Online internet courses by Call of the Page

Are you interested in a Call of the Page course? We run courses on haiku; tanka; tanka stories/prose; haibun; shahai; and other genres.

Please email Karen or Alan at our joint email address: admin@callofthepage.org
We will let you know more about these courses.

Call of the Page (Alan & Karen)

Monday, April 15, 2013

Two weeks left for the early bird for our online haiku course starting June 1st



It's half way through April, which means that the 'early bird' rate for our online haiku course (starting June 1st) expires in just over two weeks.

The early bird rate is £45.00 rather than £55.00 full price, so if you'd like to take advantage of this, please email karen@withwords.org.uk for a course description, and comments from previous participants.  There are only two places left currently, but the course will also run again from August 1st.

If you want to get your head around the technicalities of haiku without the pressure of writing yet, we  also run a one-to-one haiku reading and comprehension course by email.



The Blue Monkey Renga helps launch a new and important community centre: Paulton Library Community Hub at Hill Court Shopping Centre


































I'll be at Paulton Library, at The Hub Tuesday and Wednesday to launch the community renga where visitors can add a short verse, even something akin to an anecdote, if the spirit moves them.








I've run highly popular renga for the public in previous times, always a brilliant experience, and occasionally with rengaistas from the internet helping out too, so we'd love help again!


What is Renga?

Renga is a traditional Japanese group poem that is ‘shared writing’: everyone is allowed the chance to write, or orally suggest a verse.

Renga is simply writing incredibly short lines (2 or 3 line verses) with almost teasingly invisible connections to each verse.  People can chose to listen or write, and above all share in the decision-making of each verse.  When completed the renga poem is jointly owned by everyone.

It’s very inclusive, creative, and encouraging, and the making of this communal poem is as important as the final result.

Councillor John Bull has very kindly provided an opening foray of verses so no one need be shy producing the first verse.

The Blue Monkey Renga

starlings swirl
like leaves against
the evening sky

daffodils
from verge to verge

on the allotment
an old man grunts
behind his spade


If anyone would like to add verses by leaving a comment on this blog, or  email: renga@withwords.org.uk and we'd love to add your verse!

Why is it called The Blue Monkey Renga?  Help us bring the Blue Monkey alive!  Send us your renga verses!


Paulton Library Community Hub opens at Hill Court on Monday 15 April.  Bath & North East Somerset Council has been working on the project with Paulton Parish Council and local ward Councillors John Bull and Liz Hardman.  The vision being that this facility will aid regeneration of the village’s shopping centre.

The new Hub will provide the same range of services as the current library plus the additional benefits of a coffee bar, WiFi and a meeting room that anyone will be able to hire.  The Hub will also provide the opportunity for a range of other organisations to deliver their services in an accessible, central village location.

Keeping the new facility open for as many hours as possible will be an important part of the project.  The old library wass staffed for 14 hours a week but by using a combination of existing staff, self-service machines and volunteer support the new Hub will be able to stay open for much longer.

Paulton - THE COMMUNITY HUB
  • Address: 1-2 Hill Court, High Street, PAULTON, BS39 7QG
  • Telephone: 01225 394041
  • Email: councilconnect@bathnes.gov.uk
  • Library Manager: Judy Terry
  • Car Parking: Free parking available at the back of The Hub
  • Location: Next to poppies flower shop 

Opening hours are:
Monday: 09:30 - 16:30
Tuesday: 09:30 - 18:00
Wednesday: 09:30 - 16:00
Thursday: 09:30 - 16:30
Friday: 09:30 - 16:30
Saturday: 09:30 - 12:30

Thursday, April 04, 2013

World Monuments Fund invites entries for their second FREE TO ENTER annual haiku contest during National Poetry Month, April 2013






















HAIKU CONTEST GUIDELINES
http://www.wmf.org/get-involved/haiku-contest

World Monuments Fund invites entries for their second annual haiku contest.

Haiku is a traditional Japanese form that emphasizes simplicity, intensity, and directness of expression.


















Submission

Submissions are accepted April 1-30, 2013.

All haiku must be submitted through the online submission form:
http://www.wmf.org/get-involved/2013-haiku-contest

All haiku must be previously unpublished and submitted through the online submission form.

All haiku styles accepted.

One entry per individual.

