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Katikati Haiku Pathway Throws a Party

And you're all invited. The Haiku Pathway turns 10 this year and to mark the occasion there will be a bit of a bash on Sunday, June 6 (Queen's Birthday Weekend). Starting at 1pm in Katikati's Memorial Hall there will be a public event to dedicate 10 new boulders (funding applications being written furiously), announce the winners of this year's Katikati Haiku Contest (see the Competitions page, closes April 16) and to enjoy some Japanese-theme entertainment. Please consider this as a personal invitation. If you'd like to come you might find this website useful for accommodation options. See you there!

Haiku Festival Aotearoa in Tauranga

Unfortunately, this will not be happening (this year anyway) as organiser Steve Cordery received only 5 positive responses by the cut-off date for expressions of interest, with another 5 "maybes". Not enough to make it worthwhile planning an event such as this.

Haiku of JD Salinger

The Haiku Foundation has posted an appreciation of JD Salinger that includes a look at his haiku and the influence of haiku on his work. See it here. If you have time, one of the comments contains a link to a television interview with Salinger fan Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker. Well worth watching (about 20 minutes).

Resign with a Haiku!

The Guardian reports a Tweet that Sun Microsoft's chief executive has resigned by haiku. Read all about it here.

Conferences

1: World Haiku Festival 2010, April 9-11, Japan

World Haiku Festival is the flagship activity of the World Haiku Club which was established in 1998 in the United Kingdom to help disseminate and develop what the club calls the ‘world haiku', the shortest form of poetry born originally in Japan but now spread across the whole world, hence the name.

The first WHF was held in London and Oxford in 2000. Since then it has taken place in various countries including Italy, Britain, Japan (in Akita Prefecture), Romania and India. The year 2010 will see its tenth anniversary and is being held in Sasebo and across Nagasaki Prefecture. Its main theme will be ‘The beginner's mind and the essence of haiku'. Beginners and the uninitiated will therefore be especially welcome to take part in this event.

The World Haiku Festival 2010, Sasebo (Nagasaki), Japan, is from April 9-11, with an optional 3-day tour afterwards. Saesbo is about an hour by bus from Nagasaki Airport with the bus stop only a 2-minute walk from the festival venue.

The festival includes workshops, papers, public lectures, haiku-reading, and other events including koto and shakuhachi music (Japanese harp and flute), tea ceremony, Japanese dance, plus tours around Nagasaki Prefecture (hot springs, Hirado, ceramic centres, Nagasaki, Shimabara, Unzen and Omura). Note that there will be separate sessions in English only. The sessions in Japanese will offer no translation. The festival is still seeking speakers in English to deliver papers.

The organisers have a list of hotels, which are offering discounts to festival participants. For full details go to the website.

2: Asian Festival of Children's Content, May 6-9, Singapore

Jade Yong from the National Book Development Council of Singapore (Book Council), a nonprofit charitable organisation set up in 1969, has been in touch to introduce the inaugural Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC) About 300 to 400 delegates from all over Asia, Australia and New Zealand, North America and Europe are expected to attend.

The Book Council has been organising the Asian Children's Writers & Illustrators Conference (ACWIC) for the past 10 years. The new conference will feature new programmes, including the Asian Children's Media Market, Children's Book Award, Children's Writers Award as well as workshops and master classes.

For more information go to the website.

3: Haiku Canada, May 21-23, Montreal, Canada

Unfortunately, beyond the information above there are no further details on the Haiku Canada website, but there may be a contact email address.

4: Seabeck Haiku Getaway, November 4-7, Washington State, USA

An annual haiku "reatreat" organised by Haiku Northwest on the Kitsap Peninsula. $US199 for a long weekend of meals, accommodations, and all the haiku you can carry! Workshops, presentations, writing and a book fair. Register by September 30. For full details, including a location map, see the website.

1000-verse Renga Project

Find out what's been happening to Alan Summers' 1000-verse Renga - a movie, an e-book, another 1000 verses! - on his Area 17 blog.

