Online internet courses by Call of the Page

Are you interested in a Call of the Page course? We run courses on haiku; tanka; tanka stories/prose; haibun; shahai; and other genres.

Please email Karen or Alan at our joint email address: admin@callofthepage.org
We will let you know more about these courses.

Call of the Page (Alan & Karen)

Thursday, June 27, 2013

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)






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) 







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





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

Collaborative collection:
The Comfort of Crows 
Hifsa Ashraf and Alan Summers 
(Velvet Dusk Publishing, December 2019)






nighthawks...
the sodium streets
sizzle in its rain

after Hopper


Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Weird Laburnum (September 2019)
From The After Party haiku sequence
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
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: 




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 9th 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

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





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)




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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Sunday, June 23, 2013

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:

You can either go to our contact page:
https://www.callofthepage.org/contact/

Or email Karen at:

You can learn more about Karen and Alan at:

========

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:
  

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


. 
 

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

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–

Other links:
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






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 7th 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 9th 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:





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: 

.