Awards

First Prize, $100; Second Prize, $75; Third Prize, $50; and three semi-finalists.

All six winning haiku will be published on WMF’s website.


Adjudication

Alan Summers who runs With Words, will adjudicate.

Need inspiration? 
Explore World Monuments Fund's projects in Japan, or all field projects:

Japan:
http://www.wmf.org/our-projects/project-map?tid=All&tid_1=All&tid_2=All&tid_3=All&watch_year=All&country=Japan&funder=All&list=1

Rest of the World:
http://www.wmf.org/our-projects/project-map


Rights

All rights revert to the authors after publication.


More about the WMF Haiku Contest Judge Alan Summers













Alan Summers runs With Words, a nonprofit that provides literature, education, and literacy projects, often based around Japanese literary genres.

He is a recipient of the Japan Times Award and the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto Peace Museum Award for haiku.

Alan is a founding haiku editor for Bones Journal, and serves as Special Feature editor of haiku/haibun for the Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts. He has four haiku collections, the most recent being Does Fish-God Know, and has also co-edited various haiku-based anthologies:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/does-fish-god-know-haiku-collection-by.html
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/new-book-review-of-does-fish-god-know.html
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/a-must-have-book-for-any-haiku-fan.html

His haiku has appeared in 75 anthologies in fifteen languages, including Japanese, and has been printed in Japanese newspapers including Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, The Japan Times, and The Mie Times. A forthcoming work is Writing Poetry: the haiku way.

Alan is currently working on two novels, and also The Kigo Lab Project. He blogs at Area 17 and is a featured haiku poet at Cornell University, Mann Library: http://tinyurl.com/MannCornell-AlanSummers

Alan also runs popular online haiku workshops:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dates-for-next-online-haiku-tanka.html










National Poetry Month at WMF
http://www.wmf.org/national-poetry-month

Newstead Abbey is best known today as the ancestral home of Lord Byron
(1788–1824). http://www.wmf.org/project/newstead-abbey

The ties between poems and monuments are both ancient and contemporary, abstract and concrete.

As Myra Sklarew writes in her poem "Monuments": Each of us has monuments in the bone case of memory. Monuments secure a culture's present by honoring its past and ensuring its future. Poems about monuments fasten the cultural, socio-political, and aesthetic issues that monuments distill to the page.

At World Monuments Fund, we share these concerns in the conservation projects we undertake every day, some of which also directly support the conservation of poetry. At the Goethe Gallery in Weimar's Residenzschloss, we completed urgent conservation work on the stucco and painted surfaces of the walls and ceiling of the "Poet Rooms,” commissioned by Maria Pawlowna in 1834 to commemorate influential Weimar poets Goethe, Herder, Schiller, and Wieland. At Las Pozas, a Mexican surrealist landscape, WMF helped restore the Edward James Cabin, including the conservation of the poems he wrote on its walls. The Scottish capital's cemeteries, where many important poets are buried, was on the World Monuments Watch in 2010 and is the focus of a current conservation and stewardship project, while Newstead Abbey, the ancestral home of Lord Byron, is on the 2012 Watch.

Please join us this April in exploring the special relationship between monuments and poetry, highlighting the many poems that bear witness to the world's most treasured places: http://www.wmf.org/get-involved/national-poetry-month


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Tuesday, April 02, 2013

22nd to 31st days of Alan Summers as featured poet at Cornell University USA

Haiku poems by Alan Summers at Cornell University, Mann Library  

http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/alam-summers/

 
blue brush stroke©Alan Summers



thunder snow
the wind-shifting scent
of fox


Alan Summers
fox dreams (2012) ed. Aubrie Cox; Temps Libre Coups de coeur – Favourites (janvier 2013) 






toy suns
the winter-dark rain
smashes the city


Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit (vol 23 no. 4 November 2012); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012) 

Does Fish-God Know

 







 

 

 

 

 

 

the moon is broken
Battersea Power Station
from a train window


Alan Summers
Award credit: Winner, World Monuments Fund 2012 Haiku Contest


 

 

 

the names of rain
a blackbird’s subsong
into dusk


Alan Summers
Haiku News Vol. 1 No. 35 (2012)

subsong:
http://tinyurl.com/blackbirdsubsong


 

 

