Friday, June 29, 2018

Tanka Society of America - 19th Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest, 2018

the ocean
was in a rage last night
but today,
these peace offerings
of blue mussels and kelp

1st Place

Judges' Comments:

The word, rage, has a long, storied history in literature ... it is a universal emotion and, for sure, people have long experienced the rage of the ocean. How excellent we thought was its use in line 2, rather than using a word such as storm. We admired the use of a simple comma at the end of line 3 to give the reader a short pause to allow a moment to ponder, "What's next?" Ah, there is a resolution to the last night. Today? A peace offering to which we felt an "aah" moment. How welcome is the bounty. There is an infinity of treasures found in the ocean. We found the blue mussels and kelp a delightful choice made by this poet. In our judges' report, we touched upon reciting tanka to take in its sound. You might not choose to read out loud all nine of the awarded tanka, but this one, in particular, lends itself to deeper appreciation with its pivot at the end of line 3. You might experience tranquility with lines 4 and 5. We did.


on this night
of our awareness,
the aurora
brushes an ensō
across lake and sky

Honourable Mention

Judges' Comments:

This tanka offered a wonderful visual image of sky artistry in the shape of the Zen form of the brush-stroked circle known as ensō. The circle, of course, has been a time-immemorial symbol of Life with no beginning and no end. Reading this tanka did, in fact, provide both judges a moment of awareness. The poet asks us to imagine a transition from night to the first light of dawn when anything is possible. There is magic in the transcendence gifted by this tanka.


wheat fields
tousled by fingers
of wind
I tuck a strand of hair
behind your ear

Honourable Mention

Judges' Comments:

This tanka brought out the romance of life expressed in gentle moments, and oh how gently we are brought into this scene. In this poem, love is in wind and wheat, love is expressed by tucking hair with hands. While we sat in the presence of this poem, it allowed each of us to feel this sacred moment of love, and to reflect on our symbols of affection and tenderness. For us, we ultimately fell into a moment of appreciation and quietude.


Note: There were 476 entries to the contest. I am grateful to Jessica Malone Latham and Neal Whitman for their generous commentaries.





Thursday, June 28, 2018

Skylark, Vol. 6, Number 1, Summer 2018

Honoured to have my photograph chosen for Skylark's inaugural cover contest:





Individual kyoka and tanka:


macular
degeneration
I see
more clearly now
than ever before


a mirage
of mountains beckons
us homeward
we don't know their names,
but they know ours


they have
scarcely enough
to survive
and yet, this music
under the bridge




Selected Tanka Sequence for Another Chance to See Feature


Going Back

big sky morning
ancestral homesteads
felled by wind
hollow bones whistling
a song I used to know

barrelling
down washboard roads
between fields
plumes of the past lingering
on all I left behind

at day's end
light beams splintering
across shorn fields
on this moonless night
I, too, am camouflaged


Note: Going Back was first published in Ribbons, Volume 11, Number 3, Fall 2015


The Cherita, Book 13, April 2018

Issue: "on a quiet street"


the Witch of November

unbuttons autumn's cloak
with icy fingers

a tapestry of leaves
becoming sparrows,
becoming snow

Stardust Haiku, Issue 18, June 2018

ghostwriter
a pelican spirals
upward

Tinywords, Issue 18.1, June 2018


Note:

Haiku received First Place in the 2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest


Scryptic - Magazine of Alternative Art, Issue 2.1, June 2018





Moonbathing, Issue 18, Spring/Summer 2018

wind murmurs
through prairie grasses
the bones
of my ears listen
to what is unspoken

Folded Word, June 2018

Solstice Series Selection


in the meadery,
this offering of wine
and honey . . .
all that remains after
angels receive their share

#FemkuMag: An E-zine of Women's Haiku - Issue 1, June 2018

pay equity
she swims against
the current


missing
women
the
places
they
fill
in
our
hearts

Blithe Spirit, Vol. 28, Number 2, May 2018

moon dogs
the unexpectedness
of this moment


at dawn,
a mustang stallion
leads his mares
through the badlands . . .
I, too, am unbroken


life flows by
in a murmuration
of days . . .
my shape has changed,
but I still know who I am


