Category: Book Launch

Peter Macrow, founder and manager of “Windfall”, was present, as was I as editor. “Windfall” poets in attendance included Marilyn Humbert, visiting Tasmania from Sydney, Lyn Reeves, Robyn Mathison, Ron C Moss, Sarah Clarkson, Judith E P Johnson, and Lorraine Haig.

The launch was expertly conducted by respected Tasmanian poet, Robyn Mathison.

Robyn expressed her appreciation to Peter Macrow and his Blue Giraffe Press for “offering poets the chance to be published in this tiny but stylish collection of haiku,” and congratulated the fifty-three poets for moments shared in the sixty-three haiku included in “Windfall 3”.

An extract from Robyn Mathison’s launch speech follows:

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“I’d also like to thank the editor Beverley George and congratulate her on her selection and particularly for the sequencing of the haiku she has chosen. I have taken several leisurely strolls through the pages of “Windfall”, stopping to ponder awhile after each haiku and again after reading the three grouped on each page. In my readings I noticed and appreciated the connections between each trio. Sometimes it is colour that connects them; sometimes it is a season, or movement; or the activities of people, animals and other creatures.

On page three, for instance, it is reference to sound that links them, the completely imagined sound of water tumbling a stone in the middle one.

winter sunshine
an unseen guitar
in a minor key

John Bird

river stone
the current of years
in every shape

Dawn Bruce

wombat bones
dry hollyhocks rattle
by the roadside

Ron C. Moss

On page six, birds make the connection.

lowering sky
the breeze lifts a brolga
into flight

Kent Robinson

rain gauge
the bird bath full
after the storm

Rose van Son

galahs
against a dull sky
the pink parts

Quendryth Young

On page eight, moving and changing light links the images.

windswept rocks
the fisherman’s lantern
comes and goes

Cynthia Rowe

wind chopped light chopped winter bush

Kieran O’Connor

fading daylight
gathers more sky . . .
winter solstice

Jayashree Maniyil

And on page twenty-one, all three are about home.

google earth
I mostly look
at my house

Lynette Arden

he threatens
to sell again
the crunch of a snail’s shell

Bett Angel-Stawarz

holiday over
my backpack sags
on the floor

Duncan Richardson”

Robyn Mathison’s closing remarks included:

“Like one of those miraculous Japanese paper buds that only needs a glass of water to unfold slowly into a flower, this little book needs only quiet reading to expand into dozens of images for the mind’s eye or the mind’s ear and to provide hours of contemplation.

“Windfall 3” is an excellent chance for you to get an inexpensive but very rich collection. I have much pleasure in launching it into the world – and I’d like to invite those contributors who are here this evening to read their haiku from “Windfall”.”

Robyn Mathison

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Although unable to attend the event in person, Australian Haiku Society secretary, Rodney Williams, lent his support to the occasion by producing a tanga; a photograph of a fruit tree with a tanka imposed on it, and gifting copies of this to Peter Macrow, Robyn Mathison, Beverley George and Ron Moss.

with this breeze
such sweet nectarines
as windfall
she gathers together
all those precious poems

Rodney Williams
Beverley George, Editor, “Windfall”