Hirst's butterflies disturbing the exhibits people

Alan Summers
Roadrunner 12.3 (December 2012); Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts Vol.1, No.1 (2013)

Damien Hirst: http://www.damienhirst.com/

 

 

 

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 (2013)



 

fading stars
a hedgehog haphazards
its way back home


Alan Summers
The Heron’s Nest Vol XIV, No. 2 (2012)

 

 

Valentine’s Day
my wife reads up
on Henry VIII


Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit vol. 20 no. 3 (2010); The Humours of Haiku (Iron Press 2012)

 

 

 

British sales: http://www.ironpress.co.uk/books/humours.html

International and card purchases: http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/browse/anthologies/the-humours-of-haiku/



 

 

 

pull of stars turning cold the snail's navigation


 

Alan Summers
Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012); Blithe Spirit (February 2013) 

 

 

 

 

 

this small ache and all the rain too robinsong

 

Alan Summers
Modern Haiku vol. 44.1 (Winter/Spring 2013)

 

 



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Friday, March 29, 2013

Early Bird rates for the tanka poetry online course ends April 2nd 2013

Alan & Karen are now known as Call of the Page:
www.callofthepage.org



There's a few days to go to book the next With Words online Tanka course at early bird rates.  

Early bird rate of £45 (rather than £55) expires April 2nd. 

The course starts May 1st 2013.

For more info on the how the course will run, and comments from previous participants, please email: karen@withwords.org.uk

Thank you!  Alan


Alan Summers has had tanka published in various print and online magazines and anthologies.

Mosaic Anthology (Bath Spa University 2009); Blithe Spirit, journal of the British Haiku Society; The Strand Book Of International Poets 2010 (Strand Publishing 2010) ISBN: 9781907340062; Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Vol. 3 (MET Press 2010) ISBN 978-1-935398-27-1;
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Vol. 4 (MET Press 2011) ISBN/EAN13: 0615597807 / 9780615597805; 140 and Counting ISBN 978-1-937794-05-7 (Seven by Twenty magazine pub. Upper Rubber Boot Books 2011): The best twitter literature from the first two years of the twitter magazine’s history.




More details :
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dates-for-next-online-haiku-tanka.html

Quotes : 
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/haiku-and-tanka-online-workshops-are.html

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

19th, 20th and 21st days of Alan Summers as featured poet at Cornell University USA

Cornell University, Mann Library  

http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/alam-summers/

 



zombie debt–
the practised slice
of a bread knife



Alan Summers

Publications credits:
Haiku News (Vol. 1 No. 41 2012); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)

 

zombie debt: http://consumerist.com/2013/02/19/debt-collectors-keep-calling-about-bogus-debt-even-after-being-threatened-with-suit/



train whistle
a blackbird hops
along its notes


Alan Summers

Publications credits:

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

 

theevandiude choolam
oru karutha pakshi thulli
athin swarangalil
 
Malayalam translation by Narayanan Raghunathan
 
neruppu vantiyin choolam
oru karuppu paravai thulliyatu
antha svarangalil
 
Tamizh translation by Narayanan Raghunathan
 
train seeti
ek kale rang ki chidiya naachti
vah svar lahiri me
 
Hindi translation by Narayanan Raghunathan





rain on the river the jesus star shifting

Alan Summers

Publications credits: Janice M Bostok Haiku Prize 2012 Anthology Evening Breeze

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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Dates for the next online haiku & tanka courses in 2014


With Words regularly run online courses:

Online Tanka courses; Online Haiku courses;
Haibun and Tanka Prose courses; as well as a range of introductory, intermediate, and advanced group or one-to-one online courses and feedback.




Enquiries about the courses and our "early bird"rate if paying at least a month in advance can be answered by Karen at: karen@withwords.org.uk

Here is some feedback from our first tanka course, which finished at the end of last year:


"Thank you for your feed back. You make things seem so clear ...  So enjoyed reading the others' work too."
  
Margaret Beverland (permission given)

"I have enjoyed the course tremendously and know that I will return to Alan's notes frequently as I continue to write tanka."  
Jan Harris (permission given)



Tanka are well-grounded in concrete images yet infused with lyric intensity, and an intimacy from direct expression of emotion tempered with implication. Tanka contain ingredients of suggestion colored by shade and tone, setting off a nuance more potent than direct statement. Almost any subject, explicitly expressing your direct thoughts and feelings can be contained in this short form poetry. 