Note: This issue contains the results of the 2017 British Haiku Society Awards (please see April 1, 2018 blog post for commentary).


rimed fence
the cattle and wind
change direction

Honourable Mention

Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, 1:2, Spring/Summer 2018

summer snow . . .
mayflies swarm above
the river

Australian Haiku Society, 2018

Winter Solstice Haiku String, June 21, 2018


snow angels
we compare the length
of our wings


frozen bird bath
my niece teaches her doll
how to skate


chimney smoke
Dad lets the genie out
of its bottle

Asahi Haikuist Network, June 2018

a green sky
the metallic scent
of oncoming hail

Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2018

traffic jam
a different song
in each lane


onion shoots
we inhale the scent
of our labour



Thursday, June 07, 2018

Kaji Aso Studio, 30th Annual Haiku Contest 2018

circles of lichen
I thought we would have
more time

Third Place


Note:  Results of the contest were published in The Fenway News (Boston area newspaper), Volume 44, Number 6, June 2018.


Daily Haiga: An Edited Journal of Traditional and Contemporary Haiga, May 2018

Featured Artist: May 1 - 17, 2018


I often use my photographs as the inspiration for writing short form poetry, and for making art in a variety of media (watercolour, ink, digital). During the creative process, I strive to produce images that enhance and expand the scope of my small poems, either implicitly or explicitly. After the hard work of writing haiku and tanka is done, I reward myself with the joy and freedom of making haiga, my favourite form of artistic expression!













Note: poem publication credits appear in the Daily Haiga archives.




The Haiku Foundation, HaikuLife Film Festival 2018

These haiga videos are comprised of previously published poems (with recitation) to celebrate International Haiku Poetry Day, an initiative of The Haiku Foundation, held April 17, 2018.


Watercoloured Words




























Limned







a ragged curl
of birch bark fluttering
in the sun
even our smallest wounds
become limned with light


(tanka published in Red lights 11.1, 2015)



Becoming Water







listening deeply to the poetry of water i become a wave


(tanshi published in The Bamboo Hut Press, 2015)









The Haiku Foundation, Haiku Windows, May 2018

Windows prompt and selections by Kathy Munro - May 2, 2018


children's hospital
the window cleaner
dons his cape

The Haiku Foundation, re: Virals, May 2018

re: Virals 140 - May 18, 2018

The Haiku Foundation's weekly poem commentary feature on some of the finest haiku ever written in English. This week's poem was chosen by Mary Hanrahan:


cloudless sky
a pelican's pouch
full of light

Editors' Choices, The Heron's Nest 18.2 (June 2016)

The Haiku Foundation, Per Diem, April 2018

Selected by Jennifer Hambrick for the theme of "Play": April 26, 2018


porch swing
songs where we least
expect them

Modern Haiku, Volume 48.3, Autumn 2017

The Haiku Foundation, EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration, April 2018

Theme:  Year of the Bird


glassy lake
flocks of snow geese
pull up the moon

1st Place, 2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest


cormorants . . .
we open our arms
to the sun

3rd Place, 2018 Jane Reichhold International Prize


snowy field
the owls we thought
were stones

Honourable Mention, 2017 9th Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition


last campout . . .
sandhill cranes call down
the northern lights

Honourable Mention, 2017 Robert Spiess Haiku Award


the whistle
of a wood duck . . .
her last breath

Honourable Mention, 2015 Betty Drevniok Award


the curve
of an avocet's bill . . .
sickle moon

Editor's Choice, Cattails (April 2017)


cloudless sky
a pelican's pouch
full of light

Editors' Choices, The Heron's Nest 18.2 (June 2016)

Unsealing Our Secrets, 2018

A Short Poem Anthology About Sexual Abuse - Women and Men Speak out - #MeToo

Alexis Rotella: Curator/Editor

Individual Tanka


a stranger's
snake hands fondle me
at the festival . . .
not even starshine
can light this darkness


stifling summer . . .
in this house of women,
we are inhibited
by the voyeur who lurks
beyond our open windows


a car filled
with catcalling men
follows me . . .
I long to walk alone
in the sweet evening air


office party . . .
the newly fallen snow
beckons me
away from searching eyes
and tongues and hands


a man leans
against the school fence
u n z i p p e d
I look up and pretend
to see a bird



