Australian Haiku Society

In Conversation with Two Poets, Mariko Kitakubo and Beverley George

— a special Limestone Tanka Poets event, 13th August 2011.

It was easy to understand why fifty paying guests followed the trail of balloons leading to The Gods @ Hedley Bull café at the Australian National University last Saturday at noon, 13th August, once Mariko Kitakubo rang temple bells and commenced her reading of her selected tanka in Japanese from ‘Footsteps of Basho Tour’ in collaboration with Beverley George, who read English translations by Amelia Fielden.

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Bushfires in Victoria: February 2009

In 2009, members of the Australian Haiku Society were greatly moved by the suffering of those affected by the terrible bushfires in Victoria, Australia. Beverley George, then President of the Society, wrote at the time:

“I feel certain I speak on behalf of everyone who comes to this web-site, when I send our deepest regrets to those who have suffered most in these tragic fires in Victoria: the people who have lost the people they love, their homes, their neighbourhood, their way of life, their landscape and livestock, and their pets.

May each of you, victim or helper, who has witnessed the loss of human and animal life, and of habitat, under merciless and unexpected circumstance, be granted healing in due course.

Special thoughts to those people, rendered powerless, who still wait to hear the fate of loved ones. Our hearts are with you.”

While all Australians struggled for words to convey their dismay at the suffering caused by the devastating bushfires, many poets tried to share their feelings in haiku which were posted on the HaikuOz web site as a tribute to the victims of the bushfires. Those haiku are recorded below:

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Bindii Ginko at Veale Gardens 1 October 2011

We met at Veale Gardens on South Terrace at the Wisteria Arbour at 11 am. The weather had been showery for a few days, but we were fortunate on the day of the ginko to have fine weather, with only a slight sprinkle of rain just as we were finishing lunch.

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Janice Tribute: Jacqui Murray

Jan had a special relationship with Wollumbin/Mount Warning which dominates the Northern Rivers landscape of NSW, the country in which Jan was born and spent most of her life. Her connection to the mountain was profound. In feisty middle age Jan drew herself as the mountain. Mountain as naked woman. Her sketch and accompanying haiku appeared in the first (summer 1994) edition of paper wasp of which Jan was a foundation member and editor.

Late in life, when Jan moved from her beloved Dungay farm, she chose her last home with care. She could not, she explained, live anywhere where she could not see ‘her’ mountain. As with the first people of this land, Jan believed that the mountain was not only her totem, it was her strength and source of energy. I never look at Wollumbin without thinking of Jan.

towering
above the dark earth
Wollumbin’s dawn light

Jacqui Murray

Janice M. Bostok Tribute: John Bird

Over the past 15 years I was privileged to work with Janice on many haiku activities including the international promotion of her work. As a tribute I offer this summary paragraph taken from my nomination of her in 2003 for the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize.

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Memorial Page for Janice M. Bostok

This news really shakes me up. I am so sad to hear this. For me, Janice occupied a very special place. –Michael McClintock

She was a fine poet who gave much to the haiku community in Australia–and around the world. The haiku community will miss her. Rest in peace, Jan. –Penny Harter

Her poems were threaded with empathy, a sense of discovery, insight and joy. She was an enriching spirit, and we shall greatly miss her. –Katherine Gallagher

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In Memoriam Reflection by Lorin Ford

Vale Janice M. Bostok

After reading the sad news that Jan Bostok had passed away, I sat down and reflected on the strange but true story of how we didn’t meet back in the early 60s. This story came to light not long before the Second Australian Haiku Anthology went to press. Jan, with an uncanny perspicacity, had noted ‘something American’ about my haiku. This, she later told me, was because her own haiku beginnings had been encouraged by American haiku writers such as Marlene Mountain and Bill Higginson and she’d recognized something of a common style, but at the time I wrote back giving the details of where I was born and where I’d lived, hoping to prove I really was Australian and my work would be considered for the anthology.

Jan wrote back, “The hair on my neck is standing on end! Did you know my husband, Silvester?”

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Janice Bostok Tribute: Beverley George

Since news of Janice’s passing, I have sifted through her poetry and sumi-e, but it is the stories of her life recounted in conversations, and sometimes in the afterwords of her books, that have most possessed my mind. Hers was an indomitable, independent spirit, balanced by an almost surprising gentleness. I remain grateful to her for years of support in her role as senior adviser for haiku and related genres in Yellow Moon, and for her friendship.

Janice’s poetic voice was original and resonant. It is fitting that my tribute to her should be in her own words. This tanka was published in Two Thirds of Why Impressed Publishing, 2004 and another version of it in Songs Once Sung Post Pressed, 2004.

from the darkness
a cicada’s brittle shell
breaks away in wind
your voice now tightly grips
through whirlwinds of memory

Beverley George
President Australian Haiku Society 2006-2010