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Turning Over a New Leaf by Sandra Simpson

The start of a new year is traditionally a good time to take stock of where we're at and set goals for the coming 12 months. People who are paid to research these things regularly report however, that most New Year's resolutions are broken quickly if, in fact, they're adhered to at all.

But while the setting of "global" goals - lose weight, get fit, stop smoking, world peace - may be of little value, the setting of specific goals for a specific part of our lives can have benefits. The journey recorded below must, by necessity, be a personal one so please forgive what must seem like trumpet blowing. I hope that by sharing some of the rewards goal-setting has brought me that it may inspire others. Naturally, there have been plenty of "rejection slips" too but as writers we should all recognise that they come with the territory and not get defeated by them.

But before we get to the feel-good stuff, let's attend to the basics. Something that is essential if you are to embark on a course of submitting widely and entering as many competitions as possible is meticulous record-keeping. No editor or competition co-ordinator is going to be happy to find out you are simultaneously submitting work - and really, there's no excuse.

The easiest way I have found is to keep 2 files of work, one marked "contests" and one "submissions" so that I can double-check what has gone where. When a submission is made, copy and paste the poems from your "live work" file into a new page in the "submissions" file, headed up with the journal name and date. Most editors are pretty good at getting back within a few weeks to accept or reject and you can then - with luck - move at least 1 poem into your "published" file and know that the others are free to submit elsewhere.

You do keep a "published" file, don't you? Besides being a confidence booster every time you look through it, it's also handy if an editor wants to anthologise a poem. You have the publication name and date immediately to hand.

As I fill a page in my "live work" and "published" folders I print it out. I also back these files up on a regular basis to a data stick or an external hard drive. Computers are great ... until they aren't.

A clearfile is an excellent way to store certificates (helpfully, most are A4 size) or letters/emails of congratulations. In my file I have, for example, a postcard that apart from my address on the front and my haiku on the back is entirely in Japanese, a print of a pencil portrait of Robert Frost, and a certificate that, apart from my name, is in Romanian. I have one clearfile (with luck I may move on to a second this year) - Ernie Berry in Picton has a book shelf full of them!

A few years ago, I set myself the goal of coming within the top 5 placings for the annual New Zealand Poetry Society Haiku Contest. That took more than 12 months to achieve (as I thought it would) but in 2009 I was placed Third.

great-grandfather's diary -
his sketch of an iceberg
fading away

- moments in the whirlwind (NZPS, 2009)

Since then, I have set myself the (until now) private goal of winning the contest ... and maybe 2012 will be the year that I do it. All I have to do is write an outstanding haiku that chimes with this year's judge!

About 5 years ago my haiku resolution was to enter more competitions and I have tried to stick to this, finding the effort has helped hone my haiku skills, both through reading judges' comments, as well as reading the winning poems themselves.

If you are unable to source foreign currency to enter the contests that require this, keep an eye out for the numerous free competitions. And each year more contests are offering the ability to pay online through PayPal. Setting up a PayPal account isn't difficult and the site is secure. With banks now charging something like $15 to redeem a cheque in foreign currency, any winnings you may earn can be quickly eroded. If you have a PayPal account, contest winnings can often be paid into this (and yes, there is a charge for downloading money, but it isn't too bad - and you always have the option of spending your money shopping online).

To my delight I have been placed in several contests, including being one of the first Touchstone Award winners. The haiku that was considered to have been among the best in English in 2010 was not one that I particularly cared for, but someone liked it enough to nominate it and an erudite panel of judges liked it enough to bestow the award early in 2011.

slicing papaya -
the swing
of her black pearls

- The Heron's Nest, XII:3, 2010

The Haiku Foundation airmailed me a block of granite with the poem inscribed on it, which now sits in my garden. That's an achievement that's going to be hard to top.

My haiku output isn't great so my submissions to journals are limited - however, in the middle of last year I decided to submit a selection to Daily Haiku, an online journal that publishes a new poem every day, with one poet featuring for a week. Six poets are chosen at once to rotate through 6 months (there is also a guest poet who features at the start of each new cycle).

Being accepted meant I would have 28 haiku published over 6 months (which in reality meant sending several batches, probably about 40 poems in total, for consideration). The focus required to meet the deadlines was demanding for a slow writer, but rewarding when I found myself writing haiku that I liked - and that the publishers liked enough to accept - inspired by all sorts of things, including calendar pictures and chance remarks. The publishers are also willing to look at different haiku, which gave me the chance to "play" a bit and extend myself.

themomentwhenmoolightbecomesbirdsong

- Daily Haiku, volume 6, cycle 11, 2011

And, sliding in under the wire, was the realisation of a goal that was a couple of years old - to publish a collection of my haiku. Although I missed my first (self-imposed) deadline to have it done in 2010, I'm glad I waited. The poems are better and the book as a whole is better.

Thanks to the help of a local printer, I am now the proud owner of a couple of hundred copies of breath and have been surprised/humbled/delighted in about equal measure by non-haiku people who have bought it and liked it, as well members of the haiku community.

Waitangi -
the parson bird
sings a different song

- breath (self-published), 2011

So where to this year?

Besides competitions and a general feeling that I want to extend myself in my writing, the major goal is to realise the Haiku Festival Aotearoa, coming up in June, and make it a success for all who attend. As we are an organising committee of 2 - Margaret Beverland and myself - it's a project that should keep me out of mischief.

Having renowned American writer/editor/publisher Jim Kacian accept our invitation to attend as a teacher was a real boost to our endeavours. Now all we need is for those registrations to roll in ...

Footnote: Kirsten Cliff, editor of haikai café for a fine line (the NZPS journal), has also been following through on a resolution in 2011 - to submit poetry to a journal or competition every week - and keeping a public record on her blog swimming in lines of haiku.

"It's been a very rewarding year poetry-wise," she writes there. "Not just because I reaped the benefits of so many submissions by being published much more, and much more widely, but because I also met heaps of great haiku-folk [online]."

editing
in my mind's eye
this new tanka ...
the tinker tinker tinker
of teaspoon against mug

- Kirsten Cliff, Eucalypt, issue 11, 2011

Further Reading: Archived Articles that may be helpful if you intend to set yourself a haiku challenge for 2012.

For beginners: The Haiku Habit by Jeanne Emrich, including some ideas to start writing haiku daily; and Building an Excellent Birdcage by Jane Reichhold.
For those who would like to start a local study group or enjoy the fellowship of haiku: Running a Haiku Group: How Windrift Does it by Nola Borrell and Karen Peterson Butterworth; and Feathering the Moment by Christopher Herold, which describes a group exercise.
Writers looking to improve their skills could choose any of the articles - the ones I'm going to re-read over the summer are: Haiku Form by Jim Kacian; How to Write Haiku, also by Jim; The Essence of Haiku by Bruce Ross; and, if you really want a challenge, Do Something Different by Peter Yovu.

Editor's note: Sandra Simpson is editor of Haiku NewZ, a member of the Katikati Haiku Pathway committee and an award-winning haiku poet. She lives in Tauranga, New Zealand and is co-organiser of this year's Haiku Festival Aotearoa, from June 15-17 in Tauranga. To read more about breath, go to the website.

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