Contemporary Haibun, Volume 20, Red Moon Press, 2025

Honoured to have this haiga chosen by Ron Moss for Contemporary Haibun!

(note: this haiga received 2nd Place in the 2024 Jane Reichhold Memorial Haiga Competition)

 

Telling the Bees: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2024

scrub jay

nothing left of the blue

in dad's jeans

2nd Place

Betty Drevniok Award, 2024

 

#FemkuMag - Award Nominations 2024

Thrilled to have the following poems nominated by the editors!

Nominated for the 2024 Touchstone Award:

ill winds of autumn i'm still spitting up leaves

#FemkuMag, Issue 35, Spring 2024

stunted lilac

the baby's grave

rooted to earth

#FemkuMag, Issue 36, Summer 2024

Nominated for the 2024 Red Moon Anthology:

bleached whale ribs the|bars|on|this|window|of|disability

#FemkuMag, Issue 37, Autumn/Winter 2024

Contemporary Haibun, Volume 19, Red Moon Press, 2024

Honoured to have this haiga chosen by Ron Moss for Contemporary Haibun!

#FemkuMag: haikai poetry by womxn and non-binary folx - Award Nominations 2022

Thrilled to have the following two poems nominated by the editor!

Nominated for the 2022 Touchstone Award:

lunulae

a friend tells me

about her stillborn

#FemkuMag, Issue 34, November 2022

Nominated for the 2022 Red Moon Anthology:

wishbones

a dumpster-diver

goes under

#FemkuMag, Issue 32, January 2022

Skipping Stones: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2022

estuary light

the treble clefs

of flamingos

2nd Place

Third Maya Lyubenova International Haiku Contest, 2022

Contemporary Haibun, Volume 18, Red Moon Press, 2023

Honoured to have this haiga chosen by Ron Moss for Contemporary Haibun!

 

Contemporary Haibun, Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022

Honoured to have this haiga chosen by Ron Moss for Contemporary Haibun!

 

String Theory: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2021

 Fata Morgana the (in)visibility of my (dis)ability

2nd Place

2021 Marlene Mountain Contest

#FemkuMag: haikai poetry by womxn and non-binary folx - Red Moon Anthology Nomination, 2021

My thanks to the editor for nominating the following work for the Red Moon Anthology:

Fata Morgana the (in)visibility of my (dis)ability

2nd Place

2021 Marlene Mountain Memorial Haiku Contest

 

A New Resonance 12: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Red Moon Press, 2021

Honoured to be one of 17 poets chosen for this anthology. My thanks to editors Jim Kacian and Julie Warther for selecting the following poems, and for their lovely commentary:

Strange's keen pictorial sense is on display throughout these poems, and it comes as no surprise to learn that she is a painter and photographer—these poems brim with tableaux. It is a simple matter for her to have us visualize a field of lupine leading on to a mirroring sky, a pika daubed gold, and the dim illumination of swans on a night pond. But she is also a storyteller—there are volumes suppressed behind a father's plough, an unknown sibling, an extended stretch of knitted silence. In a sense, then, we can reckon her haiku to be extremely condensed haibun, with the prose to be provided by the reader, and the haiku, as is most common (and just as she tells her stories) beginning at the end. Add to this her felicity with images and we recognize her to be a multimedia artist in the long tradition of haiku poets, like Buson, for whom all the arts were in play. 

fields of lupine

where does the sky

begin

deserted farm

the random acts

of hollyhocks

porch swing

songs where we least

expect them

rusty sun

father's plough returns

to the earth

unmarked grave . . .

a thousand red maples

offer their leaves

the sister

I didn't know I had . . .

rhizomes

pine forest . . .

the advice I'd give

my younger self

moonless . . .

a dark lake lit

with swans

marsh reeds

we learn the secret

language of wind

owling . . .

we wait for the other side

of silence

city sirens

the wolves that used to

sing us home

on the taiga a glimpse of something bigger

alpenglow

a pika gathers stems

of light

firelight knitting another length of silence

river stories

we always begin

at the end

Publication Credits:

Stardust Haku 22

The Heron's Nest XXI:3

Modern Haiku 48.3

The Cicada's Cry (2020)

THF Haiku Dialogue Week 19 (2019)

The Heron's Nest XXII:2

Soka Matsubara International Haiku Competition

The Heron's Nest XIX:2

Akitsu Quarterly Fall (2019)

