Submissions are open for the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar 2017, which will be published by Snapshot Press in 2016.

Deadline: Entries should be emailed or postmarked by January 31, 2016.

Overseas (non-UK) entries mailed in the month up to and including this closing date must be sent by airmail.

Full guidelines – including procedures for making payment for such entries – can be accessed at the following link:

http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/contests/thcc/entry_guidelines.htm

Awards: £360/US $600 total prize money.

12 haiku will be selected as monthly winners and will be published prominently in The Haiku Calendar 2017.

The prize money will be divided equally between the 12 winners.

40 additional haiku will be selected as runners-up and these will also be published in the calendar.

Entrants may win more than one prize.

A summary of guidelines for entries:

Haiku should ideally include a seasonal aspect (which may or may not be an established "season word").

This may be a direct reference to a specific day, month or season (e.g. New Year’s Day, June, winter), or to a phenomenon or activity associated with a particular season.

Seasonality should ideally align with the traditional Japanese (and English) consideration that the equinoxes and solstices occur at the midpoints of their respective seasons. (So, for example, early February is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but mid-late February is spring. So a February haiku might be concerned with winter or spring; a May haiku with either spring or summer; an August haiku with either summer or autumn; and a November haiku with either autumn or winter.

Entrants from the Southern Hemisphere are advised to transpose certain composition dates by six months.

Haiku may be free-form or 5-7-5 and must be the original work of the entrant.

Previously published work is acceptable, though haiku previously published by Snapshot Press are not eligible.

Any number of haiku may be entered.

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:45 PM | Permalink

Earlier in December, leading Australian tanka poet Beverley George – editor of “Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal” – was honoured to have the following three pieces from her tanka collection “empty garden” featured in a live performance that formed part of the Melbourne Women’s Jazz Festival, held in Bennetts Lane, Melbourne:

a lightning strike
splits our old apple tree–
I never dreamed
the death that parted us
would not be one of ours

it’s in our garden
that I miss you most
each year the stems
of rosemary you planted
grow harder to cut back

widening each day
the winter river rushes
over hidden rocks
if you asked me to return
I could no longer cross it

Subsequently included on a CD, Beverley’s tanka were read live by Miriam Zolin, accompanied by a jazz trio comprised by pianist Andrea Keller, bassist Tamara Murphy and trumpeter Eugene Ball.

A review of this performance can be accessed at the following link:

http://ausjazz.net/2015/12/09/solace-in-an-empty-garden/

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:36 PM | Permalink

From every issue of “Eucalypt: a tanka journal,” edited by Beverley George, two poems are peer-selected for appraisal.

Congratulations to Jenny Ward Angyal and Sonam Chhoki, whose tanka were chosen for appraisal by Patricia Prime and Anne Curran.

You can read about them here:

http://www.eucalypt.info/E-awards.html

While visiting the site, you may also wish to read a wide selection of tanka appraisals at:

http://www.eucalypt.info/E-bowerbird.html

A regular feature of the full-day Bowerbird workshops, convened twice a year, is a presentation by each of three delegates of a tanka by a poet whom the presenter has never met. The appraisals are lively and varied.

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:16 PM | Permalink

The 12th European Quarterly Kukai Winter 2015 Edition attracted haiku from 186 poets from 38 countries, including 8 from Australia.

Australian entrants were: Samar Ghose and Tash Adams, both from Perth, WA; Jo McInerney, from Boolarra, VIC; Cynthia Rowe, from Sydney, NSW; Barbara A Taylor, from Mountain Top, NSW, Simon Hanson, from Allendale, SA; Lynette Arden, from Norwood, SA; and Marietta McGregor, from Canberra, ACT.

The theme was 'night' or 'day'.

Gaining 16 points, Samar Ghose achieved eighth place with the following haiku:

how to just be day moon

Gaining 15 points, Marietta McGregor was another top-ten finisher, placing ninth with the following haiku:

overcast day
she saves a poem
to the cloud

Results of the contest can be seen this link:

http://europeankukai.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/results-of-european-quarterly-kukai-12.html

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:37 PM | Permalink

The 2016 Setouchi Matsuyama Photo x Haiku Contest is now open for applications.

Entries must be received by 12 January 2016.

Australian poets may enter the set theme section in English.

