A full set of results for the 8th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition will be published – in New Zealand – in the next edition of “Kokako”, accompanied by comments from the judge Catherine Mair.
In the meantime, the following entry by Australian haiku poet Barbara A Taylor was included among the poems rated as Commended:
in wild Kakadu
tourists take selfies
with a crocodile
The Haiku North America (HNA) 2015 Conference was held from 14-18 October at Union College, a liberal arts college founded in 1795 with a classically-inspired campus near the foothills of the Adirondacks in upper New York State. Appropriately for the setting, this year’s conference, Autumn Term was themed around the teaching and learning of haiku. After a welcome by HNA’s principal organisers Michael Dylan Welch, John Stevenson and Hilary Tann (other hard-working committee members were Yu Chang and Tom Clausen), 130 poet delegates each recited one of their own haiku/senryu.
The two Australians, Jennifer Sutherland and Marietta McGregor, along with poets who travelled from Japan and India, received a special welcome, a round of applause in appreciation of their long journeys. Jim Kacian launched proceedings with Realism is Dead, posing the question that, if haiku was no longer rooted in the real world, what might then ground it? The keynote address by Dr Randy Brooks examined some of the issues with teaching haiku in the American education system.
Australian haiku poet Cynthia Rowe has won the Grand Prize: 1st Place in the 2015 World Haiku Contest, with the following haiku:
bare branch
the wild persimmon
snow-flecked
Another entry by Cynthia was one of five haiku to gain an Honorable Mention in the same competition:
old railway track
a tumbleweed skips
through wild grass
Comments about Cynthia’s winning poem – provided by the judge for this contest, Alan Summers – can be read below:
Continue reading “Cynthia Rowe: winner – Grand Prize: 1st Place in 2015 World Haiku Contest”
“Prospect” is an annual poetry journal, with longer poems written by Australians and published in Australia by Blue Giraffe Press, owned and managed by Peter Macrow. “Prospect Five” is devoted to haiku and tanka, with Beverley George as guest editor. Beverley was president of Haiku Oz, the Australian Haiku Society. She edits and publishes “Eucalypt,” a tanka publication, conducts workshops, and writes essays and children’s books. Her tanka and haiku have earned awards, and some have been translated into Japanese. The cover image and design are by Ron C. Moss, and Rebus Press had charge of layout.
The journal as a whole is unmistakably and delightfully Australian. While some of the vocabulary is special to that country, the themes and emotions are universal. With a few exceptions, I was able to understand and appreciate the poems without resorting to a dictionary, though I did look up some words for their precise meaning and enjoyed this verbal visit to a country and continent so far away.
Haiku, usually three-line poems, are here arranged four to a page, while tanka, which have five lines, are three to a page. They are divided, ten pages of haiku, twelve of tanka, and twelve haiku, with the final two pages given to Blue Giraffe Press 2nd Australian Haiku Competition’s three winners and three commended haiku
Continue reading “Review of “Prospect Five” – Dorothy McLaughlin”
Submissions will open for its April edition 2016 on November 1, 2015: deadline – February 1, 2016.
Contributors are welcome to offer haiku, senryu, tanka, renga, haibun and reviews – preferably by email – with only one submission per contributor per issue, comprising no more than 8 poems/ pieces.
Submissions should be inserted into the body of an email (not added as an attachment) and sent to editors Patricia Prime and Margaret Beverland at:
Continue reading “Kokako submissions open November 1, 2015 – deadline February 1, 2016”
The Akita International Haiku Network has announced the results of its 4th Japan – Russia Haiku Contest, where poets were invited to write haiku on the theme of lakes.
From a range of international contributors, Australian haiku poets Marietta McGregor and Simon Hanson were first- and second-listed among a set of 10 entrants to receive Honourable Mentions:
a family of teals
breaches the lake ice
receding winter
– Marietta McGregor
heading home
crossing the lake
the shadows of pines
– Simon Hanson
Botanic Gardens Lismore NSW
Date: Thursday 22 October 2015
Cloudcatchers gathered at the Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens, which were established on wasteland on the fringe of the city in the late 1990s. Since then a lush rainforest has re-emerged, nurtured by volunteers, growing only native plants endemic to the region. Right next to this is an area featuring eucalypts, where the sharp-eyed may spy a koala or two; and nearby is a 30-year-old stand of hoop pine.
Australian haiku poets Beverley George and Simon Hanson have been announced as successful entrants in the haiku competition that will be incorporated into the 11th Pumpkin Festival, to be held in Ivanić-Grad, Croatia, over October 18-19, 2015.
The competition – in English – had the theme of haiku about pumpkins.
Beverley George was one of four international entrants to share joint third prize, with the following haiku:
“butternut, please”
each week she orders one −
just to say their name
Continue reading “Results from the 11th Pumpkin Festival haiku contest, Croatia, 2015”
Australian Haiku Society 