The summer 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 September 2012 issue of Haibun Today. Consult our Submission Guidelines at Haibun Today.

Contributors to this summer issue include Stephen Addiss, Melissa Allen, Johnny Baranski, Roberta Beary, Margaret Beverland, Colin Blundell, Steven Carter, Marcyn Clements, Glenn G. Coats, Jerry Dreesen, Claire Everett, Ignatius Fay, Amelia Fielden, William Guthrie, Autumn N. Hall, Paul Hodder, Cara Holman, Ruth Holzer, Elizabeth Howard, Leslie Idhe, Gerry Jacobson, Ryan Jessup, Ken Jones, Roger D. Jones, Colette Jonopulos, Jim Kacian, M. Kei, Richard Krawiec, Gary LeBel, Chen-ou Liu, Bob Lucky, Mike Montreuil, Satoko Murate, Marian Olson, Carol Pearce-Worthington, Stanley Pelter, Dru Philippou, Patricia Prime, Kala Ramesh, Ray Rasmussen, Jane Reichhold, Werner Reichhold, Bruce Ross, Ian Storr, Charles D. Tarlton, Julie Thorndyke, Zinovy Vayman, Max Verhart, Diana Webb, Neal Whitman and Brian Zimmer.

This issue also features the colloquium “Editing Haibun and Tanka Prose,” a critical discussion by 18 contemporary editors. Stanley Pelter and Diana Webb offer personal commentaries upon their own haibun and Patricia Prime reviews Jane Whittle’s new collection, Footprints.

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 11:28 PM | Permalink

The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival invites you to submit two haiku celebrating the beauty of cherry blossoms. This year, internationally recognized poet from Australia, Beverley George, has been invited to be the Festival guest judge.

Winners will be published by Haiku Canada, Rice Paper, Ripples and on the VCBF website. Top poems in five main categories (Youth, B.C., Canada, United States, and International) will also appear on TransLink SkyTrains and buses all over Metro Vancouver, receive celebrity readings and be featured in creative ways during the next festival in 2013. Past submissions have arrived from as faraway as Australia, Bangladesh, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Details on the competition and submission process are available at:

http://www.vcbf.ca/haiku/haiku-invitational-2012

Posted by Greg Piko at 08:13 PM | Permalink

The Cloudcathcher group held their autumn ginko at Victoria Park, Alstonville, NSW on Thursday 10 May 2012. A report is included below:

The Widjabul people are one of the tribes of the Bundjalung nation. Widjabul country extends from the lower Richmond area around Coraki, to the headwaters of the Richmond catchment in the north, and eastward to the coastal escarpment.

At the entrance to the rainforest remnant at Victoria Park, just outside the village of Alstonville, is a notice claiming, “We belong this country. We look after this country. Don’t do wrong around here this country. We don’t harm this country here. We belong to it this country.”

It was with respect and awe that ten Cloudcatchers meandered in silence under the canopy of this ancient habitat on Thursday 10 May, with glorious autumn sunshine filtering through the diverse foliage. Among the reverence and serenity we found a vitality of life in the canopy and underfoot: abundant bird calls resounded from every side, shy pademelons (small wallabies) were glimpsed from time to time, and a few land mullets (large skinks) scurried under the boardwalk. And everywhere were the lianas, strangler figs, delicate spiderwebs, moss-covered rocks, lichen and fungi, delighting us. Images were captured, and crafted into first-draft haiku around a picnic table. After sharing these, we lunched together at the local ‘Amaze ‘N’ Place’. The sun continued to shine.

A winter ginko is planned for Thursday 9 August, at the mouth of the Brunswick River. Contact: [email protected].

Posted by Greg Piko at 07:52 PM | Permalink

Hearty congratulations to Ron Moss for his success in winning the Snapshot Press MS book awards for 2012. Ron’s first collection of haiku, The Bone Carver, will be coming out before Christmas and will be with the prestigious Snapshot Press.

http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/contests/book_awards/results.htm

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 02:45 PM | Permalink

The Bindii group met at the Box Factory, 59 Regent St South, Adelaide from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm Minutes of the meeting are provided below:

Present: Lynette Arden, Maeve Archibald, Lesley Charlesworth, Lee Bentley, Belinda Broughton, Athena Zaknic, Julia Wakefield.

Apologies: Dawn Colsey, Alex Ask, Margaret Fensom, Pam Brow, Jill Gower.

GENERAL BUSINESS

A promotional reading for Haiku Bindii has been organized by Julia Wakefield at Stirling Library on 12 May at 3 pm. Compere: Julia Wakefield, Readers: Julia Wakefield, Belinda Broughton, Maeve Archibald, Lyn Arden, Lee Bentley, Margaret Fensom? any others?

See invitation attached. Circulate as you can to those interested

Challenges:. suggested topics for May. We decided to have two topics, one with a nature reference. Both are possible of many interpretations:

Weather
Recycling

We will trial voting by email for the next Showcase.

Our haibun renga Threads has been accepted for the 9 May reading in Mary Martins Norwood by the Kensington & Norwood writers group. Event is from 7 to 9 pm and free if anyone wishes to attend.

General Program of meeting: Discussion workshop on haiga. Examples of haiga brought by members were circulated and individual members spoke about examples they had picked out. There was some general discussion in the course of looking at the haiga on ‘what is a good haiga’.

There was some discussion with Julia Wakefield as to the exact program for our readings at Stirling Library.

Next meeting 2 June: This will be a workshop meeting for members’ work in any Japanese Genre.

The meeting concluded at 12.30 pm.

Lynette Arden
6 May 2012
http://haiku-bindii.blogspot.com.au/

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:50 PM | Permalink

Darlington Richards, publishers of Journal of Renga & Renku, are pleased to announce the launch of the Little Book of Yotsumonos.

Preview: http://darlingtonrichards.com/lboy_preview
Purchase: http://darlingtonrichards.com/lboy_buy

John Carley’s recently-designed four-verse renku format is represented by 60 poems, wherein Carley collaborates with such well-known haikai poets as Hortensia Anderson, Lorin Ford, Carole MacRury, Sandra Simpson, William Sorlien and Sheila Windsor, together with an introduction to the form.

“I have always been impressed by John Carley’s knowledge of Japanese linked verse… It is my sincere hope that this new form of linked verse will take root.” —Nobuyuki Yuasa, Professor Emeritus, Hiroshima University, and translator of Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Penguin Classics, 1966).

“the Little Book of Yotsumonos opens up a world of poetic possibility, sourced by the old, both the Chinese and Japanese poetic traditions, yet fresh and original… I suspect few will be able to read this book without wanting to try and compose a yotsumono themselves.” —Sonja Arntzen, Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, and translator of The Kagero Diary and Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology.

Preview: http://darlingtonrichards.com/lboy_preview
Purchase:http://darlingtonrichards.com/lboy_buy

Norman Darlington
Moira Richards
Darlington Richards Press
http://darlingtonrichards.com

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 01:29 PM | Permalink