The Haiku Registry

Six Kiwis (Kirstin Cliff, Margaret Beverland, Pat Prime, Sandra Simpson, Andre Surridge and Dick Whyte) are so far showcased in this project on The Haiku Foundation website to "introduce" haiku poets to each other, as well as providing a showcase of international work. The site went live on January 6 and is still seeking registrations - you'll find more about that on the site. Poets featured include those from India, Croatia, Italy, Australia, Scotland, Canada and Wales, as well as the United States.

To explore the Registry (which has the same aim as the Showcase pages on this site), go here.

Journal and Contest Updates

The first issue of the new online journal 3LIGHTS has been published - previously 3LIGHTS operated as a "gallery" of poetry and photograpic exhibitions. From this first issue of January 15, it becomes a quarterly journal, and the call for submissions on the theme of "music" is made on the new website. Read the journal here; the first featured poet is Michael Dylan Welch. (Once you've clicked the entry key, look above the picture and click on "full screen" to read the poems.)

Following the success of online writing space The Renku Group and the resultant growth of interest in this centuries-old poetic genre, editors Norman Darlington and Moira Richards will this year begin publishing The Renku Journal. The journal will include scholarly articles, poems, discussions, contests, critiques and more. You may sign up for email updates, or I'll alert readers of Haiku NewZ to calls for submissions and publication details.

Simply Haiku has ceased publication with its winter 2009 issue. The online journal has been a leading light for seven years and will be sorely missed. Read a statement from the publisher here. All past issues are available via the website's archive. STOP PRESS: I posted this news on December 31 - and on January 1 received news from managing editor Robert D Wilson that despite the official notice on the website, the journal is "on hiatus" and will return at some point.

Berry Blue Haiku is a new quarterly online journal aimed at younger readers. The first issue will be out in June 2010. To find out more go further down this page to Submissions.

Haibun Today is going quarterly from its first issue for the year in March (it is also accessible via its old website address - full archives available at both web addresses). You are invited to submit haibun for the March issue and may find submission guidelines at the website.

Wisteria is going into hiatus, for at least a year, editor Tony Thompson advises, as real life has encroached far too much on production in the past 12 months. He hopes the journal may return - as I'm sure we all do. The details of Wisteria have been removed from Publications until further notice. As part of that hiatus the Pinewood Haiku Contest will not be held this year.

And the 2009 Tanka Splendour Awards turned out to be the final bow of the contest. Organiser Jane Reichhold says on her AHA Poetry website that last year marked the 20th anniversary of the contest, and its conclusion. A book of all the winners from the 20 years has been compiled and is available to purchase. See the website for details.

Pat Prime passes on the news that the annual A-Bomb Haiku Contest organised in Japan is no longer accepting entries in English. As the contest has never had a website and information on its rules, etc., has generally been difficult to come by, Haiku NewZ will no longer list it.

Just a reminder that the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational has shifted its closing date to the end of May. The idea is that locals can then be inspired by the 30,000 or so cherry trees in bloom for their entries. The Festival isn't running a full programme this year, thanks to the Winter Olympics being held in Vancouver in February-March (despite the snow-covered winter in parts of Europe, in North America it's all on the eastern seaboard I'm told, and organisers are starting to sweat about the lack of snow in Vancouver).

Congratulations

To Sandra Simpson, Ernie Berry, Andre Surridge and Dick Whyte who have poems in the latest edition of the annual Red Moon anthology, this year titled where the wind turns. For ordering details go to Publications on this page.

To Ernie Berry who has been awarded an Honourable Mention in the Irish Haiku Society Contest:

September wind
a better view
of compost bins

To Dick Whyte, Patricia Prime and Sandra Simpson who have all received Honourable Mentions in the Manichi Daily News Contest (Japan), won by Scott Mason of the US. Read all the winning poems here.

bright moon
the security guard checks
every room

- Dick Whyte

 

Other results:

FWEE Haiku Contest (US). "Adam from Auckland" was judged the best of the international entries for this contest on a hydropower theme. The winners scroll through as you watch.

Presence Awards (UK).