For the set theme, five photographs taken by a local photographer in and around the Inland Sea near Matsuyama, Japan, are provided, and poets are asked to write a haiku inspired by each one.

The winner of the Excellence Award will receive a 30,000 yen gift coupon and locally sourced crafts and goods from Matsuyama.

Three other prize winners will receive gifts from Matsuyama.

Awards will be made at a Haiku Event and Ceremony Shiki Kinen-kan (Shiki Memorial Hall) in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, on Monday 16 March 2016.

For more information and the web entry form, see:

http://matsuyamahaiku.jp/contest/eng/

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:25 PM | Permalink

Winners of the Irish Haiku Society International Competition 2015 include the following Australian haiku poets:

Honourable Mentions:

thunderheads
a cowrie's mantle
purple-flushed

Marietta McGregor (Australia)

empty ocean
the shearwater’s belly
catches the sun

Greg Piko (Australia)

winter’s afternoon
a golden pheasant weaves
through bamboo

Cynthia Rowe (Australia)

sunset valley
a line of merinos
melds into the gold

Barbara A. Taylor (Australia)

Please visit
http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:29 AM | Permalink

Modern Haiku Press in the United States has released ‘Haiku 2015’, edited by Lee Gurga and Scott Metz, a selection of ‘100 notable ku from 2014’. Australian haiku poets represented include:

islands of ice
the moon
without an oar

- Lorin Ford, ‘frogpond’ 37:2

nightclub
entrance strobe lit
rain

- Simon Hanson, ‘DailyHaiku’ March 17

new leaves
the old forest
finds its voice

- Rob Scott, ‘A Hundred Gourds’ 3:3

Including an introduction by the editors Lee Gurga and Scott Metz, ‘Haiku 2015’ is perfect bound, with 110 pages: ISBN 0-9741894-7-2

It can be ordered online through the following link:

http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/index.html

Prices:

$8 plus $3 shipping for orders to U. S. addresses;

For Canadian addresses, $8 plus $9 shipping;

Outside the U.S. and Canada, $8 per copy plus $13 shipping.

It can also be ordered through this postal address, sending cash or a cheque that can be drawn on a U.S. bank:

Modern Haiku Press
Box 68
Lincoln, Illinois 62656
USA

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:58 PM | Permalink

On Sunday December 13th, we held our summer meeting at The Terrace Tearooms in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Everyone else in Melbourne seemed to have had the same idea. We had to raise our voices considerably during our discussion on the topic of the haiku technique of juxtaposition; a topic which is well worth revisiting from time to time.

The day was fine, reaching a warm 27 degrees. The sunny blue of Jacarandas matched the weather, Canna lilies and Red Hot Pokers blazed from across the lake, ducks and swans spent much time bottoms-up and three juvenile water hens followed an accommodating ‘foster mother’ seagull around the lakeside lawn. Every dog’s body language seemed to convey that the day was especially theirs and exuded friendliness and good will.

We were delighted to welcome Marietta McGregor, from Canberra, as our guest, and Madhuri Pillai, from Melbourne, as our newest member. Before we separated for our silent ginko, Jennifer Sutherland gifted each of those present with books that had been given to her at October’s Haiku North America conference by Lee Gurga and Jim Kacian for that purpose. Santa came early for us this year!

The dates for the Red Kelpie Group meetings for 2016 are:

6th March (1st Sunday in March)
5th June (1st Sunday in June)
11th September (2nd Sunday in September)
4th December (1st Sunday in December).

Enquiries from haiku writers who might like to join the group or be invited along as guests and who have at least three haiku published in edited, English-language haiku journals should be directed to Lorin Ford via haikugourds at gmail dot com, with ‘Red Kelpie Haiku Group’ in the email subject bar.

