United Haiku and Tanka Society newsletter and results for the UHTS Samurai Haibun 2017

SEEDPODS

 

February 2018
Welcome to Seedpods

The e-newsletter of the United Haiku and Tanka Society

In this edition:

• - News from Alan Summers -- UHTS president
• - Results for the UHTS Samurai Haibun 2017
• - Submission Period for the October 2018 issue of cattails
• - Reminder --   “AHA” Haiku/Senryu Contest (the Annual     Hortensia Anderson Memorial Awards)

Full Details:

https://mailchi.mp/a9914c4c6c8d/seedpods-uhts-members-enews?e=bfce4e6055

Alan Summers

President, United Haiku and Tanka Society

United Haiku and Tanka Society

http://unitedhaikuandtankasociety.com

UHTS journal Cattails:

http://www.cattailsjournal.com/welcome.html

Haiku Walk (ginko) in Stamford, Lincolnshire, part of Verse 2018, Stamford Arts Centre festival

Live event, haiku walk, in Stamford which was voted the number town in Britain!

GINKO (HAIKU WALK)

with Alan Summers

12:00 PM Saturday 14th April 2018

We will all meet up at Stamford Arts Centre

https://www.stamfordartscentre.com/whats-on/all-shows/ginko-haiku-walk#

Find us and how to get there:

Stamford Arts Centre's Postcode: PE9 2DL

https://stamfordartscentre.com/information/find-usvirtual-tour/ 

A Haiku Walk is called a ginko in Japan  (ginko 吟行)

gin 吟　act of making a poem

ko 行　act of walking

The g is a hard sound “gain"

After a brief introduction to haiku, the very short poem genre, we’ll set out on a walk - known as a ginko (吟行) in Japan - looking for inspiration. He will also read a number of his haiku revealing how this poetry is different to what we might know.

Afterwards, in a relaxed session, Alan will show how our rough notes and drafts can become polished haiku. Directly sketching from nature, or life, is one of the most common approaches to haiku. We will also learn about combining two images that create surprising connections, that make the brief haiku verse go beyond the count of its words.To help capture the images that do this, Alan has designed an exercise that will add another dimension to pairing images.

Bring a packed-lunch, and Stamford Arts Centre will provide the sushi! 

Alan Summers is President of the United Haiku and Tanka Society; Haibun Editor, Blithe Spirit (Journal of The British Haiku Society); and co-founder of Call of the Page.

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

Useful filming of a haiku walk from start to finish:

NHK TV (Japan) filmed Alan’s Haiku Journey which includes a ginko in the last five minutes :  http://tinyurl.com/AlanHaikuJourney

We meet up first of all at the arts centre for a brief introduction to haiku, and then start our walk:

Stamford Arts Centre 

27 St Mary's Street 

Stamford 

Lincolnshire

Postcode: PE9 2DL

https://www.stamfordartscentre.com/whats-on/all-shows/ginko-haiku-walk#


Stamford lies near to Birmingham, Leicester, and Peterborough...

Further notes, webpages, and information:

Stamford Arts Centre

http://stamfordartscentre.com/ 

Really useful photographs inside and outside Stamford Arts Centre which is right next to Stamford Theatre:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Stamford+Arts+Centre/@52.6516082,-0.4774563,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipPUHmvX_Rtt6QyzeDgM-V4NhnPncN-5q6jPe-X-!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPUHmvX_Rtt6QyzeDgM-V4NhnPncN-5q6jPe-X-%3Dw203-h135-k-no!7i5508!8i3672!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x4bf17916216caec5!8m2!3d52.6516731!4d-0.476886?hl=en

Various. Photos of rooms and outside:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Stamford+Arts+Centre/@52.6515218,-0.4767824,2a,75y,195.49h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sckJxkKCR-JF-DBOLcEdwDA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x4bf17916216caec5!8m2!3d52.6516731!4d-0.476886?hl=en

Stamford River & Rural walks:
https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/popidownload/58750

Visit information for Stamford

http://www.southwestlincs.com/visit-stamford/ 

Stamford, Lincolnshire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamford,_Lincolnshire 

In 2013, Stamford was rated the best place to live by The Sunday Times: 

1st. Stamford, Lincolnshire

The ducks are quacking and the river sparkles in the spring sunshine. Across the green of Stamford’s famous water meadows…sipping takeaway coffees from the cosy independent cafes, such as the Fine Food Store, that line the gloriously Georgian high street. 

