A selection of haiku about rain by Alan Summers (rain haiku)

a selection of haiku about rain

by Alan Summers

rain-soaked wind

the weather-worn notice

peels back more

Alan Summers

Award credit:  Judges’ favorites

Selected Haiku 

6th annual Golden Haiku Competition (The Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, Washington DC, USA) 2019

fairy wasps they exist the tension of rain 

on rain on rain 

Alan Summers

Glint ePamphlet collection by Alan Summers

Proletaria   politics philosophy phenomena  (February 2020)

https://proletaria730964817.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/glint.pdf

the undersong of the light falling rain

Alan Summers

Half A Rainbow 

Haiku Nook: An Anthology ed. Jacob Salzer & The Nook Editorial Staff (2020)

Dedicated to Rachel Sutcliffe (1977-2019) 

https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/halfarainbowhaiku

I start to rain

and into falling leaves

my childhood

Alan Summers

Troutswirl - The Haiku Foundation - 

A Sense of Place: HIKING TRAIL – sight ed. KJMunro

Anthology credit: 

All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku (2019) 

ed. Robert Epstein

Middle Island Press (18 Oct. 2019)

ISBN-10: 173412542 ISBN-13: 978-1734125429

https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Way-Home-Aging-Haiku/dp/173412542X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=All+the+Way+Home%3A+Aging+in+Haiku&qid=1572366673&sr=8-1 

mosaic rain:

the cul de sac

of shadow

after Sylvia Plath

Alan Summers

Human/Kind Journal issue 1.6 (June 2019)

IT’S THE SMALL THINGS . . . haibun monobun

https://www.humankindjournal.org/contrib_alan_summers/issue-16-alan-summers

Collaborative collection:

The Comfort of Crows 

Hifsa Ashraf and Alan Summers 

(Velvet Dusk Publishing, December 2019)

https://tinyurl.com/ComfortOfCrows

nighthawks...

the sodium streets

sizzle in its rain

after Hopper

Alan Summers

Publication Credit: Weird Laburnum (September 2019)

From The After Party haiku sequence

https://weirdlaburnum.wordpress.com/2019/09/15/the-after-party/

ekphrastic haiku

backend rain…

a pair of canvas boots

framed by the door

Note: backend = autumn rain (North of England)

Alan Summers

Publication credit: Weird Laburnum ed. Michael O’Brien (August 2019)

From the haibun: Van Gogh’s combat fatigues

https://weirdlaburnum.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/van-goghs-combat-fatigues/

Published on the morning of the last day of the Tate Britain Van Gogh and British Painters exhibition

THE EY EXHIBITION VAN GOGH AND BRITAIN 27 MARCH – 11 AUGUST 2019: 

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/ey-exhibition-van-gogh-and-britain

sidewalk waltz

the aroma of rain

and coffee

Alan Summers

The Haiku Foundation: A Sense of Place: CITY SIDEWALK – smell 

ed. KJMunro (December 2018)

lone crow

rain crosses

the moon

Alan Summers

ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK (Japan)

ed. David McMurray (June 2018)

night train
each window carries
its own little rain

Alan Summers
Brass Bell: a haiku journal (September 2017)

the scent of rain

birdsong stretches

as far as Mars

Alan Summers

Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Selected Haiku Collection (Japan 2017)

Feature:

#AtoZBlogChallenge on Poetry Roundabout and Liz Brownlee 

A TO Z BLOG CHALLENGE 2018 S is for Haiku Poet Alan Summers, #AtoZChallenge #ZtoA 

the rain

almost a friend

this funeral 

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Azami #28 (Japan 1995); Snapshots 4 (1998); First Australian online Anthology (October 1999): Blithe Spirit article On minimalism and other things  DJ Peel Vol 9 No.3 (1999); tempslibre (2001); Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S.A. Poet of the Month (October 2001); The Omnibus Anthology, haiku and senryu  (Hub Editions Hub Haiku series 2001); Hidden (British Haiku Society Anthology 2002); The New Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2002); First Australian Haiku Anthology (2003); Birmingham Words Magazine Issue 3 (Autumn 2004); seven magazine feature: “Three lines of simple beauty”  (2006); tempslibre (2010); Blogging Along Tobacco Road: Alan Summers - Three Questions (2010); Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002 , Part 2  (Akita International Haiku Network 2010);  The Temple Bell Stops: Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change (Modern English Tanka Press 2012); THFhaiku app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (2011); The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)