- Lorin Ford, Melbourne, December 2015

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:26 PM | Permalink

Australians have been featured on The Haiku Foundation across the month of December 2015. People interested might like to view the daily postings of per diem haiku, placed in random order after being selected from a larger body of work of Australian haiku.

warmer days . . .
balloon-vine tendrils twist
between the floorboards

- Barbara A Taylor

dandelions
a field of wishes
blows away

- M L Grace

windy morning
my pavement shadow
has some crazy hair

- Alex McKeown

one drop
from the heron’s foot
splits open the sky

- Christina Kirkpatrick

swirling loops
in her letter
her voice

- Peter Macrow

fields of stubble
the sky thick
with stars

- Rob Scott

mosquito
a stranger’s blood
on my hand

- Quendryth Young

flood debris
a doll’s limb
pale in the seaweed

- Lynette Arden

on a bare twig rain beads what light there is

- Lorin Ford

a quiet kind of love
autumn crocus

- Greg Piko

a sliver of moon
the old bluesman
breaks a string

- Ron C. Moss

shingle beach ...
trying out its third couple
a dog lost at dusk

- Rodney Williams

passing traffic
the flicker of bees
in grevillea

- Maureen Sexton

starless night—
pier lights disappear
into surf noise

- John Bird

afternoon beach
the young lovers cast
a single shadow

- Lyn Reeves

at the car park
as we say goodbye
a swirl of old papers

- Katherine Samuelowicz

no money for the busker I try not to listen

- Janice M. Bostok

scent
of old tea roses…
faraway moon

- Dawn Bruce

crematorium
early and late mourners
compare deaths

- Duncan Richardson

midday
the silence both sides of
a kookaburra’s laugh

- Jan Dobb

on the coffin lid
our faces
in the clouds

- Jeffrey Harpeng

across sun
shower light a reckless
flash of parrots

- Jacqui Murray

after the parade
the dragon head off
still smoking

- Ross Clark

Anzac Day
a baby’s cry fills
our minute’s silence

- Beverley George

old wallpaper
my daughter reaches
for the butterfly

- Graham Nunn

mangrove
a crab’s pincer wedged
in tangled roots

- Cynthia Rowe

stonefish…
the more a thing is thought about
the further it recedes

- Dhugal Lindsay

hung over—
the red eye
of the traffic light

- Matt Hetherington

barbed wire
a magpie teases out
a strand of wool

- Vanessa Proctor

five years on
and still I haven’t opened
mother’s suitcases

- John Knight

a clatter
of milking pails—
full winter moon

- David Terelinck

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 10:57 PM | Permalink

Australian poets who received Honorable Mentions in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival – 2015 Haiku Invitational include:

snow-heavy blossoms
their hands
share a pocket

Nathalie Buckland (Nimbin, NSW)

late afternoon . . .
touching the blossom
with the tip of her cane

Jo McInerney (Boolarra, VIC)

sharing the bench
the old busker
and cherry petals

Mark Miller (Shoalhaven Heads, NSW)

sharing an umbrella
with a stranger
cherry blossom rain

Vanessa Proctor (Sydney, NSW)

blossom moon
the pregnancy line
turning to pink

Cynthia Rowe (Sydney, NSW)

Posted by Rodney Williams at 06:49 PM | Permalink

On the 5th December Red Dragonflies, Vanessa Proctor, Cynthia Rowe, Barbara Fisher and Dawn Bruce, met for a ginko of the Great Masters Exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery. Members Beverley George and Lesley Walter were unable to attend and were sorely missed.
After the ginko, lunch was enjoyed on the café patio and haiku writing exercises read and workshopped. Small Christmas gifts and good wishes for the 2016 writing year were exchanged over coffee.

Dawn Bruce

Posted by Cynthia Rowe at 07:32 PM | Permalink

For our final meeting of 2015, nine members of the Bindii group met at the Box Factory in Regent St South, Adelaide to workshop some of the recent work of members and later enjoy a lunch at the Cibo Café in Hutt St, Adelaide.
Reading event
Bindii group is preparing readings for an event sponsored for us by the Adelaide City Council and the Box Factory Community Centre, at the Halifax Café on 11 February 2016.

Ten poets from the Bindii group will be joined by musicians Munetaka Umehara and Alexander Ask, who will perform their composition, Midsummer Walk, for Japanese Flute and Didgeridoo. The Halifax Café will cater for meals for those who come from 5.30, before the event starts at 6:45, and beverages and food at the interval and throughout the evening.
Bookings will be taken for the free event. Email [email protected] to make a booking.
Workshop of Members’ Work
Recent haiku, tanka and haibun composed by members were either written on the whiteboard for discussion or multiple copies were distributed to members. A lively discussion on the works ensued, with all members taking part.
Our program of meetings for 2016 includes:
6 February: Julia Wakefield on haiku. More details will be advised. It is expected that members attending will also contribute.
2 April: Autumn ginko
4 June: Maeve Archibald on haibun.
6 August: Lyn Arden discussing The Tanka Teacher’s Guide. We will discuss points raised in the guide and look at successful published tanka. Members’ discussion of tanka will be an important part of this workshop.
The formal part of our meeting finished at 1:10 pm and members adjourned to Cibo for lunch and conversation.