The town has starred in period dramas from Middlemarch to Pride and Prejudice, just one lucky by-product of Stamford being named Britain’s first conservation area. The architecture and honey-stone streets really are magnificent, but that’s not all Stamford has to recommend…this friendly town offers…

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-winners-our-four-top-spots-3jq9pjkfknz 

haiku poem:

those who stop —

ducks taking colour

from the river

Alan Summers

brass bell: a haiku journal curated by Zee Zahava (January 2017)

n.b. For those of you who think haiku is only a 575 pattern of syllables, I also write them too. :-)

The Stamford arts festival “Verse 2018”
online brochure: http://stamfordartscentre.com/information/brochures/verse-2018/

Verse 2018  Brochure: 

http://stamfordartscentre.com/information/brochures/verse-2018/

United Haiku and Tanka Society:

http://unitedhaikuandtankasociety.com

Alan Summers is a previous General Secretary of the British Haiku Society:

http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk 

Alan and Karen of Call of the Page regularly run online courses for haiku and related genres of writing: https://www.callofthepage.org/learning/

Helen Buckingham - latest haiku collection Sanguinella - now released and available to buy if you are serious about haiku and senryu

sanguinella
Text © 2017 Helen Buckingham ISBN 978-1-947271-11-1
Red Moon Press
www.redmoonpress.com
first printing 

The Touchstone Distinguished Books Award Committee Announces Its Shortlist for 2017

and from 80 books nominated for this year’s award which represent a rich variety of English-speaking books from many nations and haiku traditions Helen Buckingham's book is included: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2018/04/01/the-touchstone-distinguished-books-award-committee-announces-its-shortlist-for-2017/ 

Helen's haiku and senryu are brave and never "just raw" for the sake of it. As a human suffering great pain, great humour is either required, or just part of Helen's DNA.   Perverse fate comes in many shapes and guises for those with invisible diseases and chronic illnesses.

As the husband with a wife who has M.E. (officially) since we first dated, I know only too well at least some of the trials and tribulations. But Helen is a strong voice for those who did not come out of the other side. I salute you, Helen, and all the women, children, teenagers, and adults of any gender, who go through M.E. and the ignorance that abounds both by some professionals, and those not so professional.

Over 200 haiku and senryu, many of them known classics, and others that will become new classics, both of Helen's body of work, as well as in haiku and senryu globally.

What is M.E.?  https://themighty.com/tag/invisible-illness/ 

Sanguinella, haiku of Helen Buckingham $15.00

Helen Buckingham says it herself: “Fifty-eight years since the seed was planted, Sanguinella provides a scrump back through the often bloody orchard that constitutes my life until now, from the rural pickings gathered over recent years in the bonsai city of Wells, to the tangled branches of a childhood spent battling various forms of blight in a mulberry-stained corner of South London.” This book is available from Red Moon Press, and is highly recommended if you are serious about life and poetry, and how to communicate. https://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=279

Blood and Blue - moon haiku by Alan Summers - British and Australian haiku published America/USA; Britain; India; Australia etc...

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

super blue blood moon
the supermoon trilogy

The moon has always played a powerful part in haikai literature, from the time of the renga linked verses poetry to Matsuo Basho's renku linked haikai verses, and his 'standalone hokku'.

Here are a few of my own moon haiku

above the mountain

earth’s shadow

blocks a moon

Alan Summers

Note:  eclipse of the moon, Queensland, Australia, Friday 4^th June 1993 

Publication credits: Frogpond (Summer 1994) ed. Elisabeth Searle Lamb

Paid Feature: Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland, Scope magazine feature (1994)

bleu roi

a thousand flying foxes

quarter moon

Alan Summers

Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac,

Kodansha International (1996)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Haiku-World-International-Poetry-Almanac/dp/4770020902/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517479842&sr=8-1&keywords=Haiku+World%3A+An+International+Poetry+Almanac 

Tribute: The Heron’s Nest Volume X, Number 4: December, 2008 Celebrating Bill Higginson http://www.theheronsnest.com/haiku/1004F2116/thn_issue.t1.html#POEM9

escape velocity

the moon pulls oceans

behind Apollo 11

Alan Summers

Commission: “Rocket Dreams”

Read/performed U.K. National Poetry Day October 4th 2007 with Space Historian Piers Bizony and NASA images, as part of World Space Week

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

low over the hill

 a red moon waxes ...

   the empty road ahead

Alan Summers

Haiku International #22 (Tokyo 1996)

Pamphlet: Moonlighting,  Intimations Pamphlet Series BHS Profile, (1996)

Anthology: Azami Special Edition, Japan, ed. Alan Summers (1997)

Collection: sundog haiku journal: an australian year (sunfast press 1997 reprinted 1998)

february moon

not one flying fox

snared on its horns

Ipswich, Queensland, Australia

Alan Summers

Azami #55 (Japan 1999)

february moon

not one single flying fox snared

on its horns

Alan Summers

Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac, Kodansha International ed. William J. Higginson (1996)