Alan Summers, 

Decoding Tanka (Extract from Article in Progress)


Haiku: (plural and singular spelling)
The shortest of all short poems, yet containing enough that the result leaves enough for the reader to create a longer poem for themselves.

  • Haiku (plural and singular spelling) are usually made up of three short lines in a short, long, short line order. They can be read out loud in about six seconds. 
  • They're written in the present tense, in ordinary language, and work well including two different images that although are side by side, they spark off each other, creating new possibilities.
  • Almost any subject can be caught by haiku. 
  • Haiku are not sayings, opinion, aphorisms, or any other type of statement about how life is. 
  • Haiku don't tell, lead, or instruct the reader what to think or feel; a haiku gives neutral facts (concrete images) that the writer has observed.
  • The presentation of a partnership between two images allows the reader to reach their own conclusions about what the poem is describing, not the poet's viewpoint. The reader is an equal partner to the writer, and is the person who completes the poem.
Alan Summers, Writing Poetry: the haiku way (Extract from the Book in Progress) 

An updated biography of Alan Summers, lead tutor of With Words can be read at the following weblink, scroll down: 
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/entry-details-that-wed-like-for-haiku.html

To find out more about what the courses involve and how they run, please email karen@withwords.org.uk for an information sheet and quotes from participants who have taken the courses over the years.

Many thanks!

Karen at With Words


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Monday, March 18, 2013

16th, 17th, and 18th days of Alan Summers as virtual haiku poet in residence at Cornell University USA

Cornell University, Mann Library 
http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/alam-summers/



snowing through the blizzard particles of me

Alan Summers



Publications credits: 
The Haiku Calendar 2012 (Snapshot Press); The Humours of Haiku (Iron Press 2012); The In-Between Season (With Words Haiku Pamphlet Series 2012)

Award credits:
Winner, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2011 (Snapshot Press)







Iron Press U.K. orders:
http://www.ironpress.co.uk/books/humours.html

International orders (top right alter currencies to US$ or Euros):
http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/the-humours-of-haiku/












The In-Between Season (With Words Haiku Pamphlet Series 2012)


The pamphlet will be available as an eBook later in 2013
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/in-between-season-haiku-pamphlet-will.html
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/haiku-from-alan-summerss-recently.html








dandelion wind
mending bridges
in the mist


Alan Summers

Publications credits:

Blithe Spirit (British Haiku Society Journal Vol 22 No. 3 2012); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)


باد پر قاصدک
مرمت کردن پل
در غبار

bade por ghasdak
maremat kardan pol
dar ghobar


Farsi and romanised Farsi translations by Reza Aerabi





first quarter moon
dancing pinheads burst
into new angel DNA


Alan Summers

Publications credits:

Asahi Shimbun (Japan, 2012); Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)





Does Fish-God Know:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/does-fish-god-know-haiku-collection-by.html
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/new-book-review-of-does-fish-god-know.html
http://www.yettobenamedfreepress.org/p/does-fish-god-know.html

Friday, March 15, 2013

14th & 15th Haiku poetry showcase by Alan Summers at Cornell University USA

A month of haiku poems by Alan Summers at Cornell University, Mann Library, USA

Cornell University, Mann Library
Supporting learning and research in the life sciences, agriculture, human ecology and applied social sciences: http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/alam-summers/
 
Brocken Inaglory : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Refraction_of_Golden_Gate_Bridge_in_rain_droplets_1.jpg

drifting rain
my hundred autumn rooms
to be alone



Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Mainichi Shimbun (Japan, 2012) Selected by Isamu Hashimoto



Östersund, Sweden. Credit and copyright- Göran Strand

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
full snow moon
the slowness of shadows
caught in branches



Alan Summers
Publications credits: Ryōan-ji sequence (Presence #47 2012)

Snow Moon: http://www.universetoday.com/100283/astrophotos-the-full-snow-moon/
 
The full Moon as seen in Japan on Feb. 25, 2013. Credit and copyright- Masashi Ito


