The Haiku Foundation Librarian’s Cache: Poet of the Month – Alan Summers

 

Librarian’s Cache: 

Poet of the Month – Alan Summers

by Dan Campbell

https://thehaikufoundation.org/librarians-cache-poet-of-the-month-alan-summers/

I am delighted to be given the honor of being Poet of the Month by The Haiku Foundation.

Alan Summers — 

Touchstone Award Winner

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Alan Summers is a recipient of a Touchstone Individual Poem Award for 2016 for his poem

house clearance
room by room by room
my mother disappears

It first appeared in Blithe Spirit 26.1

Blithe Spirit (journal of the British Haiku Society):
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/journal/


From the panel of judges:

“When I read haiku, I’m looking for an unexpected view on the well-known. I’m curious to learn about an open secret (after Robert Spiess). I’m looking for a simple (but not banal) and lucid language that expresses something extraordinary within the ordinary, something which I never read before in that way as well as something that is of beauty beyond time. ‘house clearance’ represents the pure power of haiku. Layers of meaning ascending from deeper layers of the mind (‘room by room by room’) in relation to existential truth (‘my mother disappears’). Perhaps one finds a human contradiction: memories can only get preserved vividly after “clearance.”

“An emotional and vivid image that brings sadness at first reading while effectively pointing out that taking away the physical doesn’t remove the memory.”

Alan was one of five winners for the individual haiku category out of a record 660 entries.

More information about the Touchstone Awards: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/04/30/commentaries-for-the-2016-touchstone-awards/

The Touchstone Award for individual poems - haiku - the Shortlist for 2016 - Alan Summers, British / International haiku poet

Do enjoy the other incredible shortlisted haiku, including two poets from our online courses!
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/04/09/the-touchstone-award-for-individual-poems-committee-announces-its-shortlist-for-2016/

Alan Summers haiku as a Per Diem feature at The Haiku Foundation

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Easter wedding
the chauffeur in a tangle
with the umbrella

Alan Summers 

Tuesday 19th February 2013 

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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

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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