Modern Haiku 50.3

Shamrock Haiku Journal 42

Presence 58

Iris International Haiku Magazine 5

Wales Haiku Journal Haiga Gallery (2018)

Under the Basho (2017)

"porch swing" appeared in Prairie Interludes, the Snapshot Press eChapbook Awards winner (2020), which was also shortlisted for The Haiku Foundation Distinguished Books Award (2020); "pine forest" received an Honorable Mention in the Soka Matsubara International Haiku Competition (2020); "city sirens" was the runner-up senryu for the Shamrock Haiku Journal Readers' Choice Awards (2019); "alpenglow" received a commendation in A Little Haiku Contest by the Croatian haiku magazine Iris (2018).

Contemporary Haibun, Volume 16, Red Moon Press, 2021

Honoured to have this haiga chosen by Ron Moss for Contemporary Haibun!

(note: this haiku received a Judge's Choice Award in the 2016 Craigleigh Press Poetry Contest)

The Wanderer Brush by Ion Codrescu, Red Moon Press, 2020

Honoured to have work chosen for The Wanderer Brush - The Art of Haiga:

Haiku from 79 International Poets

Selected, Edited and Illustrated by Ion Codrescu

This lovely book contains the biographies of included poets, as well as a favourite haiku chosen by each poet, and corresponding commentary.

homecoming . . .

a bouquet of sky

in an old jar

1st Place, 2017 Australian Haiku Society Spring Haiga Kukai

transience . . .

petal by petal

we let go

Winning Haiku, 2017 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational

fog deepens

the sound of rabbits

nibbling night

Grand Prize

2016 World Haiku Competition

A thousand thanks to Ion for this evocative haiga!

I was surprised and grateful to have fellow Canadian poet, Michael Dudley, choose the following haiku as a favourite, and I thank him for his generous and sensitive reading of my work:

atlas moth

the places I thought

we'd go

Honourable Mention

2017 Jane Reichhold International Prize

"In the particular is contained the universal." James Joyce

Within this precise, concise, deftly expressed haiku by Debbie Strange, a quiet voice of recognition and resignation conveys a gracious though bewildered acceptance of time passed and opportunities lost. The exact possible life destinations/discoveries/experiences that the persona and another/others have not shared; judiciously, the poem does not explain the reason/s for such unfulfillment. Thus, each reader may enter the details of the poem personally, inspired by the words to revisit and contemplate similar circumstances from his/her own life. The particulars included within the poem and the details left out seamlessly evoke a universal theme.

—Michael Dudley

I chose the following haiku by an'ya as a favourite:

birth death

this stretch of beach

between

Daily Haiga, December 2009

I'm a lifelong beach rambler, so this melancholic haiku resonates with me on many levels, and can be interpreted both literally and metaphorically. I've always been intrigued by what the tides leave behind (birth), and what they take away (death). The physical space between the words "birth" and "death" reminds me of the dash often etched between dates on a tombstone. The word "beach" is a perfect metaphor for "life", and with only seven words, this gifted poet invites me to take a reflective walk through my past into my future.

—Debbie Strange

Tanka 2020: Poems from Today's World, Red Moon Press 2020

My thanks to editor-in-chief Alexia Rotella for choosing the following tanka:


taking a knee . . .
the black hollyhocks
in my garden
fall victim, one by one
to another killing frost


rain doves build
a nest on our balcony
we, too
are learning the art
of sheltering in place


this curse
should be named
corvid19
the way it pecks
holes in our lungs


empty cathedral . . .
he sings for everyone
and for no one
this moment of healing
in a quarantined world

(for Andrea Bocelli)

Wind Flowers: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, 2019

limestone lake
sunlight changes the way
we look at things


Kokako, Number 30, April 2019

A Hole in the Light: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018

a wasp nest
unwinds in the wind . . .
letters from home


Presence, Number 62, November 2018

Old Song: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2017

winter wind
our laughter swallowed
whole


Presence 57, March 2017

Frogpond, Vol. 40.2, Spring/Summer 2017

A kind mention of my work in the review of Dust Devils by Randy Brooks:


lilac buds
no one notices
the bruises


Haiku Canada Review, Vol. 10, Number 1, February 2016

Dust Devils: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2016

lilac buds
no one notices
the bruises


Haiku Canada Review, Vol. 10, Number 1, February 2016