June 2012
Haiku Editors: Rose van Son, Gary De Piazzi, Amanda Joy and Meryl Manoy
Working Publications Manager: Gary De Piazzi
Webmaster: Aleesha Lowry
Contributors:
Invited haikuists:
Biographies of Invited Haikuists
along the shallows
giant stingray trawls –
underwater bird
Jennifer Langley-Kemp
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in the shade
grandpa is sipping green tea
grafting fruit trees
an old chant
from the music box . . .
aroma of lilac
Tatjana Debeljački
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wind change-
his back against hers
plateau
learning French in the outback
Rose van Son
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butterfly lifts off
wings drum the air
petal rebounds
Chris Irving
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lawn mowing
willie wagtails
follow
Mr Whippy
greensleeves
pink ice cream
Meryl Manoy
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woven tight twigs
clutch fledglings
people and gulls
pound of surf
louder and louder
faces
in the crowd
a friend
childhood –
burdens fade away
a mother’s smile
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
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leaves sprout
from a blackened stump
charity bin overflows
small child
absorbed in teaspoons
stirring a new movement
Sally Clarke
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schoolchildren run home
caged lorikeet cries out
oranges ripen
half hidden among leaves
—the setting sun
in the garden
bound and strung in a row
—spiders lunch
Coral Carter
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rockman camp
on the banks of the de Grey
agate and quartz
Arnold van Son
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February 15
two cigarette butts
floating in a bottle of wine
Jim Davis Jnr
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The following haiku are by special invitation from renowned national and international haikuists
sweeping
the caterpillar ripples
off the path
mango tree
flying foxes tear into
the chinese lantern
autumn rain
lowering
the mountain
____ (previously published on Another Lost Shark)
Graham Nunn
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wisps of mist
wander the plain . . .
poems of old
face to face
your tears and mine
mingling
ore carriers
queuing at Dampier
the schoolies find work
Greg Piko
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After a storm—
even the waterlily
going under
The garden bamboo …
I am distracted by thoughts
of Japanese flutes
Café verandah—
a housefly kamikazes
my cappuccino
Andrew Lansdown
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mosquito
a stranger’s blood
on my hand
____ First published; Wollumbin Haiku Workshop NSW 2007
fireside
a piece of jigsaw
falls into place
____ First published; The Heron’s Nest 2007
sun through the ears
of a marmalade cat
raked leaves
____ First published: Presence UK #43 January 2011
Quendryth Young
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turtle dove
coo-coos
in the satellite dish
snail trail
dot-to-dot
on the drive
clothesline by
the lime tree petals
in her knickers
Andrew Burke
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black cockatoos
the distant rumble
of Harleys
____ previously published in Heron’s Nest June 2007, Haiku Dreaming Australia 2007, #9 ____ Creatrix Poetry Journal
rejection letter
the willy-wagtail
flicks its tail
____ previously published in Famous Reporter 2007, Haiku Dreaming Australia 2008
evening star
an apple falls
to the earth
deserted homestead
in the littered yard
a snake skin
Maureen Sexton
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afternoon –
the two chickens don’t like
being weighed alive
in the park
he lets them
mow around him
the horizon – my eyes closing
Matt Hetherington
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____ restless sky
I gather spotted leaves
____ for the altar
the frayed quilt
____ unfolding
for my sister’s visit
____ spring moon
moss climbs the dark side
____ of the garden wall
____________originally published in Northwest Haiku Gardens, Kanshiketsu Press, ____________June 2011(Port Townsend, WA). A chapbook commemorating a
____________joint meeting of regional haiku groups in the Pacific Northwest
Margaret D. McGee
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closing day
vine tomatoes
warm my hands
____ 2nd prize Kaji Aso Studio’s International Haiku Contest 2011
tsunami dreams –
grass pillows for the homeless
on Basho’s Narrow Road
____ 2nd Prize Foreign Language Category 16th Kusamakura International
____ Haiku Competition 2011, Kumamoto, Japan
train tunnel –
the sudden intimacy
of mirrored faces
____ Voted best of issue by readers Presence #22 2004 [UK]; published in the
____ collection Spinifex by Pardalote Press, 2006
sultry night –
the smell of jasmine
and old oranges
____ Highly Commended Presence Awards 2003; published in her collection
____Spinifex by Pardalote Press, 2006)
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the bent nail
where garlic hung…
winter moon
____ The Heron’s Nest, Volume X, Number 4: December, 2008; ‘what light there is’
____ – featured collection, Three Lights Gallery, 2009; ‘Montage-The Book’ (anthology)
____Red Moon Press2010; Haiku 21 (anthology) Modern Haiku Press 2011
on a bare twig rain beads what light there is
____Shamrock Haiku Journal #3, September 2007; ‘a wattle seedpod’, Post Pressed, ____2008; ‘what light there is’- featured collection, Three Lights Gallery, 2009; Winner, ____The Haiku Calendar Competition 2011; Snapshot Press calendar 2012
distant thunder
the future
in my bones
____First Prize, Contemporary Category HaikuNow! 2010 Contest; ‘Haiku 21’ (anthology) ____Modern Haiku Press 2011
Lorin Ford
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an old woman’s
first flying lesson…
lapis lazuli sky
the mouldering
of old newspapers
autumn light
____ Published Modern Haiku Autumn 2011
touches of sky
all the way up tower hill
bluebell season
____ Published Kokako Issue 16
Dawn Bruce
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rose petals
she begins to lose
her hair
a baby throws
her arms into the air
cloudburst
open mind
but my nose
is blocked
Myron Lysenko
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white goshawk, wings
hovering on sunlight and air:
a boy’s trigger finger.
