Tanka appears as an Atlas Poetica Special Feature in the early months of 2012.

--
M. Kei
Editor, Atlas Poetica
A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka

AtlasPoetica.org

September 11, 2011

Janice Tribute: Jacqui Murray

Jan had a special relationship with Wollumbin/Mount Warning which dominates the Northern Rivers landscape of NSW, the country in which Jan was born and spent most of her life. Her connection to the mountain was profound. In feisty middle age Jan drew herself as the mountain. Mountain as naked woman. Her sketch and accompanying haiku appeared in the first (summer 1994) edition of paper wasp of which Jan was a foundation member and editor.

Late in life, when Jan moved from her beloved Dungay farm, she chose her last home with care. She could not, she explained, live anywhere where she could not see ‘her’ mountain. As with the first people of this land, Jan believed that the mountain was not only her totem, it was her strength and source of energy. I never look at Wollumbin without thinking of Jan.

towering
above the dark earth
Wollumbin’s dawn light

Jacqui Murray

September 09, 2011

Janice M. Bostok Tribute: John Bird

Over the past 15 years I was privileged to work with Janice on many haiku activities including the international promotion of her work. As a tribute I offer this summary paragraph taken from my nomination of her in 2003 for the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.


Summary

Let me summarise Janice M. Bostok’s involvement in writing haiku and in her promotion of haiku in English within Australia.

Having contributed significantly to the world-wide development of haiku, she pioneered haiku in Australia and, to this day, she continues to be the driving force behind its outstanding progress, both in volume and quality, and its acceptance in literary circles and the broad community. Without her, neither the First Australian Haiku Anthology nor the Australian Haiku Society would exist. She is the inspirational leader of haiku on this continent.

Nomination

I am proud to nominate her for the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.

John Bird”

September 07, 2011

Memorial Page for Janice M. Bostok

This news really shakes me up. I am so sad to hear this. For me, Janice occupied
a very special place. --Michael McClintock

She was a fine poet who gave much to the haiku community in Australia--and around the world. The haiku community will miss her. Rest in peace, Jan. –Penny Harter

Her poems were threaded with empathy, a sense of discovery, insight and joy. She was an enriching spirit, and we shall greatly miss her. –Katherine Gallagher

The haiku community has lost one of its own. – Norma Watts, Cloudcatchers

She leaves us with a wealth of poetry. Thank you, Janice. - Carole MacRury

Janice gave me a great teaching and belief in myself. – Richard Rowland

What a legacy she has left us. – Jo Tregellis

She will be sorely missed. – Leigh Rees

spring morning ...
the wonga pigeon
limp in my hands

Nathalie Buckland

spring morning
a case moth has burst
from the silk

Jo McInerney

illuminating the dark clouds tonight’s moon

Sandra Simpson

wakened by the breeze
a thousand paper cranes
follow their leader

Greg Piko

power failure
through the blackness
a waft of pot pourri

Karen Peterson Butterworth

late summer night-
another lamp extinguished
another voice stilled

Adelaide B. Shaw

in the shadow's coolness the Never-Never

Martin Cohen

twinkling stars -
another poet passes
to haiku harmony

Carmel Lively Westerman, USA

Springs and friends -
less here more beyond
to wait for me

Eduard Tara, Romania

Janice, Janice
my sorrowing heart in need
of plum blossom

Alan Summers

through winter dry grass
the endless faint rustling
of all your words

Margaret L Grace

engraved on pathway rock
her haiku keeps me there
long after leaving

Nuri Rosegg, Norway

eventide--
the lighthouse beacon
pierces the fog

Carole MacRury, USA

in the haiku garden
another leaf fell
its imprints scattered
and left for those
who pass this way

