Ryoan-Ji: a haikai sequence by Alan Summers published in Presence haiku magazine December 2012

Ryōan-ji


these rocks
I too float among clouds
looking for something

white gravel
each day the monks
rake ripples in time

pure pebble sound
I only know what is
and that is enough

silhouettes of bamboo
at the edge of the garden
we swap stories*

our sharp mysteries
the percussion of sand
over rocks**

falling snow moon
the slowness of shadows
caught in branches


* after the classic scenes of Ryōan-ji in Yasujirō Ozu’s film Late Spring, 1949
** after John Cage

Publications credits: Presence #47 (December 2012)

Ryoan-Ji:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kyoto-Ryoan-Ji_MG_4512.jpg

Description	Ryoan Ji, Kyoto zen garden
Date	May 2007
Source	Own work
Author	Cquest

A selection of haiku by Alan Summers over the latter part of 2012

rain on the river the jesus star shifting

Janice M Bostok Haiku Prize 2012 Anthology Evening Breeze




train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes

Publications credits:
Presence #47 (December 2012)




the childing autumn
I forget heartbreak
stains to violets

Publication Credits: Notes from the Gean Haiku Monthly (December 2012)



black rainbows?
mark her clock out
in cherries

Publication Credits: Notes from the Gean Haiku Monthly (December 2012)




cloud mountain
she screams her daughter's name
into the month of march

Publication Credits: Air, British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology (2012)




Maple moon
Grandmother’s recipe
settles in the pan

Publication Credits: Asahi Shimbun (Japan, November 2012); From the Icebox (December 2012, Hailstone Haiku Group, Japan)




green clouds
the scarecrow worries
a loose thread

Publication Credits: Asahi Shimbun (Japan 2012)



toy suns
the winter-dark rain
smashes the city

Publications credits:
Blithe Spirit (vol 23 no. 4 November 2012); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)



drifting rain 
my hundred autumn rooms 
to be alone

Publication Credits: Mainichi Shimbun (Japan, Oct. 2012)


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Changing Winter: a haikai verse sequence

 

Changing Winter

burnt toast

Jack Frost spreads

across the window

mythical river

all the colours of the sun

across the frosting

our storm in a teacup

there’s thirteen ways

to stop a hiccup

Santa’s Palace

a boy hands the snowman

over to his brother

climate change

a little girl's decision

about snowcastles

Publications credits: Inner Art Journal  (Winter issue 2012/2013)
http://innerartjournal.com/winter-2013/alan-summers/

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Alan Summers, one-line haiku in premier haiku magazine Roadrunner, plus haiku prize

Two of my one-line haiku were accepted for Roadrunner Haiku Journal, a premier publication on haikai literature.



Hirst's butterflies disturbing the exhibits people



chestnut moon shifting in my memory ghost floors

Publication Credits: Roadrunner 12.3 (December 2012)

I have a number of other haiku and short verse under various pseudonyms as part of the MASKS 4 feature.  There'll be a prize for the most guessed correctly.


Roadrunner Haiku Journal was founded and edited by Jason Sanford Brown beginning in 2004. With the first issue of 2009, Scott Metz took over as editor, and has since coedited with Paul Pfleuger, Jr.

R'r is an online journal seeking to publish the best and most diverse in English-language haiku (including senryu, zappai and short poetry inspired by haiku).

Various people have helped make Roadrunner become one of the foremost magazines about contemporary haiku including: Elizabeth Searle Lamb; Jim Kacian; Ferris Gilli; Miriam Sagan; and William J. Higginson.

