Last Train Home: an anthology of contemporary haiku, tanka, and rengay

Launched on February 26, 2021 by Jacqueline Pearce  (editor) 

LAST TRAIN HOME is an international collection of haiku and related poetry about trains and train travel. Edited by award-winning Canadian poet and children's book author Jacqueline Pearce, the anthology features close to 600 haiku, tanka, rengay, and haiku sequences by 193 poets from 22 different countries.

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Train-Home-anthology-contemporary/dp/1999180801/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=last+train+home&qid=1617702851&sr=8-3

This is a gorgeously produced book that is not only for fans of trains, stations, and travel by rail, for adventure or romance, or both, but anyone who misses the sheer atmosphere of a train racing through cities and countryside!

Here are a few of Jacquie's newer haiku about trains (lately, they are more about her local transit trains):

 

heat wave

the night train rumbles

into my wakefulness

 

Skytrain whine

my thoughts become

white noise

 

subway tunnel

a waft of warm air

takes me back

 

And one of Jacquie's own favourite haiku (by her) from the anthology:

 

warm prairie breeze

the porter plays harmonica

in the open door

 

Jacquie says:

"I like it because it takes me back to my first long-distance train trip across Canada with my brother in the early 1980s (with our VIA Rail youth passes). We were on a quiet branch line between Calgary and Edmonton that no longer exists, and it felt like we were travelling through the Old West—passing rolling prairie, roaming cattle, a bleached steer skull beside the tracks, the carriage doors left open to the warm September air as we travelled, the lonely sound of the harmonica…."

 

The photo by Jacqueline Pearce is from a similar part of the country, on a different train trip.

I'm fortunate to have a few of my own haiku in there, here's one:

train station

the heat of the platform

in my blood

Alan Summers

NHK World TV, Japan:

Europe meets Japan - Alan's Haiku Journey (September 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VS36AGVI6s

One of my haiku selected as Best of Mainichi Shimbun, Japan for 2012 is about Sir John Betjeman, CBE, the poet and savior of St Pancras train station

As many of you know who read my haiku, I'm a big fan of writing about trains and train stations.

My two favourite train stations are St Pancras Station (London, England) and Gare du Nord (Paris, France) followed by two South West England stations Temple Meads and Bath Spa.  But really I love almost every train station I've visited/travelled to and from in the U.K.; Europe; and Japan.

St Pancras Station London photo from Chapman Taylor Architects 301107 www.e-architect.co.uk/london/st_pancras_station_concourse.htm

Sir John Betjeman CBE http://stpancras.com/the-station/history-and-restoration

St Pancras Station: http://stpancras.com/the-station/history-and-restoration
The artist behind the sculpture: http://www.martinjennings.com/

Bath Spa Train Station Renga Party

Images©Alan Summers from the very successful Bath Spa Train Station renga party on Platform 2 in Dashi Sushi Bar on Easter Monday April 5th 2010.

Scribing Lines

The Bath Spa Railway Station Renku
Hosted by With Words (Alan Summers & Karen Hoy), with Marshall Hryciuk & Karen Sohne, Canada, and friends.

scribing lines across the fields Easter journey		Sue Shand
hopping on one foot grandchild counts ducklings		Karen Sohne
the empty home a kettle whistles as a train rumbles past		Zoe Blackmore
while bonfire smoke drifts through a bare tree		Andrew Shimield
clouds I have even lost the moon		Mimi Thebo
as I admire Monet's Haystacks		Alan Summers
lemonade glasses framed by the half-done jigsaw		Karen Hoy
where the leaves meet blue leaves of sky		Liz Brownlee
ice cream how long out of the freezer		Karen Hoy
longing for love's lick dirty dishes pile high		Tracey Kelly
the damp spot on my expensive shirt a night's tears		Alan Summers
the world is suddenly interested in Portuguese Water Spaniels		Mimi Thebo
off Somalia the Captain's alive and three pirates dead		Yu Yan Chen
crows pierce the crystaline horizon		Tracey Kelly
inside the cat curls snug on the warmest chair		Zoe Blackmore
half moon my wife's unvarnished toenails		Alan Summers
the tree rattles bones the wind shakes		Liz Brownlee
today I smelled the earth		Mimi Thebo
abundant the elderflowers bow low		Sue Shand
light on the froth below the weir clouds float		Liz Brownlee
as I drink through the harp in my Guinness		Sue Shand
piggyback he sees his dad's view		Alan Summers
two lines summer Alan and Karen		Tracey Kelly
sunbathing on the roof the radio DJ tells us to roll over		Karen Sohne
rockets explode in showers of golden rain		Sue Shand
Orion's Belt I sneak another notch in mine		Alan Summers
this diamond day we set the date		Sue Shand
my new babe’s gaze joins my heat to her's		Liz Brownlee
the length of the valley the bullstag's trumpeting		Andrew Shimield
Jupiter's moons through someone else’s telescope		Karen Hoy
roasted chestnuts start to appear on London street corners		Alan Summers
snakes in the beard of the sun god		Karen Sohne
light on the river shimmering on the green tour boat		Marshall Hryciuk
tiny butterfly over the new lawn		Karen Sohne
in a swirl of blossom the dustmen fill their cart		Andrew Shimield
letting go of the balloon with a gentle wave		Yu Yan Chen

 http://www.viewbath.co.uk/restaurants/dashi-sushi-info-47423.html

 Alan Summers was roving renga poet-in-residence during Japan-UK 150.

Marshall Hryciuk ((President of the Haiku Society of Canada 1990 – 1997)) was sabaki for this event.

Karen Sohne (Toronto, Canada) acted as the scribe.

The event stayed at Dashi Sushi Bar for a number of hours, before moving onto a nearby park in Bath.  Early evening we moved to the famous Raven pub in Bath for refreshments and to perform the completed renga.

Karen Hoy assisted me as co-host at the event, so we could look after the needs of all the participants while guest sabaki and scribe Marshall Hryciuk and Karen Sohne from Toronto, Canada, could concentrate totally on the renga aka renku.

With Words (myself and Karen) insist that participants in a renga enjoy themselves in a relaxed atmosphere.  As a kasen renga can take six hours, there was plenty of opportunity for people to visit museums and galleries, do a little shopping, and generally come back in their own time.

all photographs©Alan Summers
Please contact me at admin@callofthepage.org for permission to use any of these photographs. 

Scribing Lines Renku

journal publishing credit: 

Notes from the Gean vol 2 issue 3 (December 2010)

https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/c0d09891429cb8cb1defd0dd94316b4f.pdf

  

Petals in the Dark, 

15 renku led and edited by Marshall Hryciuk 

(catkin press, 2015)  

https://claudiaradmore.com/2015/07/15/publishers-hat-renku/


*Also please still feel free to drop a few short poems about trains into the comments box.

www.callofthepage.org

Alan & Karen offer online courses in haiku and its related genres.  If you would like to know more drop us a line at: 
admin@callofthepage.org


More about Karen & Alan:
https://www.callofthepage.org/about-1/

.