Lynette Arden

Jo McInerney a winner with THF’s ‘re: Virals’ haiku comment

Australian haiku poet Jo McInerney has just been honoured as the winner of the weekly ‘re: Virals’ segment on The Haiku Foundation website, which provides the opportunity for readers to respond to a particular haiku of note, as chosen by the previous winner.

Jo’s response to a haiku by English poet John McManus can be read below.

Looking ahead, however, it should be noted that Jo is not only the first Australian to have a piece of haiku commentary adjudged to be a winner of ‘re: Virals’ – with her choosing the following haiku by Lorin Ford for the next set of comments, it has also meant this is the first time that the work of an Australian haiku poet has been featured for comment:

their wings like cellophane remember cellophane

– Lorin Ford, ‘Road runner’, IX: 2 (2009)

The Haiku Foundation website strongly encourages readers to comment – guidelines are provided through this link:

http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2016/01/08/revirals-17/

Continue reading “Jo McInerney a winner with THF’s ‘re: Virals’ haiku comment”

March/Autumn edition of paper wasp: a journal of haiku

The deadline for the next edition of paper wasp is 1 February 2016.

Please note that the address for submissions has changed. It is now:

jacquimurray@bigpond.com

If you have already sent a submission to another address please resend it to the email address above.
Likewise all enquiries, including any regarding snail mail, should be referred to Jacqui Murray.

With thanks and warm regards

Jacqui Murray
Founder: Paper Wasp
Founding Editor: paper wasp: a journal of haiku

‘Windfall’, Australian Haiku, Issue 4, 2016 – review by Elaine Riddell

Edited by Beverley George (Blue Giraffe Press, 2016).

ISSN 1839-5449.
In Australia: $A15 for one issue a year for 2 years, postage included; elsewhere: $A25, postage included.

Review by Elaine Riddell.

There will be many looking forward to this fourth annual issue of ‘Windfall’. The first time I was shown a copy of ‘Windfall’, my response was delight. Issue 4 is a worthy successor to the previous three issues. Like its predecessors, Issue 4 has the lovely, understated Ron C. Moss cover design and a simplicity of layout. Despite being small (A6), it uses a good sized font and gives each haiku breathing space on the page. The translucent papers, which separate the cover from the body of the work, seem to say, ‘This is a treasure. Hold it with care.’

Continue reading “‘Windfall’, Australian Haiku, Issue 4, 2016 – review by Elaine Riddell”

Windfall Issue 4: 2016

‘Windfall: Australian Haiku’ Issue 4 2016 has now been mailed to all subscribers.

The issue features the work of 56 Australian poets and is published by Peter Macrow’s Blue Giraffe Press, edited by Beverley George, with a cover design by Ron C Moss.

The annual submission window for ‘Windfall’ is July only.

Send up to six haiku relevant to life in Australia to beverleygeorge@idx.com.au

Continue reading “Windfall Issue 4: 2016”

‘A Silver Tapestry: The Best Of 25 Years Of Critical Writing From The British Haiku Society’: book note – Beverley George

Selected by Jon Baldwin & Margery Newlove

Edited by Graham High
ISBN 978-1-906333-03-4
Ramsgate, Kent, The British Haiku Society, 2015 [265 pages]

This carefully selected anthology brings together fifty of the major articles published in The British Haiku Society’s ‘Blithe Spirit’ between 1992 and 2014. The selectors considered between three hundred and four hundred articles before making their choice of fifty, with no more than one by a single author. Its publication was made possible by The Sakaguchi Literary Studies fund which supports the production of special publications, and by the personal benevolence of Akiko Sakaguchi.

Continue reading “‘A Silver Tapestry: The Best Of 25 Years Of Critical Writing From The British Haiku Society’: book note – Beverley George”

Tanka by Beverley George featured in Melbourne jazz performance

Earlier in December, leading Australian tanka poet Beverley George – editor of “Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal” – was honoured to have the following three pieces from her tanka collection “empty garden” featured in a live performance that formed part of the Melbourne Women’s Jazz Festival, held in Bennetts Lane, Melbourne:

a lightning strike
splits our old apple tree–
I never dreamed
the death that parted us
would not be one of ours

it’s in our garden
that I miss you most
each year the stems
of rosemary you planted
grow harder to cut back

widening each day
the winter river rushes
over hidden rocks
if you asked me to return
I could no longer cross it

Subsequently included on a CD, Beverley’s tanka were read live by Miriam Zolin, accompanied by a jazz trio comprised by pianist Andrea Keller, bassist Tamara Murphy and trumpeter Eugene Ball.

A review of this performance can be accessed at the following link:

http://ausjazz.net/2015/12/09/solace-in-an-empty-garden/

“Eucalypt” Issue 19, 2015 – Appraisals

From every issue of “Eucalypt: a tanka journal,” edited by Beverley George, two poems are peer-selected for appraisal.

Congratulations to Jenny Ward Angyal and Sonam Chhoki, whose tanka were chosen for appraisal by Patricia Prime and Anne Curran.

You can read about them here:

http://www.eucalypt.info/E-awards.html

While visiting the site, you may also wish to read a wide selection of tanka appraisals at:

http://www.eucalypt.info/E-bowerbird.html

A regular feature of the full-day Bowerbird workshops, convened twice a year, is a presentation by each of three delegates of a tanka by a poet whom the presenter has never met. The appraisals are lively and varied.

12th European Quarterly Kukai Winter 2015 Edition

The 12th European Quarterly Kukai Winter 2015 Edition attracted haiku from 186 poets from 38 countries, including 8 from Australia.

Australian entrants were: Samar Ghose and Tash Adams, both from Perth, WA; Jo McInerney, from Boolarra, VIC; Cynthia Rowe, from Sydney, NSW; Barbara A Taylor, from Mountain Top, NSW, Simon Hanson, from Allendale, SA; Lynette Arden, from Norwood, SA; and Marietta McGregor, from Canberra, ACT.

The theme was ‘night’ or ‘day’.

Gaining 16 points, Samar Ghose achieved eighth place with the following haiku:

how to just be day moon

Gaining 15 points, Marietta McGregor was another top-ten finisher, placing ninth with the following haiku:

overcast day
she saves a poem
to the cloud

Results of the contest can be seen this link:

http://europeankukai.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/results-of-european-quarterly-kukai-12.html