A selection of haiku short verse poems around BIRDSONG and the SOUND OF BIRDS

BIRDSONG and the SOUND OF BIRDS -
A Series of haiku around birds and birdlife 

sunflower heart

the chiffchaff sings

its name

Alan Summers

tinywords 13.2 2013  (ISSN 2157-5010)

eJournal/eMagazine San Mateo, CA : D.F. Tweney : El Camino Press

http://tinywords.com/2013/09/13/13405/

Chiffchaff song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_C2Z9PWEaM
http://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id/willow-warbler-chiffchaff


Chiffchaff/Common Chiffchaff:
http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/chiffchaff.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Chiffchaff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Chiffchaff

roll of the apple…

I decide to let birdsong

back out of the box

Alan Summers

Under the Basho Vol 1.1 Autumn 2013

http://www.underthebasho.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=90

an up-too-late moon

the blackbird whispers its song

as I stumble home

Alan Summers

Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum (Japan 2013)

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013

         cool morning

birdsong

light on a distant cloud

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Modern Haiku, (1999); Azami Haiku in English Commemorative Issue  (Japan 2000); Birmingham Words Magazine Issue 3 (Autumn 2004); Birdsong - a haiku sequence  Together They Stood, Poetry Now (2004); Haiku Friends Vol. 3 ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan  2009)

down side streets -

gulls turning the sky

in and out

Alan Summers

Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years. Ed. Jim Kacian, Allan Burns & Philip Rowland (W. W. Norton & Company 2013) http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294972241; The Disjunctive Dragonfly, a New Approach to English-Language Haiku by Richard Gilbert (Red Moon Press 2012) [Elemental Animsim p80] http://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=179

cumulus clouds

a clattering of jackdaws

rearrange their pattern

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Blithe Spirit  vol. 20 no. 3 (2010)

note:

An archaic collective noun for a group of Jackdaws is a "clattering."

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jackdaw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackdaw

First recorded in John Lydgate's Debate between the Horse, Goose and Sheep, c.1430, as "A clatering of chowhis", and then in Juliana Berners Book of St. Albans, c.1480, as "a Clateryng of choughes."

A "clattering" of Jackdaws:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thekrankis/4375039089/

Other names for Jackdaws include caddesse, cawdaw, caddy, chauk, college-bird (from dialectal college "cathedral"), jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird, from their nesting propensities, and sea-crow, from their frequenting coasts. ..or just plain "Jack"

talkwildlife.com: http://www.talkwildlife.com/photo/a-clattering-of-jackdaws

four rosellas distant sounds to blue

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Azami #34 (Japan 1996)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosella

through an open window

a kookaburra laugh

enters

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Frogpond (Haiku Society of America journal, Summer 1994); Scope Feature (FAWQ, Australia, 1994); Micropress magazine; Micropress: best poems Ed. Kate O'Neill, Micropress NZ (1997; Moonlighting; sundog haiku journal: an australian year  (sunfast press 1997 reprinted 1998);   California State Library - Main Catalog Call Number : HAIKU S852su 1997

Kookaburra calls:   

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/KooKaburra_sound_clips

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feJZ7heOK2I

Seven Sisters the call of owls either side

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Blithe Spirit (British Haiku Society journal, March 2012)

train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes

Alan Summers

Publications credits:

Presence #47 (2012): The Haiku Foundation Per Diem (September 2012): The Elements

V to U

a parliament of rooks

shift their flight

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Icebox, Hailstone Haiku Group, Japan (2010)

Selected by Hisashi Miyazaki

fading last note

torresian crow sounds

the darkening sky

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Paper Wasp (Australia 1997); Azami (Japan 1998); Blithe Spirit, (June 2004); Shamrock Haiku Journal, Irish Haiku Society, Spring 2006; Sketchbook, A Journal  for Eastern & Western Short Forms Nov. 2007; Haiku Hike; THFhaiku app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (2011)

Calls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=079uBwOi2w8

Torresian Crow: http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=5786

http://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/viewphotos.php?c=85

the names of rain

a blackbird’s subsong

into dusk

Publications credits: Haiku News Vol. 1 No. 35 (September 2012); featured poet at Cornell University USA (Cornell University, Mann Library haiku showcase March 2013.)

haiku news: http://www.wayfarergallery.net/haikunews/?p=4018

http://www.wayfarergallery.net/haikunews/?tag=alan-summers

subsong soundtrack: http://tinyurl.com/blackbirdsubsong

 

A Blackbird in the rain...

Al.

Alan Summers, a Japan Times award-winning writer, regularly runs online classes and workshops on haiku, and related genres such as tanka, haibun, and tanka prose.  

For further information, please don't hestitate to contact Call of the Page Course Director Karen Hoy, who will only be too delighted to send you information about these intriguing short verse poetry genres.

Karen's email: admin@callofthepage.org

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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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Modern Haiku, Alan Summers robinsong haiku (European Robin) one line haiku

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong  


one-line haiku by Alan Summers
Published: Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 winter/spring 2013




image information:

	English: A European Robin singing near Doolin, Ireland
	22 February 2009, 22:51:43
Source	Own work
Author	Scott Wieman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:European_Robin_Singing.jpg

 

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