Far North Queensland

a dingo’s call picked up-

the moonless night 

Alan Summers 

Modern Haiku (199-) ed. Bob Spiess

getting drunk

with the ripe moon

cadmium blues

Alan Summers

haijinx volume IV, issue 1 (2011)

Anthology: Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

blue moon
you believe there's nothing
up my sleeve

Alan Summers 

The Haiku Foundation haiku app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (2011)

Blue Moon we don't do one-sided conversations

Alan Summers 

Prune Juice issue 9 July 15th 2012

the camp fire burns the misty moon halved by thin cloud

Alan Summers

Presence # 4   (May 1997) ISSN 1366-5367

Anthology:

Stepping Stones:  a way into haiku ed. Martin Lucas

ISBN 978-0-9522397-9-6  (British Haiku Society 2007)

http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/shop-2/stepping-stones/

the moon is broken

Battersea Power Station 

from a train window

Alan Summers

Award credit: 

1st Prize, World Monuments Fund 2012 Haiku Contest winner 

Magnetic Island–

possums take the winter moon 

from tourists 

Alan Summers

Sea Bandits ed Aubrie Cox (2012)

night jasmine

trying to find it...

the yellow half moon

Alan Summers 

Presence 14  (2001) 

Feature: Mann Library, Cornell University, U.S.A. "Daily Haiku" poet October 2001

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

chestnut moon shifting in my memory ghost floors

Alan Summers 

Roadrunner 12.3 (December 2012); LAKEVIEW International Journal of Literature and Arts Vol.1, No.1 February 2013

night-entangled moons treading judas floors

Alan Summers

Dark Pens, a journal of moon haiku ed. Chase Gagnon (1.1. 2013) 1^st Issue March 2013

Blood Moon

my Rhesus positive rising

Alan Summers 

Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

different utopia

Quasimodo’s private moon

over Notre Dame

Alan Summers 

Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

Sailor Moon

your first sērā fuku

saves the world

Alan Summers 

Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

day moon

a first burn scar

off the oven tray

Alan Summers 

Does Fish-God Know (YTBN 2012)

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

Perilune

               Cheshire Moon the cat grins in Farsi

          eight thousand li of cloud and moon questions mark

    Oak Moon the carpenter's calluses chafing

              butterfly dreaming man the Black Butterfly Moon

                     window-rattling moon I stay up and turn blue

Black Moon my finders keepers Valentine

  

Alan Summers 

Blithe Spirit 23.2. 2013

falling snow moon
the slowness of shadows
caught in branches

Alan Summers 

Presence #47 (2012); Brass Bell Showcase: Alan Summers (July 2015)

a little curve
when the buffalo bellow
dying moon

Alan Summers

Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts Vol.1, No.2 August 2013

Article: The Moon is Broken: Juxtaposition in haiku article Scope vol. 60 no. 3 (FAWQ  magazine April 2014)

night-tide
the rook takes back
its moon

Alan Summers 

Acorn #31 2013

Article: The Moon is Broken: Juxtaposition in haiku article Scope vol. 60 no. 3 (FAWQ  magazine April 2014)

an up-too-late moon

the blackbird whispers its song

as I stumble home

Alan Summers

Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum, 

2013 Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English (Japan)

Night clouds

a spider shows me

the harvest moon

Alan Summers

October 04, 2013  ASAHI HAIKUIST NETWORK (Japan)

bomber moon–

all those hiding places

within you

Alan Summers 

Tribe issue 22 (October 2013)

the limbs of trees broken Snow Moon

Alan Summers 

Derafsh-e Mehr Issue #4 Winter & Spring 2014

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

how does this swan
         sleep like a diamond
     frosted moon

Alan Summers 

Frozen Butterfly (October 2014)

falling clouds

the snow gathering

bits of moon

Alan Summers 

hedgerow: a journal of small poems (Issue 1, September 2014)

the rhythm of rain

a toad sleeps deep

with her moon

Alan Summers 

Brass Bell: a haiku journal

Moon Haiku issue: Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Ganesha's moon

the cabbie’s last customer

smells of mint tea

Alan Summers

brass bell: a haiku journal Tea Haiku / Haiku Tea issue November 2014

blue moon-

my sweet potato curry

song to the moths

Alan Summers 

Scope vol. 60 no. 9 (FAWQ  magazine October 2014 Australia)

Anthology credit: EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2016 Foodcrop Haiku

derelict church the moon showing its bomb damage 

Alan Summers (Hedgerow 100) 

hunter's moon

the runes of mice

in its wake

Award Credit: Best of Mainichi 2014 (Japan)

night crows

the haystacks lose

their moonlight

Publication Credit:   

Wild Plum Spring & Summer 2015 issue of Wild Plum (release date - March 1)

Anthology Credits:  

  

Behind the Tree Line 

(Selected haiku from the Wild Plum - a haiku journal and the Wild Plum Haiku Contest 2015)