Report by Lynette Arden, 5 December 2015

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

Posted by Lynette Arden at 06:27 PM | Permalink

The 17th issue of ‘A Hundred Gourds’, a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and renku poetry, is now online for your reading pleasure.

http://www.ahundredgourds.com/

Renku News – Guest Editor for AHG 5.2, Kala Ramesh

Due to unforeseen circumstances, William Sorlien is not available to receive renku submissions for AHG 5.2, the March 2016 issue. Kala Ramesh has kindly agreed to be our Guest Renku Editor for the forthcoming March issue. Please read the AHG news page for further details and send your renku submissions to this address: [email protected] with ‘Renku Submission’ in the title bar.

Haiga News – New Haiga Editor, Sandi Pray

With this issue we farewell Aubrie Cox and welcome Sandi Pray as our new Haiga Editor. Please read our news page for further details.

Along with our poetry sections, AHG 5.1 includes:

In Memoriam

It was with great sadness we heard the news of Gene Murtha’s passing in October. In this issue, we commemorate Gene’s life and haiku with ‘Quiet Pond: In Memory of H. Gene Murtha’ by Ferris Gilli, long-time associate editor for the online haiku journal, ‘The Heron’s Nest’.

AHG 5.1 Feature

How successfully can haiku be when performed to musical accompaniment? Charles Trumbull gives us something to think about as well as listen to in his featured essay, ‘Haiku and Music: A Morganatic Marriage?’

Expositions

J. Zimmerman’s essay, ‘The Variorum Project – Haiku Variations’, shows us, in depth, a way to loosen up our practice of writing haiku drafts that can have very interesting and fruitful results. Michael Dylan Welch reviews Kay L. Tracy’s ‘Origami Pinwheels’, Susan Constable reviews Kathy Kituai’s ‘Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls’ and Lorin Ford reviews Paresh Tiwari’s ‘An inch of Sky’.

Submissions Deadline

The deadline for all submissions to AHG 5.2 (the March 2016 issue) is December 15th. AHG has an open submissions policy: any submissions received after the deadline will be filed for consideration for the June 2016 issue. Please check our submissions page for details and editors’ guidelines.

Please take the time to read the AHG submissions page, including each relevant editor’s comments and requirements, and ensure that your submission complies.

— Lorin Ford – Haiku Editor, Managing Editor
for the Editorial Team, ‘A Hundred Gourds’

Posted by Rodney Williams at 07:51 PM | Permalink

The following items were posted on the HaikuOz website during November, 2015, and can be accessed at www.haikuoz.org:

Cynthia Rowe: winner – Grand Prize: 1st Place in 2015 World Haiku Contest
Report on HNA – Marietta McGregor
8th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition
Review of “Prospect Five” – Dorothy McLaughlin
World Haiku Review – submissions open till 20 December
Tuki Tekei Haiku Society – 2016 Tokutomi Memorial Contest
Martin Lucas Award 2015
Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems

While we remain committed to sending a group email containing the above information to all AHS members – on the first day of each month – technical difficulties continue to be experienced on a website-based level with this circulation process. Apologies are extended to any members who have not been receiving such emailed notifications. Efforts continue to be made to rectify this problem.

Meanwhile, members of the Australian Haiku Society – and other readers of HaikuOz – are reminded that you are most welcome to submit items relevant to the haiku community, both here and overseas, especially in relation to:

• haiku competitions and opportunities for publication;
• news of success in haiku writing enjoyed by Australian haiku poets; and
• reports about meetings of haiku groups in various states/ territories across this country.

Best wishes,

Rodney Williams

Secretary
Australian Haiku Society

www.haikuoz.org
[email protected]

Posted by Rodney Williams at 07:13 PM | Permalink