President’s Message
The AHS Executive Committee met on 16th June. Among the topics discussed were progressing arrangements for Regional Representatives, and new initiatives to explore, such as Regional Readings, a small trial of mentorships and developing a webinar series. We also plan to revive Haiku Musings.
The series of Featured Haiku posts drawn from the under the same moon: Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology still has poets to showcase over coming weeks. I thank Rob Scott for organising this series over the past year or so. Exemplar haiku are a valuable resource, showing us some of the myriad possibilities of the form. Good examples are particularly important for poets new to haiku, who are often challenged by the lack of clear agreed definition of haiku in English and the sometimes contradictory personal guidelines espoused by established poets.
Among the general public there remains a persistent misconception that 17 syllables are essential to a haiku, although among serious English-language haiku writers that approach has been abandoned by all but the most ardent traditionalists. There also seems to be a popular belief that a short poem of three separate lines, each with a different image, can be considered a haiku.
My tips for beginners are:
* use concrete sense-based images as the foundation of your poems, avoiding abstract language
* compose with two parts – a fragment image on one line juxtaposed with a phrase image over two lines
* show don’t tell – invite readers to ‘step into the poem space’, leaving room for their imaginations to wander.
The Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards are sponsored by leading haiku journal The Heron’s Nest. After reading 1,311 poems submitted to this contest for 2024, judge Mary Stevens compiled a very useful list of what to avoid and some recommended resources.
I also recommend our own Haiku Resources page, Haiku NewZ Archives with many essays and articles, as well as Haiku Commentary, and myriad resources of The Haiku Foundation.
Leanne Mumford
Celebrating Awards and Successes
Congratulations to Ron C. Moss, who has been awarded second place in the Haiku Society of America Rengay Awards 2025 for “Maiden Voyage” co-written with Paula Sears.
Big congratulations are also in order for two members of Melbourne’s Fringe Myrtles group. Robbie Coburn’s recently released, ‘Blood Rodeo’, is his first collection of haiku and Grant Caldwell’s ‘the soundless sound’, will be launched in July-August. Both books are published by the highly regarded Red Moon Press.
Grant Caldwell’s book of haiku and senryu, blue balloon was featured as ‘book of the week’ by The Haiku Foundation in March 2025. blue balloon was noted by Dan Campbell as blending ‘Zen principles with urban imagery to create poems that feel both timeless and distinctly modern.’ Read some of the poems and find the book online here. Grant also co-edited The Routledge Global Haiku Reader in 2023 with James Shea. Read more from the launch here.
Another Fringe Myrtles member, Rob Scott, had a haiku selected in the Haiku Calendar Competition 2025 run by Snapshot Press. His poem will accompany July in the 2026 calendar. Well done, Rob.
The results of our own Winter Solstice Haiga Kukai will be announced shortly.
Please don’t forget to let us know your achievements. Use the Contact Secretary form to get in touch if you’ve won an award, published a book, etc.
August is Poetry Month
Red Room Poetry is a leading Australian organisation for commissioning, creating, publishing and promoting poetry in meaningful ways. With Poetry Month, the organisation aims to increase the profile of Australian poetry and poets. The goal is to increase access, awareness, value and visibility of poetry in all its forms and for all audiences.
Red Room Poetry has a calendar of community events lined up around the country during August. There’s a daily contest that may be suitable for haiku poets – writing a poetic response of no more than three lines to a prompt. In Sydney, AHS is on the calendar, offering a beginners’ haiku workshop — Introduction to Ginko for Writing Haiku.
Haiku String Books
New Haiku String Books have been released since the last newsletter in May. Most recently added are: Winter Solstice 2018 and Autumn Equinox 2019. We now have 10 published and are progressively adding to the archive, with the aim of making selections from all AHS haiku strings available as PDF booklets.
Australian Haiku Society 