The Cherita, Book 11, February 2018

Issue: "autumn deepens"


from open hands

the petals and leaves
on which I wrote your name

fall, one by one
behind me . . .
this is the way home

A Cherita Lighthouse Award

The Cherita, Book 12, March 2018

Issue: "now I listen"


it has been so long

since we last spoke
of anything at all

my questions drift
into the ether, and even clouds
don't know the answers


a new year

we will put the past
behind us

perhaps these
winter birds have come
to save us from ourselves

Stardust Haiku, Issue 17, May 2018

summer solstice
on the badger's back
a stripe of moon

Prune Juice, Issue 24, May 2018

This "peace lily" haiga was created in memory of a beloved haiku poet, Johnny Baranski (1948-2018):







The Heron's Nest, Vol. 20, Number 2, June 2018

bulrushes
we lean into the songs
of blackbirds

Hedgerow Poems - Vines, Issue 2, May 2018




Hedgerow Poems, Number 123, Spring 2018

Print Edition


lazy day dragonfly dreaming in the hammock


Mariposa, Number 38, Spring/Summer 2018

mother poses
with my older sisters
in the field
I am there, too,
but still invisible


wild roses
cascade over the gate
to our past
holding hands, we step
backward into childhood

A Far Galaxy, Haiku Canada Members' Anthology 2018

atlas moth
the places we thought
we'd go

Honourable Mention
2017 Jane Reichhold International Prize

Haigaonline, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Spring 2018

The Tree Challenge - Spring Grove Issue




Gnarled Oak, Issue 15, April 2018




Gift of Silence: A Haiku Tribute to Leonard Cohen, 2018

glassy lake
flocks of snow geese
pull up the moon

1st Place
2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest

Eucalypt, Issue 24, May 2018

rain chains
singing in our garden
calla lilies
open their pink mouths
to cup the hymn of spring

Ephemerae, Volume 1A, April 2018

the thin edge
between night and day
wild poppies


travel hostel
we unpack a pair
of ladybirds


Passage

I kneel
upon frost-rimed grass,
a song
nestled in the church
of my cupped hands

we are kin
to birds of passage
wintering
in far-flung places,
never quite at home





Daily Haiku, Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog, May 2018

rimed fence
the cattle and wind
change direction

Honourable Mention
British Haiku Society Awards, 2017


cormorants . . .
we open our arms
to the sun

Third Place
Jane Reichhold International Prize, 2018


frozen trough
I cup the warm breath
of my horse

First Place
7th Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest, 2018

Creatrix Poetry and Haiku Journal, Number 41, June 2018

a dry spring
old stones blossom
in the field

Butterfly Dream: 66 Selected English-Chinese Bilingual Haiku, Vol. 4, 2018

Translated into Chinese by Chen-ou Liu


cloudless sky
a pelican's pouch
full of light

Editors' Choices, The Heron's Nest, 18:2, June 2016


rocky ledge
a wolf with the moon
in its mouth

Third Place, 7th International Irish Haiku Society Haiku Competition, 2015

Atlas Poetica, Number 32, May 2018

Tanka Sequences


shadows call to me

I walk
into the break of day
accompanied
by sparrowsong
and your shadow

slanted light
caresses the ruins
at eventide
shadows call to me,
but I do not answer


the dark side

a portent
of dangerous times
anvil clouds
press the setting sun
under water

rainbow flares
of nacreous clouds
we are
easily seduced
by the dark side of beauty


nothing

farm auction . . .
we have nothing
left to lose
except these thistles
rooted in our hearts

rumours echoed
through the streets
of our town
nothing to do but run
and we are running, still


the surest way

water reeds
trail from the paddles
of a bull moose
it is moments like this
that make me whole

pawprints
of spirit bears lead me
to water
following a river
is the surest way home


Individual Kyoka

ladies who lunch . . .
two white-tailed deer
daintily sample
the fresh salad bar
in my garden cafe


Individual Tanka

you who were
made of brilliance
thank you
for the theory
of everything

(for Stephen Hawking)

Asahi Haikuist Network, April 2018

anniversary . . .
the necks of two swans
shape a heart

Acorn, Number 40, Spring 2018

frosty pasture
a small boy admires
the cow pies