Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Competition 2011

Congratulations to Cynthia Rowe, Jo McInerney and Ron Moss for winning First, Second and Thrid prizes respectively in the 2011 Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Competition. The successful haiku in order from first to third were:

tree-lined stream
the falcon rowing
through air
holding the warmth
of the afternoon sun
dandelion ridge
simmering rhubarb
mother plays ragtime
on broken keys
While the Jack Stamm Award has over the years become a valued and sought after prize, Paper Wasp has announced that the 2011 competition will be the last in the series honouring, Jack Stamm, the Japan-based American beat generation haiku poet who was part of a Japanese initiative to reinvigorate Australian haiku in the late 1980s.

The 2011 Jack Stamm Anthology therefore reproduces all the prize winning haiku dating back to the first competition in 1999.

Paper Wasp has also announced that it will honour Australia’s greatest haiku poet, the late Janice M Bostok, with a new international haiku award – further details will be available in the coming months.

Limestone Tanka Poets: 18 March meeting

Who would’ve thought that two hours would be enough time in which to enjoy a presentation of Moon Forest Armada Tanka Group’, as well as a talk on How-a-Poet-Works and have time in which to workshop new tanka. Limestone Tanka Poets did all three in our March meeting and what was achieved was pleasing if the contentment on everyone’s faces at the end were anything to go on

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Review of Haiku Bindii Journeys by Patricia Prime

Haiku Bindii, Journal of the Bindii Japanese Genre Poetry Group, Vol. 1, Journeys. Convenor: Lynette Arden (2011) 60 pp. ISSN 1839-4337.

Reviewed by Patricia Prime.

In this collection, the first published by the Bindii Japanese Genre Poetry Group, is gathered the work of twenty Australian poets. The categories included are haiku, tanka, haiku and tanka sequences, Renku, haibun, tanka prose and haiga. The book is a beautifully produced collection, lavishly illustrated by haiga, photos and black and white drawings. Here, I’ve discovered familiar names, and new favourites among the poets represented.

Continue reading “Review of Haiku Bindii Journeys by Patricia Prime”

Red Dragonflies’ Autumn Meeting

The six members of the Red Dragonflies haiku group met at Dawn Bruce’s home on Saturday 25th February in glorious sunshine for our first meeting of the year.

We workshopped and shared haiku about global warming and the unseasonal weather which has settled over Sydney for the past few months. We also did an exercise using the colour blue, which resulted in some surprising and exceptional haiku. There was the usual laughter and happy companionship and it was really brought home to us just how subjective our responses to haiku can be, as group members’ opinions about several of the haiku presented varied greatly.

Vanessa Proctor

Report on Cloudcatchers’ Summer Ginko No 24

Ginko No.24 (summer)

Shaw’s Bay, Ballina, NSW
Thursday 9 February 2012

Never be afraid of a wet ginko. When poets gather to experience together the nuances of their environment, images are heightened by the extremes that the elements may present. The Cloudcatchers held their summer ginko at Shaw’s Bay, and at the Skate Park, Ballina, on Thursday 9 February. It rained all day.

Some walked along the beach, wet and laughing; some had umbrellas blow inside out; some had problems with ink on wet paper as they took notes. Some hunkered down in the shelter shed which they shared from time to time with a variety of silent disheveled birds, and small black ants also on a quest for a dry spot.

This is the summer weather of where we live, and we were in it. The smell of the rain, the sound of the rain, the way it joined the puddles, the wide open bay receiving it all. Images were captured in words, and woven into haiku around a large table at the Shaw’s Bay Hotel, where we stayed on for lunch together.

Any poet wishing to join our autumn ginko is welcome to contact Quendryth Young, at: quendrythyoung@bigpond.com

Quendryth Young
Cloudcatchers Coordinator