Category: Members

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:

Continue reading “Bushfires in Victoria: February 2009”

3rd Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest

There was a strong Australian contribution to the contest this year as highlighted by Professor Oba in his report shown below. Hearty congratulations to Pamela Smith for winning the grand prize in the foreign country section and to Nathalie Buckland for her distinguished work prize. Their poems in English and Japanese can be seen at:

Continue reading “3rd Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest”

Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Competition 2010

Congratulations to Dawn Bruce and Jo McInerney for winning joint first prize in the latest Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Competition.

Dawn’s winning haiku was:

moonrise
a flow of shadows
along the river

While Jo’s haiku was:

bare hills
the horizon looped
between post and wire

As Jacqui Murray says in her introduction to the Jack Stamm Anthology, ‘Both haiku have an elegant but non-obtrusive complexity that throws up one image whilst inviting more’.

Congratulations also to Jan Dobb for her lovely haiku that was awarded third prize:

spilling
from the sound of thunder
a rain drop

Greg Piko
Secretary
HaikuOz

Three Australian writers feature in A New Resonance 7

Red Moon Press has released A New Resonance 7, the latest in its biennial series featuring emerging voices in English language haiku from around the world.

This volume, edited as usual by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts, includes haiku by Lorin Ford, Quendryth Young and Greg Piko from Australia, and Andre Surridge from New Zealand.

Also included are a further 14 poets living in Canada, Scotland, Japan and the United States. Each poet is featured with a selection of 15 of their haiku, biographical details and commentary by the editors.

A New Resonance 7 showcases writers who are making a mark in the global haiku community, providing a broader exposure for these poets than might be achieved through the publication of individual haiku in journals or on the net. Copies of A New Resonance 7 (186 pages, perfect softbound) are available from:

Lorin Ford’s email: geanhaiku(at)googlemail(dot)com

Greg Piko’s email: gregpiko(at)hotmail(dot)com

Congratulations to Lorin, Quendy and Greg as inclusion in this prestigious publication is by invitation of the editors based on their own reading and suggestions from previous New Resonance poets.

Dawn Bruce
Vice President
HaikuOz

Messages for Janice Bostok

Janice M Bostok, HaikuOz co-founder and patron, is currently in hospital on the Gold Coast, where she’s being treated for complications associated with diabetes.

Although Jan is in considerable pain, she’s still cracking the occasional joke, and would love to hear from members of HaikuOz – an extended community she thinks of as her ‘haiku family’.

If you’d like to email messages of support, please send them to sharon.happy@gmail.com. Alternatively, you can write directly to Jan via snail mail care of:

Ward 3B
Gold Coast Hospital
108 Nerang Street
Southport Qld 4215

Thank you.

Sharon Dean

Mann Library’s Daily Haiku, May 2011 – Lorin Ford

A haiku by Lorin Ford will be published each day in May on the Mann Library’s Daily Haiku. She is honoured to be the first Australian to feature in this project:

http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/

See archive link: http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/2011/05/

RSS feed is available.

‘About Daily Haiku’ says:
“For over ten years, Tom Clausen posted a daily haiku in the elevator of the old Mann building. He continues to post them online from the Mann Library home page. The poets featured are by invitation only and the poems are almost entirely previously published original works of an extended haiku community that includes many of his friends. This site is an effort to share these works with those of you visiting us on our Web site. Haiku and related brief poetic forms are often very accessible, portable in mind and spirit and at best a knowing touch of what is poetically intuitive in our lives. We hope that you enjoy these expressions as much as we do.”

Check out the archives for a wonderful resource of previous collections of haiku whilst you’re there.