Award credit:

Highly Commended, Haiku Collection Competition, (Snapshot Press 1998)

Joint 9^th Best of Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)

long hard rain my compass your true north

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Frogpond 36.1 • 2013

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013

cabbage butterflies—
a man with an umbrella
when there's no rain


Alan Summers
Publication Credits:  Under the Basho Vol 1.1 Autumn 2013

early morning rain

the sound between

the sound

Alan Summers

Publication Credits: Asahi Shimbun (Japan 2013)

Cloud kigo

a light rain patters across

your nightingale floors

Alan Summers

Publication Credits: Asahi Shimbun (Japan 2013)

“In search of the ultimate season word to associate with clouds, Alan Summers observes how “rain writes its own story across floorboards that sing like a bird.”

David McMurray is professor of intercultural studies at The International University of Kagoshima where he lectures on international haiku. At the Graduate School he supervises students who research haiku. He is a correspondent school teacher of Haiku in English for the Asahi Culture Center in Tokyo.

the scent of rain-
I stretch the truth
into clouds

Alan Summers

Publication Credits: Blithe Spirit 23.2. 2013







blue sky rain
the sunshine leaks
from pavements

from White Dust Ghosts – a series of haiku poems by Alan Summers

Alan Summers
Publication Credits:  (Tribe issue 22,  2013)


 

lullaby of rain

another pinch of saffron

in the pumpkin soup

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Heron’s Nest (Volume XIV, Number 4 2012 December 2012); The Haiku Calendar 2014 (Snapshot Press, 2013)
Anthology: "The Vast Sky, An International Anthology of Contemporary Haiku"
after a quote from Sekito Kisen, "The vast sky is not hindered by the floating clouds." (2013)

Anthology credits:
naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary international haiku ed. Shloka Shankar, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Kala Ramesh (India, 2016): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Naad-Anunaad-Kala-Ramesh/dp/9385665332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532036995&sr=8-1&keywords=naad+anunaad

The Wonder Code ed. Scott Mason (2017) ISBN 978-0-692-93035-9 Girasole Press

Chappaqua NY

http://thewondercode.com

Award Credits: 
Editors' Choices, Heron’s Nest (Volume XIV, Number 4: Dec. 2012)
Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2013

velum clouds–

through the small hours

this writing in rain

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Haiku Novine ISSN 1451-3889 (2012)

toy suns

the winter-dark rain

smashes the city

Alan Summers

Publication credits:

Blithe Spirit (vol 23 no. 4 November 2012)
Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012) ISBN-13: 9781479211043 / ISBN-10: 1479211044

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1479211044/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

rain on the river–

when does white become

its darkest colour

Alan Summers

Publication credits: Haiku News (Vol. 1 No. 38 2012)

drifting rain 

my hundred autumn rooms 

to be alone

Alan Summers

Publication Credits: Mainichi Shimbun (Japan 2012)
Award: Best of Mainichi 2012 (Japan 2013)

does fish-god know?

rain can fall

from clear blue skies

Alan Summers
Award credit: Winner of the Blithe Spirit Cover competition for issue 22/2  (John Parsons cover artwork Autumn 2012)
https://area17.blogspot.com/2012/08/ekphrastic-haiku-alan-summers-wins.html

Publication credits: Blithe Spirit (vol 22 no. 3 2012)
Anthology: Sea Bandits ed. Aubrie Cox (2012)
Collection: Does Fish-God Know  (Yet To Be Named Free Press 2012)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1479211044/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

the names of rain

a blackbird’s subsong

into dusk

Alan Summers

Publication credits: Haiku News Vol. 1 No. 35 (2012)

blackbird sub-song:

https://soundcloud.com/hvrlon/blackbird-sub-song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXVJrrG2gxc