Victor P. Gendrano

the bare windows of my unit seem colder this morning

Pauline Cumming

the river
dark enough now
to show the moon

Matt Hetherington

hazy moon --
a fluttering moth
finds the light

rob scott

soft footsteps:
cricket song
silence

Robert Henry Poulin

a release
of fluttering moths
evening star

Quendryth Young


A selection of Janice’s poetry can be read on http://members.dodo.com.au/janbos/

In Memoriam Reflection by Lorin Ford

Vale Janice M. Bostok

After reading the sad news that Jan Bostok had passed away, I sat down and reflected on the strange but true story of how we didn’t meet back in the early 60s. This story came to light not long before the Second Australian Haiku Anthology went to press. Jan, with an uncanny perspicacity, had noted ‘something American’ about my haiku. This, she later told me, was because her own haiku beginnings had been encouraged by American haiku writers such as Marlene Mountain and Bill Higginson and she’d recognized something of a common style, but at the time I wrote back giving the details of where I was born and where I’d lived, hoping to prove I really was Australian and my work would be considered for the anthology.

Jan wrote back, “The hair on my neck is standing on end! Did you know my husband, Silvester?”

Attached to the email was a wedding photo. There was Silvester, foreman of one of the Cann River timber mills, whom I’d known in that small town where my father ran the pub and everyone knew everyone. But I didn’t know Jan, or for that matter, Silvester’s surname. I’d moved down to Melbourne when I was fourteen and a half, Jan had married and moved to Cann River within the next few months. Though I went back for short holidays for several years, we’d never met.

Jan’s memories of the place were sad and harrowing. She lost her first child there. We shared stories of the place and the people. Jan said that Cann River was the last place in the world she expected anyone who wrote haiku to come from, but that it was also where she began to write stories for the Women’s Weekly. Through Jan, I was able to contact a ‘lost’ schoolmate and spend time with her in Tasmania.

It was wonderful to finally meet Jan at the 4th Pacific Rim Haiku Conference, in Terrigal. We’d missed crossing paths, in younger years, in a very isolated community, by barely a whisker. We shared many memories, nevertheless… a bush town, a winding road that followed the old bullock trails, a river that flows into an estuary. By coincidence I’d stumbled onto the haiku path that Jan had been the pioneering spirit of for decades and as haiku editor for Stylus, Jan had encouraged me to continue.

My first contact with Jan was a time for remembering. Again, on hearing of her passing, it’s a time for remembering and for being thankful that life did somehow arrange that we meet.

incoming tide
ripples
the width of the river
(by Janice M. Bostok, from ‘Amongst the Graffiti’, Post Pressed 2003)

Lorin Ford, haiku editor
a hundred gourds

September 06, 2011

Janice Bostok Tribute: Beverley George

Since news of Janice’s passing, I have sifted through her poetry and sumi-e, but it is the stories of her life recounted in conversations, and sometimes in the afterwords of her books, that have most possessed my mind. Hers was an indomitable, independent spirit, balanced by an almost surprising gentleness. I remain grateful to her for years of support in her role as senior adviser for haiku and related genres in Yellow Moon, and for her friendship.

Janice’s poetic voice was original and resonant. It is fitting that my tribute to her should be in her own words. This tanka was published in Two Thirds of Why Impressed Publishing, 2004 and another version of it in Songs Once Sung Post Pressed, 2004.

from the darkness
a cicada’s brittle shell
breaks away in wind
your voice now tightly grips
through whirlwinds of memory

Beverley George
President Australian Haiku Society 2006-2010

Janice M Bostok: biographer Sharon Dean

Janice M Bostok’s contribution to the development of Australian haiku is immense. After learning about the genre from an American pen friend in the late 1960s, Jan created the first market for haiku in Australia by founding the journal Tweed. In the 1990s she wrote “The Gum Tree Conversations”, the first series of articles to demonstrate the relevance of haiku to the Australian experience and landscape. Embracing the internet in 1999, Jan then co-edited the First Australian Haiku Anthology with fellow haiku writer John Bird, which led in 2000 to the founding of the Australian Haiku Society (Haiku Oz), and then in 2006 to the publication of the Second Australian Haiku Anthology.