Robert Adamson
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Biographies of invited haikuists
Graham Nunn is a founding member of Brisbane’s longest running poetry event, SpeedPoets. He blogs at Another Lost Shark: www.anotherlostshark.com and has published five collections of poetry, his most recent, Ocean Hearted, published by Another Lost Shark Publications in July 2010. In the same year, his debut CD, recorded in collaboration with Sheish Money, The Stillest Hour was shortlisted for the Overload Poetry Festival’s Aural Text Award. In 2011, Nunn was the recipient of The Johnno Award for outstanding contribution to QLD Writers and Writing.
Greg Piko lives in Yass, New South Wales, and is Secretary of the Australian Haiku Society (www.haikuoz.org). Greg’s writing has appeared in journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. Greg received a 2010 Touchstone Award from The Haiku Foundation, won first prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society’s 2011 international haiku competition and was a featured haiku poet in A New Resonance 7 (Red Moon Press, USA, 2011)
Andrew Lansdown is a widely published, award-winning writer who has published 3 novels, 2 short story collections, 2 children’s poetry collections and 10 poetry collections. His haiku and tanka have been published in various mainstream magazines and newspapers, including The Weekend Australian, The Canberra Times, Meanjin, Quadrant, Island and Westerly. Andrew’s latest poetry collection, The Colour of Life (in Two Poets, with Kevin Gillam) was published by Fremantle Press in 2011. His website is: andrewlansdown.com
Quendryth Young is a retired cytologist, who coordinates a group of haiku enthusiasts, the Cloudcatchers, on the Far North Coast of NSW. Quendryth’s haiku have been published in ten countries and in five languages.
Andrew Burke is an Australian poet who has lived most of his life in Perth. After his birth in Melbourne in 1944, Burke’s family moved west to expand the family business. In his teens, Burke read Kerouac and Ginsberg and other ‘Beat’ writers, and they gained his interest more than the literature he was studying at school. He aped their style in all he wrote, and published his first short story at 18. He has written on a daily basis ever since—stories, plays, poems, and—to feed family—advertising material and videos, teledocumentaries, annual reports and press releases. From 1990, Burke taught creative writing and literature at universities, TAFE colleges and writing centres. In 2006/07, he and his wife Jeanette travelled to China where they taught at Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, and, on their return, they taught indigenous children at Wanalirri Catholic School in The Kimberley area of North West Australia. He now dedicates life fulltime to writing, including a blog at http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Maureen Sexton has had haiku, haiga, poems, short stories and articles published widely, nationally and some internationally, in journals, magazines and online. Her haiku have been published in Heron’s Nest, Paper Wasp, Famous Reporter, Free XpreSsion, Stylus Poetry Journal, Haiku Dreaming Australia, Creatrix Poetry Journal and the Third Australian Haiku Anthology. She completed a haiku writing mentorship with John Bird in 2007. She now facilitates the Mari Warabiny Haiku Group in WA and on Facebook, and runs haiku workshops and gingko regularly. She is the WA Representative for HaikuOz, The Australian Haiku Society.