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/british-birds/63655-singing-blackbird.html 

hard-blue sky

the ghost touch of rain

on sloe-eyed horses

Alan Summers

Publication credits: Blithe Spirit (Vol 22 No. 3 2012)

rain on the river the jesus star shifting

Alan Summers

Publication credits: Janice M Bostok Haiku Prize 2012 Anthology Evening Breeze

bouncing rain
I force the hotel window
a little wider

Alan Summers

Publication credits:

Blithe Spirit March 2012; Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

the drum of the rain ghosting bare hands 

Alan Summers
Publication Credits:  Under the Basho Vol 1.1 Autumn 2013

rain clouds
conversations shift around
the train carriage

Alan Summers

Publication credits: Mainichi Shimbun (Japan 2011)  

Award Credits: Honourable Mention Best of Mainichi 2011

this delicate rain
the petal makes a typo
of a gravestone date

Alan Summers

Publication credits: tinywords, haiku & other small poems ( 2011)

rain ceases

as I leave the sycamore...

one more kingfisher

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Blithe Spirit vol. 14 no. 4 (2004)

late september rain
cutting through the lane
and the mist

Alan Summers

Publication credits: in a heron’s eye  (Paper Wasp 2000)

the geraniums

flowering again

just before the rain

Note: Queensland (Australia) poem

Alan Summers
Publication credits: Potpourri Publications (USA 1994)
Collection: sundog, an australian year, (sunfast press 1997 reprinted 1998)

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Online Haiku Course Early Bird Rate offer extended until July 7th - haiku poetry : poetry courses in haiku

 

News update 2017:

With Words has now become Call of the Page:

www.callofthepage.org

You can either go to our contact page:

https://www.callofthepage.org/contact/

Or email Karen at:

admin@callofthepage.org

You can learn more about Karen and Alan at:

https://www.callofthepage.org/about-1/

========

2013 workshops

We are extending the Early Bird rate for the August 1st Online Haiku Course until the 7th of July.

Haiku: 

The shortest of all short poems, with an intentional rearrangement of words from language, that elicits an emotional reaction in each reader far greater than the sum of its physical count of words.  

Alan Summers, Writing Poetry: the haiku way (Extract from the Book in Progress)

The "early bird" rate is US$70 and full price would be US$85.

Equivalent in British currency is £45 early bird rate, and £55 full price. 

To find out more about what the courses involve and how they run, please email karen@withwords.org.uk for an information sheet.

Many thanks!

Karen at With Words 



Quotes from our students for Alan's teaching:

For a biography on Alan scroll down to the end at this weblink:

http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/haiku-holistic-approach-week-end.html

  

Hi Alan - thanks so much for this....I learned a lot... I really had no idea there was so much to this art, and I'm completely fascinated. Your comments are extremely perceptive.

MK

As you probably know by now, I use every corner of my life as a way of reflection of my psychological personal development - haiku in itself is great for this, but working with you has just elevated the experience a 100 fold.

Your support over the last couple of years or so have just been such an amazing gift to me - bless you.

I am well aware of the fact that I wouldn't be having such an amazing journey with my haiku if wasn't for you.

FT

This was the first online class I have ever taken and I have thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks for providing the opportunity and for making it affordable. I learned so much and integrated a lot of what I learned.

Alan is a fantastic teacher, as you already know. I would love to take another course with Alan.  

Please take good care and have an enjoyable 2013. Anne

What wonderful feedback to hear that my heart has touched someone else's. To me, that is the best reason to write. Your comments have been invaluable.  Debbie 

Thank you so much for all of the information you have provided about gendai haiku.  It has definitely sparked my interest in learning more. I also just want to say thank you for providing this course.  It is obvious that you spent a lot of time preparing the course material.  I also really appreciate your thoughtful responses to our posts.  LM

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TED Talk : Transcript from the TEDx video: Amazement of the Ordinary: Life through a haiku lens by Alan Summers

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design: http://www.ted.com/pages/about

Amazement of the Ordinary talk on haiku: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE

Transcript from the TEDx video:

Amazement of the Ordinary:  

Life through a haiku lens

“We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
That’s a quote from the Talmud, an ancient text, containing opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects.