In a haiku career that spanned more than forty years, Jan had sixteen collections of haiku-related work published. Meanwhile, more than four thousand of her individual haiku appeared in journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas, with many featuring in unconventional places, having been carved by invitation onto rocks in New Zealand, programmed into computer games in America, and printed on the labels of green tea bottles in Japan. Her work also won numerous awards, including a Haiku Society of America Book Award in 1974 for outstanding achievement in the field of haiku publication, as well as the prize of which she was most proud: first place in the UK’s Seashell Game for most popular haiku published in English in 2002.

Jan’s work has been translated into several languages, including Japanese. In 1999, Hiroaki Sato, the Japanese poet, translator and past president of the American Haiku Society, cited thirty of Jan’s one-line haiku in his essay “The Agonies of Translation”, while the Japanese artist Takejiro Nojima was so inspired by Jan’s haiku that he rendered a selection in calligraphy, several examples of which are now held in a collection at the Tweed River Regional Art Gallery.

Jan’s passion for haiku extended well beyond the realm of personal accomplishment. Abiding by the Japanese notion that haiku is a communal activity, she spent countless hours leading workshops, judging competitions, editing journals and anthologies, working in collaboration with other haiku writers, and mentoring aspiring haijin from throughout Australia and across the world. It’s little wonder she has been described as ‘the inspirational leader of haiku on this continent’ (John Bird), the ‘doyenne of haiku in Australia’ (Beverley George), and ‘the spirit of haiku in the southern hemisphere’ (William J Higginson).

Born in Mullumbimby on April 9, 1942, Jan grew up with a strong sense of ‘not belonging’. Shunned for being ‘the fattest kid in town’, she was also teased about her family’s Seventh-day Adventism. As a seventeen year old, she settled in Melbourne, where she met her future husband, Romanian migrant Silvester Bostok. After the early years of their marriage in the Victorian sawmill town of Cann River, Silvester and Jan bought a banana plantation at Dungay, a small farming community in the hills outside Murwillumbah in northern NSW. For the next thirty years, Jan helped her husband work the land while nurturing her haiku practice.

During this period, Jan also adopted a neglected child, raised a disabled son and battled diabetes. In 1978, she made an overseas pilgrimage to visit some of the world’s leading English-language haiku writers. All the while, her relationship with Silvester was passionate and complicated; after divorcing him in 1981, she married him again in 1986. But throughout Jan’s adult life, regardless of the challenges she faced, she consistently sought refuge in haiku, a ‘way of seeing’ she would eventually come to describe as her ‘religion’.

As Jan said toward the end of her life, ‘I gave up my family’s religion and I took up haiku as a religion. Haiku gave me a path that connected me to the sacred mystery in every moment. It calmed me, and the sharing of it was very healing and cathartic, as proven by the warm and wonderful reaction of readers from all over the world. I’d feel people supporting me, even if I’d never met them.’


A few months ago, I finished writing Jan’s biography. Strangely, the submission of the work as part of a PhD in Creative Writing dovetailed neatly with the end of Jan’s life. The biography is called White Heron, but Jan simply called it ‘my book’ and insisted on showing her un-proofed copy of the manuscript to anyone who walked into her room at Murwillumbah District Hospital.

I’d never met anyone like Jan. Her life brimmed with paradoxes. On one hand, she craved attention; on the other, she longed to disappear. Some days, Jan told me she was convinced she’d lived a wonderful life; on others, she was adamant that there had been no end to her frustration and despair. Intensely shy in certain moments, she could nonetheless wisecrack her way through a haiku lecture like a seasoned comedienne. Jan loved diamond rings and shopping. She was also proud that her family tree ‘has always stood out in an open paddock, every branch laden with peasants and farmers’. She was the only person I’d met who’d tried resuscitating goldfish, and was so stubborn that at one stage in the 1980s (taking her cue from the American haiku writer Marlene Mountain) composed nothing but one-line haiku for five years.

Ultimately, however, I was fascinated with the intimate connection between Jan’s life and haiku, a connection that would become movingly apparent to me following a 2008 trip to Japan, where I occasionally bought bottles of chilled green tea from vending machines. One day in Kyoto, I was surprised when a machine dispensed to me a bottle featuring one of Jan’s haiku. The poem was printed in Japanese characters, and the accompanying translation read:

summer dusk
day lily petals fold
into night

Aware that the flowers of most day lily species have a relatively brief lifespan – in that they open at sunrise and wither at sunset – I admired the ephemeral quality of the image. Months later, however, on hearing Jan explain that she’d written the haiku in memory of her first child, a son who had died at birth, I gained a greater appreciation for the poignancy of her art.