Matt Hetherington. As a poet, I have published two collections, “Surface” (PRECIOUS PRESS, 2004), and “I Think We Have” (Small Change Press, 2007) http://www.smallchangepress.com.au/ I have had over 150 poems and 100 haiku/senryu published online, in journals, magazines, and anthologies throughout Australia, the UK, and America, including: First and Second Australian Haiku Anthology, The Best Australian Poems 2004 (Black Inc. ed. Les Murray), The Best Australian Poetry 2007 (UQP, ed. John Tranter), The Best Australian Poems 2009 (Black Inc. ed. Robert Adamson), The Best Australian Poems 2010 (Black Inc. ed. Robert Adamson), Blue Dog, Divan, Famous Reporter, foam:e, fourW, Fraglit, Going Down Swinging, Mascara Literary Review, Masthead, New England Review, Otoliths, Paper Wasp, The Perfect Diary, Quadrant, Said the Rat!, Salt-lick Quaterly,Thylazine, Tiny Epics. ‘Spoken Word’ pieces appear on the compilation CD’s Going Down Swinging 2000, spoken in one strange word, and Poetry for Peace, and have been broadcast on television (Channel 31), and on radio shows ‘Aural Text’ (3RRR), ‘The Sunday Show’ (ABC 774 AM) and ‘Artery’ (JJJ). I’ve also translated works from Persian (with Ali Alizadeh), Spanish, French, and Turkish (the poetry of Hidayet Ceylan in ‘bulayt bulayt: poetry in four languages’, World Poetry, 2006, and my own poetry and haiku have been translated into Arabic, Russian, German, and Dutch.
Margaret D. McGee is author of Haiku – “The Sacred Art and Sacred Attention: A Spiritual Practice for Finding God in the Moment,” published by SkyLight Paths. In the journal Modern Haiku, Dr. Randy M. Brooks describes Haiku – The Sacred Art as “a clear ‘how-to’ guide to getting started with writing haiku, and especially with approaching it as a contemplative, meditative art for self-discovery and spiritual enrichment.” Margaret’s haiku and other writings have appeared in such publications as The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, bottle rockets, bear creek haiku, Alive Now, Episcopal Life, and the Englewood Review of Books. Her plays have been selected for performance at the Port Townsend Playwright’s Festival and at Love Creek Production’s Short Play Festival in New York City. As a writer, speaker, and teacher, Margaret works with various practices of attention and mindfulness that help her and others feel better grounded and connected in life. She shares her further adventures in this quest on her web site, In the Courtyard at www.inthecourtyard.com.
Beverley George is the past editor of Yellow Moon, and the founder/editor of Eucalypt:a tanka journal . Beverley was president of the Australian Haiku Society 2006-10; and presented papers at the 3rd Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, Matsuyama, Japan 2007 and at the 6th International Tanka Festival, Tokyo 2009. In September 2009 she convened the 4th Haiku Pacific Rim Conference at Terrigal Japan for 57 full-time delegates from 7 countries. Her international first prizes for haiku include the Third Ashiya International Festa [Japan] 2004; the British Haiku Society JW Hackett Award 2003 and the Genkissu! World Wide Hekinan Haiku Contest [Japan] 2009.
Lorin Ford. Lorin’s haiku have been widely published in Australian and overseas journals and anthologies including the Red Moon Anthologies 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, Montage: The Book, A New Resonance #7 and Haiku 21. Her credits include first prize in the 6th and 7th paper wasp Jack Stamm awards, first prize in the Shiki Salon Annual Haiku Awards 2005, Winner and runner-ups – The Haiku Calendar Competition 2010 and 2011 and first prize – contemporary category, THF’s ‘Haiku Now! 2010 Contest’. Her haiku collection, a wattle seedpod, was the first book by an Australian author to be awarded first place in the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards (2009) She has two short online collections, what light there is (3Lights Gallery 2009) and ‘a few quick brushstrokes’, winner, Snapshot Press e-chapbook contest 2011. She has served on the judging panel for the THF Touchstone Book Awards 2010 and 2011. Lorin is currently haiku editor for the international online journal, ‘A Hundred Gourds’
Dawn Bruce is an Australian poet, who has been published in many countries. She leads creative writing classes, has three poetry collections, ‘Stinging the Silence’, ‘Tangible Shadows’ and ‘Sketching Light’ published by Ginninderra Press, one of the editorial team for ‘raking stones’ an anthology of Japanese genres, convenor of Ozku haiku group, member of Red Dragonflies haiku group and member of Bowerbirds tanka group. Dawn was vice-president of the Australian Haiku Society 2004-2012.
Myron Lysenko is the Victorian Regional Officer for HaikuOz. His latest collection is titled a rosebush grabs my sleeve and is a book of haiku.
Robert Adamson has published over 20 books of poetry including the triple prize-winning 1990 collection, The Clean Dark. His autobiography, Inside Out, was published in 2004. He was awarded the Christopher Brennan Award for a lifetime’s achievement. The Goldfinches of Baghdad was the Age Poetry Book of The Year in 2007. The Golden Bird won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2009. In 2011 he was awarded the Patrick White Award and the Blake Prize for Poetry. His latest book of poetry, The Kingfisher’s Soul, was published by Bloodaxe Books UK.