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Ryōan-ji

these rocks
I too float among clouds
looking for something

white gravel
each day the monks
rake ripples in time

pure pebble sound
I only know what is
and that is enough

silhouettes of bamboo
at the edge of the garden
we swap stories*

our sharp mysteries
the percussion of sand
over rocks**

falling snow moon
the slowness of shadows
caught in branches


 
* after the classic scenes of Ryōan-ji in Yasujirō Ozu’s film Late Spring,1949
** after John Cage

 
Alan Summers
Publications credits: Presence #47 (2012)
 
 
n.b. The full snow moon haiku at Cornell University's showcase is an edited version to the one that appeared in the sequence.
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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

HAIKU - the holistic approach : The Week-end Residential Haiku Course with Alan Summers ( writing poetry course Lingfield )

The course has been filling up really nicely at Claridge House in Surrey!

There's space for a few more cool people to come though!

Find out how haiku can do so much more for you than you know.  

If you haven't heard of haiku before, or just a little bit, don't worry, beginners take to haiku like a duck likes water! 

At the end of the post I've given some of my background as an experienced haiku poet and teacher for over 20 years.















You can phone up Claridge House to ask about the course, and they'll have an info sheet I designed for them, so they can answer your questions about haiku:  

0845 345 7281 
or 
01342 832 150 

Claridge House
Dormans Road, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6QH
Registered Charity no. 228102.

ENQUIRIES
Tel. 0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150
Email: welcome@claridgehousequaker.org.uk

www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/breaks.php

HAIKU - the holistic approach

The Week-end Residential Haiku Course
with Alan Summers


Friday to Sunday April 5th - 7th 2013

A friendly inclusive course to find out what makes a haiku poem.


Further down there's a schedule so you can see how many lovely breaks we have with food, tea and cake and much much more, and that a lot is packed into the course too.


Testimonials from people on the courses I've run before:

“Thought provoking, interesting and informative”
Caroline P

“Superb – absorbing from start to finish”
Jess C

“A creative, engaging and stimulating workshop – an absolute delight”
Julie W

We’ll look at how our experiences, both external and spiritual, can become haiku, and act as important records of our life.

There are lots of breaks, plenty of yummy cake and biscuits, including non-gluten and non-dairy, a wide choice of hot and cold drinks with tea and coffee and non-caffeine versions.  The meals are incredible too!

Enjoy this short introduction of how haiku can enrich our lives, and all it need take is six seconds of our daily lives:

Amazement of the Ordinary: Life through a haiku lens
"We see things not as they are, but as we are."

Video:
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Amazement-of-the-ordinary-life


Audio interview: http://haikunews.bandcamp.com/


Alongside learning about haiku, we'll also have a go at a new type of short poetry derived from Chinese puzzle-poems for fun.  Then we'll finish the course with the ever popular linked group verse renga as a memento of our weekend.

This weekend course will be held at Claridge House, a Victorian building with disabled access set in two acres of gardens in the Surrey countryside.


































Your room will be available from 3pm on Friday with tea and cake served at 4.00.

The course will start after Supper which is at 6.30pm. The course ends with a fantastic lunch on Sunday!


SPECIAL DIETS
Meals are vegetarian, based on organic produce. Vegan and certain other diets can be catered for with advance notice.  Let them know at the house when you book the course.

Under the National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, we have achieved the maximum score of 5 - 'Very Good'. 
   
This demonstrates a 'very high standard of food safety management and compliance with food hygiene legislation'.
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/accommodation.php

Cost £190 per person
non residential option £109 for course and meals

Booking: 0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150

Email: welcome@claridgehousequaker.org.uk

Finding Claridge House:
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/find.php


Claridge House, Dormans Road, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6QH
Registered Charity no. 228102.
0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150
www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/breaks.php


Previous courses at Claridge house:
The very first course:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/new-residential-haiku-course.html


.
WEEKEND  COURSE  PROGRAMME


Arrivals
Arrivals are incredibly well organised, so anyone requesting a pick up from the train station (minutes away by car) when booking, will be picked up promptly and enjoy an amazing spread of cakes and biscuits, teas, coffees, other hot drinks, and cold drinks from 4pm. Yummy!

Friday        

3.00p.m. onwards      Arrivals
                   
4.00                           Tea and Cake

4.45 – 5.00                House Quiet Time  (Attendance optional)

6.30                           Evening Meal

7.45 – 9.00                Session I


I will be available for questions throughout the first day (Friday), and the first session will be a gentle immersion into haiku.