People often told Jan they adored her work because she wrote of experiences they themselves had had, but hadn’t been able to put into words – especially words that spoke so concisely and resonantly, and also with such lingering depth, warmth ... and often, humour.

no money for the busker i try not to listen

seven calories per stamp
i write too many letters

Jan’s deep empathy with animals is also prevalent in her haiku. As a child, she taught a crow to talk, and as a young woman, she bred Welsh Corgis, ran boarding kennels, and hand-reared a range of creatures – from kittens and poddy calves, to hermit crabs and axolotls. It’s a conservative estimate, but I’d say that at least one-third of Jan’s haiku feature animal protagonists.

morning flying ant wings on the cat’s whisker

only wishing to rescue it moth’s down sticks to my fingers

Ultimately, however, Jan felt that it was her connection with the land that gave her work its distinct Australian feel. ‘I was born in a particular area, and my father taught me all about the birds, animals, plants and weather in that area,’ she once said. ‘I’ve observed the land all my life. The Japanese haiku masters demonstrated that haiku is the experiencing of life – here and now, with every breath we take. I admired that philosophy and adapted it to my own experience living in the bush in northern NSW. As a result, my haiku reflect my life and experiences, especially in terms of my emotional responses to nature.’

In September 2009, I travelled with Jan to Terrigal on the central coast of NSW for Australia’s first international haiku conference, the Fourth Haiku Pacific Rim Conference: Wind over Water. Convened by the then President of HaikuOz, Beverley George, the historic event brought together fifty-seven delegates from seven countries, and Jan was delighted to finally come face to face with haiku colleagues from all over the world, especially those with whom she had corresponded for years but had never met in person. From Jan’s point of view, the conference felt like ‘one big haiku family reunion’, and she later remarked, ‘There were those I knew closely, those who I knew a little, and those who were distant cousins, and I was the great grandmother sitting there waiting for the family members to come up in turn and meet me. From the delegates of the conference, it felt as though I received an informal thank you for my life’s work in haiku.’

Once we were back home, Jan said that the conference was probably the most important event of her career – and, due to her deteriorating health, the last public event she would attend. Unfortunately, she was right. For earlier this year, Jan was admitted to Murwillumbah District Hospital suffering from diabetes-related complications, and she died there, peacefully, on September 4.

On behalf of the Australian and international haiku communities, I offer condolences to Jan’s family, especially her sister Norma, daughter Vicki, son-in-law John, son Tony, and grandson Andrew.

$5 phonecard i hate it when there’s no goodbye


SHARON DEAN, September 6, 2011

(all haiku cited above are Jan’s)


September 05, 2011

Cloudcatcher Tribute

Cloudcatchers’ Tribute to Janice Bostok

Each one of us is saddened to learn of the passing of Janice Bostok at
Murwillumbah District Hospital yesterday. Janice, Patron of the
Australian Haiku Society, was the first Australian poet to explore the
haiku genre, over thirty years ago, and since then she has pioneered
this and other Japanese short forms, interpreted with an Australian
flavour.

When Cloudcatchers first gathered together on 2 December 2005, Janice
was there, and became our unofficial Patron. She loved being involved
in our ginko, and her interest in Cloudcatchers persisted, even when
ill-health prohibited her joining us in later years. She was happy to
comment on our early attempts to master the writing of haiku, and
pleased to hear of any successes that any Cloudcatcher achieved. I
know it comforted her to receive messages from us in these last few
uncomfortable months.

