Herefordshire Haiku: poems on the move

Library van image by Alan Summers; Emma & myself image by Simon Holroyd.

I met Emma Stevens, Library Learning Officer at Hereford Station, and met up with the mobile library van at Fownhope to start my one day library van haiku poet-in-residence. Here are the five places we visited:



Herefordshire's lovely countryside replete with crows & rooks:


carrion crow call
refracted river-ripples
on the horsechestnut

mist haze -
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial

2 haiku by Alan Summers

on a leafless branch
a crow comes to nest -
autumn nightfall

Basho (1644 - 1694) trans. Haruo Shirane

harusame no
dobei hi tomaru
karasu

mud wall perch
in the spring rain
a crow

Shiki Masaoka (1890-1902) English version trans Alan Summers.

The people:

picture by Simon Holroyd
Mrs Hulbert, who paid us a visit, (and helps out at Age Concern), is an artist who was interested in the tradition of combining pictures with haiku known as haiga in Japan.


(Please click onto the pictures for a larger image)
Mrs Hulbert deservedly is awarded a haiku detective badge!

photo by Alan Summers (selfie)

Mrs Slade was the second of my home visits to people unable to get out and visit the library van. Mrs Slade will be 100 in June this year. We also visited Mrs Oxley, in her nineties, who was also great fun, despite her fragility.









Simon Holroyd, the library van driver. It was a shame it was a very wet day, but the visitors we did have made it all worthwhile.

I left some of our haiku detective badges to encourage many more haiku being written at local libraries and with Simon Holroyd on his library van so I hope even more haiku get written.

Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku

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The website link: Wing Beats

I am proud to be able to say that a number of my haiku are published in this book.

‘This volume of haiku about birds and what it means to encounter birds in the landscape achieves the near impossible. It captures the deepest feelings and the most minute observations in the fewest words possible—a triumph of seeing, expression and poetic control.’
Mark Cocker, author and naturalist

Mark Cocker is one of Britain’s foremost writers on nature and contributes regularly to the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, as well as BBC Radio Four.


‘The poems in this volume are worthy heirs to three great traditions: the British love of nature, especially birds; the poetic approach of John Clare, rooted in observation and reality but taking the reader to a higher plane; and finally, of course, the long and venerable tradition of haiku.
By combining these, the writers have produced something truly unique: beautifully written yet easily accessible poetry that helps us reconnect with the natural world in a deeper, more intense way.’
Stephen Moss, from the Foreword
Stephen Moss is a producer at the BBC Natural History Unit.


‘In Wing Beats, the brief, Japanese-style haiku becomes an absolutely first-rate medium for capturing those fleeting moments all bird-lovers prize.

The birds in these poems glide, poke, and zip across the many different landscapes of Britain, punctuating the wind and the sounds of human activity.

Substantial appendices discuss how experience and tradition combine to freshen our understanding of the seasons in haiku.

I find Wing Beats full of acute observations, artistically moving, and intellectually stimulating—a very important book.’
William J. Higginson, author
The Haiku Handbook, Haiku World, etc.


You can order online:
Wing Beats website

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