Weblink to Damien Hirst, global and controversial artist: http://www.damienhirst.com/

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Alan Summers haiku featured at The Haiku Foundation Per Diem: Daily Haiku on the subject of childhood

sunlit sweat

the young vagrant

sucks a thumb

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Haiku Harvest  vol. 4 no. 1 (2003); Haiku Harvest: 2000 – 2006 (Modern English Tanka Press 2007); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

Per Diem: Daily Haiku

The Haiku Foundation

December (31 poems): Children
How children move, exasperate and inspire us to look at life, our surroundings and ourselves. Editor: Sonam Chhoki
 

Per Diem: Daily Haiku featuring haiku by Alan Summers on the subject of childhood

The Haiku Foundation's Per Diem: Daily Haiku

December (31 poems): Children
How children move, exasperate and inspire us to look at life, our surroundings and ourselves. Editor: Sonam Chhoki


two boys giggle
as he enters the bike shop ...
the onion seller

Alan Summers


Publications credits: Blithe Spirit vol. 11 no. 3, 2001 (British Haiku Society Journal); Stepping Stones:  a way into haiku (British Haiku Society 2007)

Stepping Stoness:  a way into haiku
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/book-shop/stepping-stones/

2003 Bristol Onion Sellers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5046971621/

The Haiku Foundation
Mission Statement
The impetus behind The Haiku Foundation was the realization that English-language haiku had done a poor job of promoting itself in two important venues: in gathering, interpreting, honoring and making available its comprehensive history, and in reaching beyond a coterie audience to establish its importance as a literary vehicle in the present and future. As a result, THF has two primary missions:

1) to archive our first century of English-language haiku; and
2) to expand possibilities for our second.

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Per Diem: Daily Haiku featuring haiku by Alan Summers on the subject of childhood

Per Diem: Daily Haiku

The Haiku Foundation

December (31 poems): Children
How children move, exasperate and inspire us to look at life, our surroundings and ourselves.
Editor: Sonam Chhoki

Throughout December a different haiku by different authors will explore what childhood is about, possibly our most important joy.

Per Diem: Daily Haiku

 

umbilical cord-
a space man’s first
baby steps

-- Alan Summers

Publications credits: “Rocket Dreams” commission Read/performed U.K. National Poetry Day October 4th 2007 with Space Historian Piers Bizony and NASA images at the Planetarium At-Bristol, as part of World Space Week:
http://bristolculture.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/at-bristol-planetarium-millennium-square.jpg 

The Haiku Foundation

Mission Statement

The impetus behind The Haiku Foundation was the realization that English-language haiku had done a poor job of promoting itself in two important venues: in gathering, interpreting, honoring and making available its comprehensive history, and in reaching beyond a coterie audience to establish its importance as a literary vehicle in the present and future. As a result, THF has two primary missions:

1) to archive our first century of English-language haiku; and

2) to expand possibilities for our second.

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Haiku by Alan Summers becomes an Editors' Choice Selection in a leading American haiku magazine.

The Heron’s Nest
Editors' Choices
Volume XIV, Number 4: December, 2012


lullaby of rain
another pinch of saffron
in the pumpkin soup

Alan Summers



Interestingly enough the above haiku is set in a 5 syllable 7 syllable 5 syllable pattern of English-language syllables which is rare amongst published haiku writers.   These haiku are possible if there is no padding out in words merely to make the syllable count, and where line breaks are utilised in a natural poetic fashion.

More about haiku as it's written today was studied in depth at:
Haiku and Tanka: Amazement & Intensity

Alan's Teacher Profile:
http://www.poetrycoop.com/poetry-workshops/teaching-artists
    
Alan also runs regular and popular online courses in haiku; tanka; haibun; and tanka prose etc... at With Words.

For further information, and quotes from previous participants: karen@withwords.org.uk


More about the haiku magazine:
The Heron’s Nest
"where tradition and innovation meet ... and complement each other"

The Heron's Nest, now in its fourteenth year of publication, is a quarterly online journal.

It is our intention to present haiku in which the outward form of each poem has been determined by two important elements.

The primary element is the poetic experience, faithfully and uniquely evoked in words.

The second element helps to shape the first; it is the poet's knowledge and respect for traditional haiku values.

When well balanced these elements result in work that is distinctively and unmistakably haiku.

"Poetic experiences" are those that inspire us to express ourselves creatively with words.

"Haiku values" are the traditional underpinnings, both Japanese and Western, by which haiku sensibility has evolved into what it is today, and which will continue to shape haiku traditions in the future.

—John Stevenson, Managing Editor

Here is my book review of John Stevenson's Live: Again

Previously published in Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society, and reproduced online at Haijinx magazine:
http://www.haijinx.org/IV-1/reviews/liveagain.html


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