nothing in the window: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku has just been released by Red Moon Press. I am honored to have a haiku selected to appear in this volume.
hospice ward
the click of the door
behind me
This haiku also won 1st place in the HaikuNow! 2012 Contest (Contemporary Haiku Category), sponsored by The Haiku Foundation.
April 17 has been designated National Haiku Poetry Day by The Haiku Foundation. This event was commemorated in cities across the U.S. with haiku readings. I had hoped to host an event here in Portland, but as that did not come to pass this year, I instead hosted a virtual event right here on this blog. Thanks to all who participated!
sunbreaks
the lawn dotted
with dandelions
spring madness
the sound of doves
and then a crow
(Shiki Monthly Kukai, March 2012)
stiff breeze
white petals fly
against traffic
James Rodriguez
late winter
the ache in my bones
as I lay them down
Kat Creighton
(World Haiku Review, Spring 2012)
cherry blossoms
the tea leaves in my cup
gather into an ocean
(NaHaiWriMo, 26/03/12)
time with old friends
poems in a journal
from years ago
waters of spring
everywhere the smell of mud
and worms
(Sketchbook — “waters of spring’ kukai — feb 2012)
wearing white
at the moon party –
moonflower
(Dottie Dot award, February 2012)
hope is evident
in fronds reaching, grasping
light of a veiled sun
I have discarded
the long-held belief that waves
crash one at a time
spring breeze…
the jester’s cap
and bells
(Magnapoets 8, July 2011)
the breathless space between
spring sun
spring snow
hard rain…
the weightlessness
of petals
Pamela A. Babusci
tree buds my students ask me why I write
floating on water
the scent of magnolia
summer breeze
(ITO EN North America New Haiku Grand Prix
Semifinalist for the month of August 2011
Shukan New York Seikatsu newspaper)
cherry blossoms…
the bride-to-be offers
a sun-kissed cheek
(DailyHaiku Cycle 12, October 30, 2011)
spring cleaning
the daffodils have gone
leaving their skins
Merrill Gonzales
I am tremendously honored to have received First Prize in The Haiku Foundation‘s HaikuNow! Contest, in the Contemporary Division. You can read the haiku here (scroll down), along with Jim Kacian’s insightful comments on it.
Here’s the back story for the haiku:
Every day for two weeks, the last of my precious mother’s life, I visited my parents (both hospice patients at that point), in a skilled nursing facility in California. The heavy door clicked me in each morning, and out each evening. For the duration of that time, there was no other world for me but the one I was slowly losing. My mother died on February 1, 2008, and my father but a brief time later in Portland, on April 28th of the same year.
April 17 has been designated National Haiku Poetry Day, by The Haiku Foundation. This event will be commemorated in cities across the U.S. with haiku readings. I had hoped to host an event here in Portland, but as that did not come to pass this year, I decided instead to host a virtual event right here on this blog. To participate, all you need to do is leave a haiku in the comments section of this post. At the end of the day, I will put all haiku received into a new post.
The haiku may be new or previously written. If published, please list the credits. I’m looking forward to seeing lots of haiku!
Happy National Haiku Poetry Day!
Mine:
sunbreaks
the lawn dotted
with dandelions
It is always a red letter day to receive news that one of my poems has been accepted for publication. I currently have haiku, senryu, short form poetry, tanka, haibun, and rengay that was selected to appear in upcoming issues of the following publications:
The Haiku Foundation says that to request a listing in their Haiku Registry, you only need to be a poet who has “”published English-language haiku in an edited journal, either in print or online.” My first haiku publication (if you don’t count my early 5-7-5 attempts, and I don’t!) was in 2010, when a sequence of three Mother’s Day haiku I wrote appeared in a special section of the March/ April Sketchbook, followed later that year by my first non-kukai contest placement in World Haiku Review (August 2010), and publication in my first print journal in Riverwind 30 (October 2010).
But that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted to feel like I “earned” my listing, and consequently set a personal goal for myself. To make sure it wasn’t just beginner’s luck, I decided that I would wait to apply to be listed until I was published twice in each of three of my favorite journals: Frogpond, The Heron’s Nest, and Notes from the Gean, and also placed well in at least two international contests.
“starting over” appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of Frogpond, and two haibun will appear in the Fall 2011 Frogpond; “muted sunlight” appeared in the June 2011 issue of The Heron’s Nest and “fine mist” in their September 2011 issue; “daydreaming” and “flickering stars” both appeared in the June issue of Notes from the Gean; I received a Sakura award in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational in September of this year for “honor guard”, and in the same month, took third place in the International “Kusamakura” Haiku Competition for “morning mist”. My quest completed, and with twelve haiku contest or journal submissions currently pending, I finally felt ready to apply for my listing.
Prose Posies 