Author: Simon Hanson

Submission Invitation for Windfall # 6

Windfall: Australian Haiku is a small annual print publication which seeks to publish fine examples of contemporary Australian haiku. Submissions are welcome throughout July each year.

An anthology of Australian haiku, Windfall is edited by Beverley George and published annually by Peter Macrow’s Blue Giraffe Press. Please send up to six haiku on themes relevant to Australia to Beverley George at beverleygeorge@idx.com.au with the word “Windfall” in the subject line or by mail to PO Box 37 Pearl Beach 2256. Please also include a statement to the effect that your haiku are original, unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. For full details Continue reading “Submission Invitation for Windfall # 6”

Red Kelpie Haiku Group Meeting #12

For those of us who might be experiencing a slump or fallow period in our haiku writing: we might take heart from a winter haiku by the all-time master:

 菊の後大根の外更になし
kiku no ato daikon no hoka sara ni nashi

After the chrysanthemums,
Apart from radishes,
There is nothing.

Bashō, trans. Linda Inoki, The Japan Times, December 7, 2005

R.H. Blyth also has a translation of this haiku in his Haiku Vol. IV, Autumn – Winter (He substitutes ‘turnip’ for radish since his EL readers were unlikely to be familiar with the daikon. These days, we can find the long white Japanese radish in any supermarket.) Blyth comments:

“(Winter) is a kind of off-season for poetry by the calendar of haiku. (This haiku expresses) simply and spontaneously the poetical emptiness that Bashō feels”.

Perhaps Bashō’s haiku might inspire us to write haiku on not being inspired to write haiku?

Continue reading “Red Kelpie Haiku Group Meeting #12”

Members’ News May 2017

With May behind us, the southern hemisphere autumn now heads towards winter while across the equator spring moves toward summer; so the world turns. Wherever you are we hope May has been an enjoyable month for you as we look forward to a creatively productive June.

Groups and Gatherings

Jan Dobb reminds us that Canberra’s autumn this year is more stunning than ever. You can catch up on the latest news and revisit the most recent gathering of Haiku@theOaks here.

Continue reading “Members’ News May 2017”

A Haiku Workshop – Guidelines for writing haiku by Quendryth Young

A beautiful new guide to writing haiku is now available for free download from the Sydney School of Arts & Humanities.

Written by the Australian haiku writer Quendryth Young, A Haiku Workshop is a comprehensive collection of succinct guidelines to writing English-language haiku – backed up with examples from Quendryth’s own extensive and award-winning body of work.

Quendryth has agreed to share her guidelines in e-brochure form to “spread the message, spread the joy, spread the elation . . . of living with senses wide open to the environment, in order to capture significant moments of observation with concision and resonance”.

To download click here

Continue reading “A Haiku Workshop – Guidelines for writing haiku by Quendryth Young”