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Joanna Preston              

Joanna Preston is an expatriate Aussie, who has returned to Christchurch after three years in England. Her haiku apprenticeship began when she joined Airing Cupboard Women poets, and met the Big Three: Greeba Brydges-Jones, Helen Bascand and Barbara Strang. She has won haiku and haibun competitions, co-authored (with Cyril Childs) the anthology listening to the rain, co-founded the Small White Teapot Haiku Group, and is working with Jeffrey Harpeng on a trans-Tasman haibun anthology. She edited the 2007 and 2008 NZPS anthologies. Contact Joanna.

 

tea with mother-in-law  -
condescension
clouding the view
  

washing
my mother's breasts
we both giggle
  

climbing Motuara -
a saddleback darts
under my breath
  

after the storm
the garden flooded
with light
  

family Christmas -
sharpening
all the knives
  

the fields of flanders -
the rich red
of the cemetery gates
  

waiting at the airport
the beaming smile
someone else's husband
  

melting snow
from the cowshed
the tang of silage
  

Christmas eve  -
the merry flashing
of brake-lights
  

lawyer's office -
she adds three kisses
to the divorce settlement

 

Publication notes:
tea with mother-in-law: winterSpin, 2002, NZ.
washing: from the haibun "Shoulder Reconstruction", winterSpin, 2000.
climbing Motuara -: unpublished.
after the storm: ibid.
family Christmas -: ibid.
the fields of flanders -: from the haibun "Lijssenthoek", Contemporary Haibun 8.
waiting at the airport: Famous Reporter 24, Australia.
melting snow: unpublished.
Christmas eve: ibid.
lawyer's office: paperwasp, summer 2002, Australia.

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