Bowerbird Tanka Workshop #4

held at ‘Wirraminna’ Pearl Beach, NSW

February 27th 2010

Nineteen Bowerbirds, including three presenters, gathered at Beverley George’s tranquil home, hoping to take away with them some inspiration and technical tips for writing better tanka.
Not a single bird returned home disappointed.

Amelia Fielden spoke about the tricky question of punctuation, sharing her views and style. She also included a valuable exercise which involved punctuating a number of tanka to improve them.

Kathy Kituai’s presentation, ‘Write Below the Surface’ prompted a lively discussion on a tanka written by Izumi Shikibu and an excellent exercise on listening to our own and other peoples’ poems.

Haiku with an Australian Flavour in Famous Reporter

Famous Reporter #34

The December issue of Famous Reporter is replete with wonderful haiku from some of Australia’s leading haiku poets. It contains 65 haiku over 11 pages, with a significant contribution from northern NSW haijin. In addition to this you will find John Bird’s prize-winning haiku sequence, ‘The Fence Rider, 1950 Australia’. This outstanding poem is in six parts, each part a sequence of seven haiku.

If you want to read haiku with a distinctive Australian flavour, Famous Reporter #34 is essential reading. $8 posted (within Australia) from Walleah Press, PO Box 368, North Hobart, TAS 7002 – or $15 for a subscription.

Submissions for issue #35 close end of April

Immense beauty in brevity

Here are some quotes from Christopher Bantick’s review of Spinifex: haiku by Beverley George in The Sunday Tasmanian(18/2/07):

‘it celebrates the strength and diversity of haiku as a poetry form’

‘The poems rest on the page like perfectly cut templates of experience’

‘Apart from the poems that will make readers stop and regard the world perhaps a little more thoughtfully, the design of the book also deserves comment. Besides the convenient size that’s ideal for handbags and pockets, the poems are not cluttered on the page…Reeves has presented the poems with a filigree of grass on the pages. This adds to the delicate feel of the book. The result is an excellent gallery of words and shape.’

‘hard to imagine a better example of the form’

‘a book of quiet contemplation and stolen moments of peace winnowed from busyness’

February 26, 2007

Book launch – haibun by Julie Beveridge

Small Change Press  is proud to announce the launch of their first title for 2007, Home is where the Heartache is, a collection of haibun, by Julie Beveridge.

“Compressed energy and an unswerving courage to tell the truth about bad things gives these haibun a sharp edge – a kind of grim elegance. Journeying with Beveridge is not always comfortable but it is always compelling.”
Beverley George
President, Australian Haiku Society

Date: Friday 30 March
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Queensland Writers Centre
Level 2, 109 Edward St, Brisbane
Tickets: $15.00 (including a signed copy of the book and glass of wine)
Bookings Essential: To book call QWC on (07) 3839 1243 or buy online at http://www.qwc.asn.au.

Another haiku opportunity

Poam, the newsletter of the Melbourne Poets’ Union, includes a haiku page in each bi-monthly issue. Poets receive payment of $3 per haiku and there is a book prize for one haiku, chosen by the newsletter editor each time.

You need to be a member of the Melbourne Poets Union to submit haiku – but it’s worth joining anyway, especially for Victorian poets.

Send your submission to the haiku editor, Peter Macrow

Peter is the managing editor of Blue Giraffe poetry magazine. He also is poetry editor for the ezine, The Tasmanian Times.

Empty Garden

empty garden by Beverley George – reviews

There are now eight reviews of empty garden : Beverley George’s tanka collection, listed on www.eucalypt.info under empty garden. Four of these reviews may be accessed online. The two most recent reviews are by South African tanka poet, Maria Steyn, In Ribbons the journal of the Tanka Society of America and by Japanese poet, Aya Yuhki, in The Tanka Journal {Japan].

January 2007

 

Oil Slick Sun: haiku

Oil Slick Sun: haiku
by Peter Macrow

ISBN 0 9578436 7 4
published by Pardalote Press
125 x 180 mm, 64pp, colour cover, paperback, perfect bound
Price: $AU 18.50

Peter’s poems have a soft resonance of resignation, a quiet recognition of the beauty of things past, and pointing to the aesthetics of death in a secularly spiritual way, which perhaps the ancient masters could only do through a Buddhist veil. Maria Flutsch, University of Tasmania
–
oil slick sun is a fascinating text, not afraid of “difficulty” but not seeming to indulge in it for its own sake. A fluid sense of time, place, individual and family generates complexes of meaning and feeling with which most readers will be able to empathise. Macrow’s use of a briefer line in his haiku than the traditional 5/7/5 syllable form, his ability to use the structure in a very accomplished and thorough way and to challenge and subvert orthodox beliefs about the process and purpose of haiku, makes for thought-provoking reading. Patricia Prime, Stylus

Posted by at 02:43 PM |

JANUARY 10, 2007

Jodie Hawthorne’s haiku collection

Watching pilgrims watching me: haiku from Shangri-la Deqen Tibetan Region
by Jodie Hawthorne
ISBN 0 9578436 8 2
published by Pardalote Press
125 x 180 mm, 64pp, colour cover, paperback, perfect bound
Price: $AU 18.50

‘a book of gentle grace’ – Christopher Bantick, The Sunday Tasmanian

Deqen’s landscape evokes a sense of calm and healing that provides a perfect environment for artistic expression. These qualities, combined with the constant challenges, paradoxes and inconsistencies, brought into being the haiku moments of this collection.

today
just mountains
and people who love them