Vale Janice Bostok. We acknowledge the contribution you have made to
our group, and appreciate the guidance and championing of each one, as
we took our tentative steps down the fascinating path of the haiku
genre.

the release
of fluttering moths
evening star

Quendryth Young
Cloudcatcher Coordinator

City of Perth Library Haiku Competition Results 2011

Thank you very much to all the Haiku entrants!
All entries will be on display in the Library 29th August – 10th September

1st Prize: Helen Davison
NSW
2nd Prize: Meryl Manoy
Perth WA
3rd Prize: Cynthia Rowe
NSW
Highly Commended: Rose van Son
Perth WA
Commended: Nathalie Buckland
NSW
Special mention: Dawn Bruce
NSW
Congratulations!
A very special thank you to Maureen Sexton, WA HaikuOZ representative, for undertaking the judging again this year.

Judges Report

First Prize:

silent river
the glint of a fisherman’s
knife

I love how this haiku explores the concept of wabi (a sense of loneliness or solitude), as well as juxtaposing two images. Both images have a menacing feel to them. The silent river is a covert image of danger lurking and the knife is an overt image of danger, also highlighting a reverence of nature. In the true spirit of haiku writing, this haiku is half-said, leaving the reader to ‘get’ the connection and the ‘aha’ moment.

Second Prize:

windy day
kite-surfers fly
goshawk hovers

This haiku allows the reader to delve deep into it. The reverence of nature is shown in the goshawk’s ability to hover even on such a windy day. It explores the concept of sabi (the suchness and beauty of ordinary objects). Its brevity is a key element in the success of this haiku, and it is simply stated, so the reader finds the ‘aha’ moment.

Third Prize:

river’s edge
the broken branch
joins up with itself

This haiku is also half-said, leaving the reader to connect and interweave the images, the branch joining up with itself just like the river branching out then rejoining itself.

Highly Commended:
father’s bamboo
sways long after he leaves
front door open

Commended:
news of his death
a cloud
veils the moon

Special Mention:
New York
even the clouds
in a hurry

Vale Janice M Bostok

Vale Janice M Bostok 1942 -2011

Australian haiku poets will be saddened by the death of revered haiku poet Janice M Bostok, Patron of the Australian Haiku Society, editor, teacher, judge and mentor in the haiku field. Janice died peacefully in the Murwillumbah Hospital yesterday afternoon Sunday 4th September. On behalf of the Australian Haiku Society (HaikuOz) may I offer condolences to Janice’s family, and to her haiku colleagues and friends.

Cynthia Rowe
President: The Australian Haiku Society

More information on Janice’s life and her role in the haiku community will be posted soon.
Please submit your memorial poems and brief tributes to cynthia.rowe@ozemail.com.au

September 02, 2011

Haibun Today - September 2011

The autumn quarterly issue of Haibun Today is now online for your reading pleasure at http://haibuntoday.com

Writers are now invited to submit haibun, tanka prose and articles for consideration in the December 2011 issue of Haibun Today. Consult our Submission Guidelines at Haibun Today. Forward any submissions by email to Jeffrey Woodward, Editor, at haibun.today@gmail.com

http://haibuntoday.com

Contributors to the September issue include Melissa Allen, Steven Carter, Marcyn Del Clements, Glenn G. Coats, L. Costa, Anne Curran, Tish Davis, Cherie Hunter Day, Claire Everett, Al Fogel, Autumn N. Hall, Jeffrey Harpeng, Michele L. Harvey, Laura Hill, Mary Hind, Ken Jones, Roger Jones, Patricia Kennelly, Gary LeBel, Bob Lucky, Victor Maddalena, Michael McClintock, Kathe L. Palka, Carol Pearce-Worthington, Dru Philippou, Patricia Prime, Kala Ramesh, Ray Rasmussen, Lynne Rees, Richard Straw, Charles Tarlton, Diana Webb, Harriot West and Theresa Williams.

This issue also features an in-depth interview with Michael McClintock, “Wheeling through the Cedars,” on the subject of his haibun, tanka and other writing as well as an insightful critical essay, by Ray Rasmussen, on the rarely examined role of the title in haibun. Bob Lucky and Charles Tarlton reflect upon their individual writing of tanka prose in short personal memoirs. In addition, a long review of Gary LeBel’s Abacus is reprinted and the final results of British Haiku Awards (Haibun Section) 2010 are announced.