Haiku Poets of Northern California Contests for Haiku, Senryu, Tanka & Rengay (US).

Bernard Lionel Einbod Renku Award (US). Tasmanian poet Ron Moss is part of the second-placed team.

Winter Moon Awards for Haiku (US).

Submissions

1: Redheaded Stepchild actively seeks poems which have been rejected by other journals! "We are open to a wide variety of poetry and hold no allegiance to any particular style or school," the editors say. Submit 3-5 poems in the body of an email that have been rejected elsewhere with the names of the magazines that rejected the poems. Also include a brief bio.
Closes: February 28. Go to the website for full details.

2: Bravado is calling for up to 5 poems/poet in any Japanese form for its July issue, guest edited by Barabra Strang. Email poems with "haikai" in the subject line, along with a 50-word bio and contact details.
Closes: March 14.

3: Going Down Swinging is an Australian literary journal that is marking its 30th birthday by publishing, among other things, international haiku in various languages in Issue #30. Payment to contributors of $A10 per haiku/senryu/haiga.
Closes: March 31.
For details please go to the website.

4: Berry Blue Haiku is a haiku journal for kids and welcomes submissions from writers and illustrators, although editor Gisele LeBlanc asks that the submissions guidelines are read first. Read the illustrator guidelines here. The editor is looking for traditional haiku, "fun haiku" and senyru, as well as articles on writing haiku/senryu; on their history; or on haiku masters such as Basho, Chiyo-ni, Issa, Shiki, and Buson, etc. "If it relates to haiku/senryu in any way, we'd love to see it." Puzzle pages, crafts incorporating haiku and lessons for the classroom or home would also be of interest.

Submission requirements for writers:

• Send up to 5 poems, or one article/craft/puzzle page per submission, pasted in the body of your email.
• Please indicate in your cover letter if your submission is simultaneous, and notify us immediately if another publication accepts it.
• For articles longer than 250 words, please double-space.
• Please specify the age level of your poems, articles, and lessons.
• We prefer to review unpublished material, but will consider reprints. Please indicate in your cover letter where and when the submission first appeared.
• We ask that you wait for a response before submitting to us again.
• Format your subject title with either Haiku/Senryu (haiku is fine for either) or Article/Craft/Puzzle Submission and if it is season-themed. ex: Haiku Submission-Winter Themed.

Payments are offered. Non-fiction submission length: Children up to 5: 50-150 words; 5-11 year olds: 150-500 words; 12 and up: 500-1000 words.

Submission and/or questions may be sent to the editor. Subscribe to the editor's blog for updates.

5: Robert Epstein is looking for haiku or tanka "written with awareness of one's own mortality (not someone else's)" for a "death" poem anthology he is editing. As an example, he gives:

that's what
dandelions do . . .
blow away

- Stanford M. Forrester, Poetalk

Inquiries to Robert.

Publications

where the wind turns is the title of the 2010 Red Moon Anthology. It contains 161 haiku, 12 linked verses and essays by poets from all over the world, including New Zealand. To order, go to the website. These volumes, in my experience, are well worth having.

wild camomile is a collection of 81 haiku by Waihi writer and teacher Owen Bullock. Owen will be known to many as the former co-editor of Kokako and, as well as being a fine writer, is also a musician and juggler. The author doesn't draw a distinction between haiku and senryu and the poems happily slip their own way. The book has been 10 years in the making.

wild camomile is published by Post Pressed in Queensland (ISBN 978-1921214-56-1). The book is also available direct from Owen, write to 22 Silverton Road, Waihi 3610, enclosing $NZ16 (includes post & packing). For anyone in the Tauranga area, you may also find it at Books A-Plenty in Grey Street.

Hidden River Haiku is a new book by Denis M Garrison that is available online as a free ebook that can both be read online and downloaded. Print editions (trade paperback and pocket book) remain for sale at our MET Press bookstore and elsewhere.

 

the taste of nashi is still available for sale - the third haiku anthology of work in New Zealand. Order your copy, or one for a friend, using this form. There are various prices - including for NZPS members and those buying from overseas.

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