From the President…

Welcome to our first news for 2025.
Have you entered the third John Bird Dreaming Award yet?
The executive committee met on 10th February. We reviewed activities over the last months of 2024 and discussed some initiatives for this year.

Haiku Strings
One of our recent initiatives, led by Lynette Arden, is the publication of selections from past haiku strings in PDF books, which is gathering momentum. You’ll find these on the website under the menu heading of Haiku Resources.

Kukai
With the autumn equinox not far off on Thursday 20th March and International Haiku Poetry Day not long after on Easter Thursday 17th April, we’ve decided to conduct an Autumn Equinox Kukai this year to mark both occasions. Stay tuned for details of the Kukai, which we’ll release next month.

If you are planning to hold any public activities for International Haiku Poetry Day, please let us know so we can share the details with poets around the country.

Regional Representatives
Last year the executive committee, in consultation with current and previous representatives, began reviewing the role and contributions of Regional Representatives. This work continues and there will be more news about it later in the year.

Leanne Mumford

Reminder: John Bird Dreaming Award Entries closing 1st March

Entries for the Third John Bird Dreaming Award have been rolling in over the summer months. With the deadline for submissions looming on 1st March, it’s time to finalise up to three of your best unpublished poems and submit them via the form on our website. All the details you need for submission are there.

Congratulations!

As usual, this Members’ News celebrates the achievements of some talented Australian poets. Congratulations to all.

Five Australian poets were recognised in the Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition 2024.  One Third prize was awarded to Gregory Piko, while Gavin Austin, Simon Hanson, Earl Livings and Jo McInerney all received Honourable Mentions.

Greg Piko also received an Honorable Mention from judge Michael Dylan Welch in the 6th Morioka International Haiku Contest. Michael has shared the English language results on his website.  A bilingual booklet of selected poems from the contest is also available.

Lorraine Haig’s haiku book Curving in to Light was longlisted in December for the Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry in the Tasmanian Literary Awards.
Lorraine’s book was published by Forty South Publishing in 2023.

Do let us know if you have some news of success to share. Contact Alison Rogers, Secretary .

Opportunity for Poets with a Published Haiku Collection

Information provided by Gilles Fabre:
The Association Francophone de Haïku and the journals l’ estran and seashores are pleased to introduce DOUBLE HORIZON, an international bilingual haiku anthology of contemporary authors. This anthology aims to be a panoramic overview of haiku in the English- and French-speaking worlds. Because of its diversity, its quality, and the number of haijins and haiku it will publish in both languages, Double Horizon will be a first, opening up a new (double) horizon, in the world of haiku. We invite any author who has already published a minimum of one collection of haiku in either of these languages to contribute to this ambitious project.

 To do this, please send us:
– First and last name (or pen name), as well as your country of residence and/or nationality.
– 10 haiku, published or unpublished, in French or English; these can be either your favourite haiku or the most representative of your practice.
– A short paragraph (maximum 100 words, approx. 500 characters) explaining what haiku means to you, your vision, or what you want to express through haiku.
– The following information about a haiku collection of your choice that you have published: title, publisher, country, year, ISBN (if available), website/links (if applicable).

 Conditions:
– You must have published at least one collection of haiku in print, in French or English.
– Confirm in writing that you own the copyright of the 10 haiku provided. [Example: I, the undersigned, [First name/Last name], declare that I hold the copyright of the 10 haiku that I propose for the anthology DOUBLE HORIZON and authorize their publication and translation in this anthology.] Authors retain the copyright of any haiku chosen and published.
– Accept translation into the other language by the editorial team, or else provide a translation of your haiku, which can be revised.
– Send the haiku and all required information in one single email, and in the body of the email (no attachments) by April 30, 2025 to: doublehorizonhaiku@gmail.com

We would be grateful if you could email us asap with an expression of interest. You can confirm later by sending all the requested information (or cancel if so desired).

 Other information about the anthology:
– Each author will be informed of his/her inclusion and the choice of the selected haiku by June 30, 2025 at the latest.
– The anthology will be published in December 2025.
– The editorial team is composed of: Jean Antonini, Gilles Fabre, Amanda Bell, Jean-Hugues Chuix and Françoise Saint Pierre.

Sharing Direct Experience

Leanne Mumford
There are many approaches to writing and reading haiku. Every poet and reader has their own preferences with regard to style, as well as their own ideas of what a haiku is and does. There is no single definition of haiku with which we all agree. Contemporary English-language haiku are in a constant state of flux, with many poets pushing new boundaries, and others more comfortable adhering to established techniques.

Last year’s Haiku Down Under 2024 online gathering had the theme of A Sensory Journey. Many aspects of the senses in haiku were explored, one of which was the idea that concrete sense-based images offer a strong foundation for effective haiku. So why do these sorts of images tend to work so well?

One factor might be that haiku often arise out of experiences of ‘being in the moment’, from paying attention to physical sensations and immediate surroundings. Images based in physical sensations can stimulate readers to recall or imagine similar bodily sensations. It is a way for the poet to share the experience directly with readers or listeners, to bring them immediately into the scene or situation.

To quote Scott Mason[1]:
“What it [haiku] does, at its best, is to encapsulate an instant of keen perception in a form that can be released and experienced anew by the receptive reader. When the record of such an instant includes a vivid sensory impression, the reader will often feel an “I am there” surge of sensed experience.”

When a poem contains a vivid sensory image, that “I am there” feeling provides readers and listeners with a solid foundation for comprehending the rest of the poem. Experiencing sensations is directly wired into our brains, and the information is transmitted faster than thoughts. Our brains combine sensory input with memories and prior knowledge to make associations, and these associations are what haiku often tap into. When we move onto grasping the whole poem, we may already have in our minds something personal on which to build meaning. By almost reliving some essence of the poet’s experience, a reader or listener may be drawn to their own realisation of its meaning.

Here are three examples – all from Australia – with evocative sense-based images that I found in last year’s AHS Summer Solstice 2024 Haiku String booklet.

beach walk
marooned seashells
crackle underfoot
– Carol Reynolds

ocean pool
the scent of salt
and sunscreen
– Louise Hopewell

summer dawn
the distant laughter
of a kookaburra
– Stella Damarjati

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[1] Scott Mason: Haiku: The State of Wonder, talk presented at Haiku North America Santa Fe 2017 (https://nzhaiku.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/haiku-the-state-of-wonder.pdf)