Now I’m sure many of us have been there, overlooking the ordinary because we feel it’s… well ordinary… mundane, boring, annoying, a distraction, or mostly unnoticed in our busy schedules.

I’d like to talk about how a tiny practice of reading or writing haiku, the world’s shortest type of poetry, can add an extra depth to our world.

I’m adding examples of my own haiku poems to attempt to inject some lateral shift time, as in our linear lives some of us can rarely take time to step off, safely, we’ve just got to keep going even if it kills us, even if it alienates those we love.

Lateral shift?   Bending time?  No.  

It’s just that sometimes we are only aware of how long time is if

1) it’s horribly boring, or

2) we are in great danger. 

This could be your third choice, your third option, and all without a safety net, to have something parallel on your timeline.

mist haze-

a crow cleans its beak

on a rooftop aerial

Ah, perhaps you are a driver, worried you might miss the early morning sights and sounds of birds getting up for their own day ahead?

traffic jam

a driver fingers the breeze

through the sunroof

One of the world’s greatest short story writers, Raymond Carver, back in the old century, wrote about people who worried whether their cars would start in the morning; about unemployment and debt; of individuals who make our day to day life tick.  He never pretended a wonderland still existed but said:  “a writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing—a sunset or an old shoe—in absolute and simple amazement.”

Are we not writers of our own life, writing out cheques, or pin numbering our way to coffee and snacks;  those last minute remembered bunch of flowers at a supermarket, to filling our cars with petrol to get somewhere…

an attic window sill

a wasp curls

into its own dust

…and however much we can afford a mortage, or need to pay the landlord…

the rain

almost a friend

this funeral

As the 1931 song says: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

Brother, Sister, can you spare yourself a haiku moment?

sunlight breaks

on a bird

and its portion of the roof

A day consists of 86 thousand and 400 seconds: A haiku is six seconds. 

Try bending some time, maybe on your travels, catching a…

train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes

Mary Oliver, a poet, said, from When Death Comes:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

I’d like to end with this last haiku, that takes less than six seconds to say,

and, time me if you’d like…

      this small ache and all the rain too robinsong

–end–

TEDx YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE

Other links:

http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/5181

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Amazement-of-the-ordinary-life
 

Online courses in haiku and related genres:

Japan Times award-winning writer Alan Summers regularly teaches haiku and tanka, and other popular online courses.  

For more details please contact Karen at:  admin@callofthepage.org

www.callofthepage.org

haiku poetry publication credits:

mist haze-

a crow cleans its beak

on a rooftop aerial

First publication credit: 
Azami journal issue 38 ed. Ikkoku Santo (Osaka, Japan 1996)
Other credits: The Haiku Calendar 2003 (Snapshot Press); Watermark: A Poet’s Notebook - Crows (2004)

Anthology credit: First Australian Online Anthology (1999): Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2008)
Feature: Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S.A. "Daily Haiku" poet (October 2001)

Award credit:

Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2002 (Snapshot Press)

traffic jam

a driver fingers the breeze

through the sunroof

Publication credits: Snapshots 2 (1998); tinywords.com (2002)
Anthology credit: The New Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2002)
Feature: Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002, Part 2  (Japan, Akita International Haiku Network 2010)

an attic window sill

a wasp curls

into its own dust

Haiku of Merit: Ginko & Kukai event, London, England with Professor Hoshino Tsunehiko (1997)

Publication credits:

Woodpecker Special Issue, Extra Shuttle Issue (Holland, 1997); Snapshots Four  (1998); Swot, arts & literature magazine, Bath Spa University (2007);  Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan (for my birthday, September 16th 2002); tinywords (2002)

Award credit:

Highly Commended, Haiku Collection Competition, Snapshot Press (1998); Joint 7^th Best of Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)

Article: Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002 , Part 2  (Akita International Haiku Network, Japan 2010)

Anthologies:

First Australian Online Haiku Anthology (1999); Haiku International 2000 Anthology (Japan 2000); The Omnibus Anthology, Haiku and Senryu, Hub Editions (2001); The New Haiku, Snapshot Press (2002); Raku Teapot: Haiku Book and CD, Raku Teapot Press in association with White Owl Publishing Book (2003); First Australian Haiku Anthology (Paper Wasp 2003)

Feature/Showcase:

Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S. "Daily Haiku" poet (October 2001)

Japanese newspaper article:

Yomiuri Shimbun Go-Shichi-Go On-Line Language Lab (Japan, 2005)

iPad/iPhone/iTunes:

The Haiku Foundation haiku 2012 app

Education: 

HaikuOz Information Kit  HaikuOz, the Australian Haiku Society Getting Started With Haiku.

the rain

almost a friend

this funeral

Award credit: Highly Commended, Haiku Collection Competition, (Snapshot Press 1998)

Joint 9^th Best of Issue, Snapshot Five (1999)

Publication credits: Azami #28 ed. Ikkoku Santo (Osaka, Japan, 1995); Snapshots 4 (1998); tempslibre (2001); Birmingham Words Magazine Issue 3 (Autumn 2004); tempslibre (2010)

Anthology credits: First Australian online Anthology (October 1999); The Omnibus Anthology, haiku and senryu  (Hub Editions Hub Haiku series 2001); Hidden (British Haiku Society Anthology 2002); The New Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2002); First Australian Haiku Anthology (2003); The Temple Bell Stops: Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change ed. Robert Epstein (Modern English Tanka Press 2012); iTunes The Haiku Foundation THFhaiku app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (2011)

Article: Blithe Spirit article On minimalism and other things  DJ Peel Vol 9 No.3 (1999); Travelogue on World Haiku Festival 2002, Part 2  (Japan, Akita International Haiku Network 2010)

Collection credit: The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)

Featured Poet: Cornell University, Mann Library, U.S.A. "Daily Haiku" (Oct 2001); Blogging Along Tobacco Road: Alan Summers - Three Questions (2010); Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog Daily Haiku, June 17, 2015

Magazine feature: seven magazine feature: “Three lines of simple beauty” (2006)

la pluie

presqu'une amie

ses funérailles

la pluie

presqu'une amie

à cet enterrement

haiku: Alan Summers

French trans. Serge Tomé

Temps Libre analysis in French:

http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/analysis-of-haiku-structure-in-work-of.html

sunlight breaks

on a bird

and its portion of the roof

hi   wa   torini   yane   no   ibasho   ni   sosogi   keri

Romanised version (Romaji) trans.

Hiromi Inoue, Masegawa Kawauchi town, Ehime Prefecture, Japan

Publication credit:

Haigaonline vol. III (2003)
Anthology: Haiku Friends ed. Masaharu Hirata  (Japan 2003)

train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes

First publication credit:

Presence journal #47 (2012)

Anthology credits: 

naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary international haiku ed. Shloka Shankar, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Kala Ramesh (India, 2016)

Last Train Home, an anthology of haiku, tanka and rengay ed. Jacquie Pearce (2020)

In Swedish:

tågvissla
en koltrast skuttar
längs med dess toner

trans. Marcus Liljedahl

Gothenburg, Sweden

theevandiude choolam
oru karutha pakshi thulli
athin swarangalil

Malayalam translation by Narayanan Raghunathan (2012)

neruppu vantiyin choolam
oru karuppu paravai thulliyatu
antha svarangalil

Tamizh translation by Narayanan Raghunathan (2012)

train seeti
ek kale rang ki chidiya naachti
vah svar lahiri me

Hindi translation by Narayanan Raghunathan (2012)

sifflet du train

un merle sautille

au long de ses notes

French translation by Serge Tomé

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong

Note: single line haiku also known as a one-line haiku or monoku

Publication credit: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013

Anthology credit: naad anunaad: an anthology of contemporary international haiku ed. Shloka Shankar, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Kala Ramesh (India, 2016)

robin subsong: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueSGPA2UPDk

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