Haiku 2016

ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga

Modern Haiku Press, 2016

http://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Haiku2016.html 

photo©Alan Summers 2018

old tales

moon-bright leaves

jostle the breeze

Alan Summers   

Wild Plum 1:1 (Spring & Summer 2015)

corn moon

the jackdaw shifts

its iris

Alan Summers  

Asahi Shimbun (International Haiku Day April 17th 2015)

a packet of souls

the day moon becomes

a harbinger

Alan Summers  

Ekphrastic response to Installation by Fairley Barnes

May 26, 2015

stick moon

we move our bones

in unison

Alan Summers  

Feature: Brass Bell: Alan Summers

July 2015 issue of brass bell, featuring poems by Alan Summers

http://brassbellhaiku.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/brass-bell-alan-summers.html

Ekphrastic response to an Installation by Fairley Barnes 

May 26, 2015

Out of Many, One

By Jacob Salzer

The old saying: “a picture is worth a thousand words” has an inverse statement that seems equally true: “a word can paint a thousand pictures.” To better illustrate this: I just googled the word snow and found: about 851,000,000 results (0.51 seconds). Part of the beauty of haiku is how many different images can arise from reading a single word. In turn, the practice of reading and writing haiku has individual and universal aspects that I see as two parts of one life. It turns out, our sense of individuality is not as concrete as it may seem. Here is the beauty of haiku and collaborative poetry: the writer and the reader have become one, through Being, through haiku. We realize we are connected. It is a connection that bypasses the whole mind:

stick moon

we move our bones

in unison

— Alan Summers
Brass Bell, July 2015

http://livinghaikuanthology.com/poets-on-haiku/defining-haiku/5881-out-of-many,-one-by-jacob-salzer.html

small-hours-train the pink suitcase of moon shadows

Alan Summers

Brass Bell September 2015 Issue: One-Line Haiku

war moon haiku &photo artwork©Alan Summers 2015-2018

war moon

the flickering of humans

at birdsong

Alan Summers

Asahi Shimbun (Japan 2015)

the blood moon issue, Oct 2 for the eclipse of 9/28

David McMurry:

“brilliant haiku”

Under the Basho Poets' Personal Best (November 2015)

http://underthebasho.com/2015-issue/poets-personal-best/1595-alan-summers.html 

Anthology Credit: Heart Breaths: Book of Contemporary Haiku ed. Jean LeBlanc

ISBN: 9789385945038

seed moon

the other side

of the wind

Alan Summers

Publication Credit: Frozen Butterfly issue 3 October 2015

Anthology credit: EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2016 Foodcrop Haiku

crow-flecked
the jack of all moons 

rising rising 

Alan Summers 

Scope Vol 62 No 1 (The magazine of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Qld) Inc February 2016)

limned clouds
the beat of regular rain 

on moon-gentians 

Alan Summers 

Yanty’s Butterfly 2016

ed. Jacob Salzer and The Nook Editorial Staff

https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/yantysbutterfly 

spider silk...

to catch a river

moon shifting

Alan Summers

hedgerow: a journal of small poems issue  #53 (October 30, 2015

moonlighting crows in other colors

Alan Summers

Publication Credit: Frogpond (39:1) Winter Issue

Anthology:  Full of Moonlight: Haiku Society of America 2016 Members' Anthology (Feb 2017) ed. David Grayson

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Moonlight-Society-America-Anthology-ebook/dp/B06VTGQ77C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517479567&sr=8-1&keywords=Full+of+Moonlight+haiku

Ticking Moon photo©Alan Summers 2018

Ticking Moon

conjugating verbs

across a battlefield

matins moon 

a child looms large

in collerateral damages

hunkered moon

transcribed notes

in every hymn sheet

politicians moon

a people’s moon

the song of blackbirds

in every trench

cobweb moon

a man’s opening lines

fill with mortar

a list of people

paper the tunnels

neglected moon

cullingmoonmanycolorsuniform

we learn to adjust

the clocks of our hands

borrowed moon

Alan Summers

Publication Credit: Bones - journal for contemporary haiku no. 7 July 15th 2015

Anthology Credit: Heart Breaths: Book of Contemporary Haiku ed. Jean LeBlanc

ISBN: 9789385945038

day moon

a crow slices

half of it

Alan Summers

moongarlic issue 5 November 2015

everyone went to the moon

a softness of morning stars

Alan Summers 

Yanty’s Butterfly 2016 Haiku Nook Anthology

ed. Jacob Salzer and The Nook Editorial Staff

https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/yantysbutterfly 

photo©Alan Summers February 1st 2018

www.callofthepage.org

Alan & Karen run online courses in haiku; haibun; shahai; tanka; tanka story (aka tanka prose); senryu; and ekphrastic courses