A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Winter 2025

alpine camp

meteors falling

into our mouths

Modern Haiku, Volume 55.1, 2024

 

New Zealand Poetry Society, Online Feature, February 2025

Grateful to have had an online feature (social media) on February 28, 2025. My thanks to Kim Martins for the honour!

meadowlarks

the grace notes that follow

me home

Blithe Spirit, Number 26.2

weathered oars

we fold our worries

into the river

Acorn, Number 42

 

New Zealand Poetry Society, Member Monday Online Feature, January 25

Honoured to be the featured poet for the New Zealand Poetry Society's online (social media) Member Monday feature on January 13, 2025. My thanks to Kim Martins for the invitation!

Debbie lives in Manitoba, Canada. She has made her home in rural and urban communities in each of the four western Canadian provinces, from the prairies to the ocean. Poetry of place features in much of her haiku and tanka. Debbie’s daily creative practice is a form of meditation and healing, helping to mitigate the effects of chronic illness, and connecting her more closely to the world, to others, and to herself.

Debbie’s third-floor writing room looks out onto a gorgeous row of lindens, fragrant in summer, and frosted in winter. Their branches are often filled with chickadees and finches, punctuating the days with song.

Debbie loves:

.   playing guitar, singing, songwriting

.   wind & waves, fog & frost, sunsets & aurora

.   camping, birdwatching, gardening

.   making haiga using watercolours, inks, acrylics

.   collage, paper crafts, miniatures

.   visiting with her sisters

.   Scrabble with her husband

Debbie’s camera is her constant companion. She has been making photographs for decades, whilst exploring the wilds with her husband and their dogs in a 1978 lime-green VW campervan named “Ludwig”. Her photography exhibition, “The Poetry of Light”, explores the subtle and flamboyant nuances of light, reflection, and refraction. Now that Debbie’s vision is compromised, she often uses intentional camera movement and diffusion techniques to create dreamlike images.

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Debbie invited 50 emerging and established short-form poets to collaborate on an online haiga project for healing. She enjoys creating haiga galleries and films for The Haiku Foundation, and recently contributed an essay discussing colour and the ways in which it impacts her work.

Debbie’s full-length haiku collection, “Random Blue Sparks”, winner of the 2020 Snapshot Press Book Award, has just been released:

dead orchard

the random blue sparks

of woolly aphids

3rd Place, Irish Haiku Society Int’l Contest, 2018

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Autumn 2025

the arabesque

of cherry branches . . .

frayed toe shoes

Honourable Mention, 2024 Solitary Daisy Haiku Contest

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Summer 2025

Honoured to know that outgoing editor, Gail Ingram, has included the following poem in her Editor's Favourites 2021-2025 feature:

frozen trough

I cup the warm breath

of my horse

1st Place, 2018 Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Spring 2024

star-nosed mole

we search for light

in dark places

Shortlisted for Best-of-Issue Award, Presence, Number 65, 2019

rocky ledge

a wolf with the moon

in its mouth

3rd Place, 2015 Irish Haiku Society International Competition

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Winter 2024

pressed flowers

the meadow I will give you

this winter

Akitsu Quarterly, Summer 2021

farm chores

this frost-fringed hole

in my mitten

Geppo XLVIII:1, February 2023

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Autumn 2024

busker's hat

a child offers coins

of dried lunaria

1st Place

2022 Bloodroot Haiku Award

foreclosure

a barn spider ties up

loose ends of light

Shortlisted for Presence #75 Best-of-Issue Award

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Spring 2023

earth day

the shimmering wave

of a bee colony

2nd Place

2020 World Haiku Save Our World Competition

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Winter 2023

frozen trough

I cup the warm breath

of my horse

1st Place

Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest 2018

prairie blizzard

squirrels take the shape

of their tails

Zatsuei Haiku of Merit, World Haiku Review 2021-2022

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Autumn 2023

forgotten grave

only the small bones

of leaves remain

Commended

2020 Polish International Haiku Competition

dandelion seeds

I smooth mother's hair

across the pillow

Selected

2018 Yamadera Basho Haiku Contest

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Summer 2023

fireflies the synchronicity of it all

1st Place

2021 Irish Haiku Society International Competition

stepping stones

a damselfly invites us

to change course

The Heron's Nest 22.4, 2020

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Winter 2022

northern lights

the blur of scarves

as skaters pass

Zatsuei Haiku of Merit

2019 R.H. Blyth Award

longer days . . .

I knight my sister

with an icicle

5th Honourable Mention

2018 Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Competition

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Autumn 2022

the stillness

of a dragonfly's wings . . .

first frost

Judge's Choice

2016 Craigleigh Press Haiku Contest

cormorants

we open our arms

to the sun

3rd Place

2018 Jane Reichhold International Haiku Prize

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Summer 2022

peace talks

the hiss of magma

hitting water

the swans

we hoped we'd become . . .

crook-necked gourds

beach closure

sand skips over

the dunes

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Spring 2021

rewilding

we move a box turtle

off the freeway

the last seeds

from father's garden . . .

snowbound

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Winter 2021

muddy banks

the brilliant plumage

of wood ducks

intersection

brisk winds usher me

across

A fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Autumn 2021

the sway

of a hanging bridge

cloud forest

 

A Fine Line: The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, Summer 2020/2021

flying squirrel for an instant moonless

ammonites

the differing whorls

of our fingerprints