  Saturday  

8.45                     Breakfast

9.45 – 10.00        House Quiet Time  (Attendance optional)

10.00 – 11.15       Session II

11.15 – 11.45       Coffee

11.45 – 12.45       Session III

1.00                      Lunch

2.00 – 4.00           Free Time

4.00                      Tea and Cake

4.45 – 5.00           House Quiet Time  (Attendance optional)

5.00 – 6.15           Session IV

6.30                      Evening Meal

7.45 – 9.15           Session V

Saturday has so many refreshments inbetween our sessions, plus free time to go walking or resting, that we will absorb a lot about haiku plus be in a very relaxed and inclusive atmosphere.   Humour is not obligatory although I do enjoy the atmosphere it creates and it does enhance learning and enjoyment.    


I will be available for any one-to-one sessions if anyone wishes to go over their haiku in private, either during one of our sessions, while the others are workshopping exercises, or outside the sessions, if that's preferable.   

Sunday         

8.45                       Breakfast

9.45 – 10.45          House Quiet Time  (Attendance optional)

10.45                    Coffee

11.15 – 12.45       Session VI

1.00                      Lunch

2.00                      Departures


The final session will be a rapid fire group poem called renga which creates a fantastic souvenir of the weekend to take away with you.   Included is a free complimentary Haiku Journal Notebook to record your verses.
   

 We have a lot of humour involved with the renga sessions which has now become traditional, and you'll be surprised who will be the culprits, but it's a highlight of the now regular Claridge House renga session.

DEPARTURES
Departures are incredibly well organised, and as the train station is just a few minutes away by car, there is never a worry that someone would miss a train connection who needs a lift to the station by a Claridge House driver.

The lunch will be incredible!      


Alan Summers: Bio

Alan is Director/Lead Tutor of With Words, an international provider of literature, education and literacy projects, and With Words online workshops based around the Japanese genres.

He has been an expert on English-langauge haiku (and other Haikai Literature) for 21 years. Alan is a Recipient of the Japan Times Award (2002) for both haiku and renku, and the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto Peace Museum Award for haiku (1998).

Alan is a Teaching Artist at the USA-based Rooster Moans Poetry Cooperative for Haiku and Tanka (course just concluded) and Haibun (later in 2013):
http://www.poetrycoop.com/poetry-workshops/teaching-artists


Alan is currently the haiku poet-in-residence for Cornell University, Mann Library: http://tinyurl.com/cornell-AlanSummers

He is a TEDx Speaker: Amazement of the ordinary- life through a haiku lens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE

Alan was also invited to give a talk at Haiku News:
http://haikunews.bandcamp.com/album/episode-1-alan-summers-feb-2013

He is a founding editor for Bones Journal (contemporary haiku): http://www.bonesjournal.com/,  and Haiku/Haibun Editor, Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts: http://lijla.weebly.com/about.html

Alan has been:
•    General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000)
•    Panel of Judges: The Biennial Sasakawa Prize for Original Contributions in the Field of Haikai (Sasakawa Foundation U.K. and British Haiku Society)
•    Embassy of Japan, (2009) Roving “Japan-UK 150 Haiku & Renga Poet-in-Residence”
•    Co-ordinator of The 1000 Verse Renga Project in partnership with Bath Libraries (U.K.) and supported by the BBC Poetry Season website
•    Bath Spa University undergraduate development project Haiku poet-in-residence (Autumn 2006 - Summer 2007)
•    Panel of Editors for the award-winning annual Red Moon Anthologies for best haikai literature (2000-2005)
•    Foundation Member of the Australian Haiku Society
•    a founding editor with Haijinx, showcasing humor in haiku
•    Renga/Renku/Linked Forms Editor, Notes from the Gean
•    moderator of the Shiki-temp list for Matsuyama University, Japan
•    currently co-moderator on the British Haiku Society Members Forum

He was also co-founder/co-organizer, and Literature Director, of the 2010 Bath Japanese Festival.

Alan is published in over 75 haiku anthologies; and published in over fifteen languages including Japanese, and British Sign Language.

Japanese newspaper publications:
Yomiuri Shimbun; Asahi Shimbun; Mainichi Shimbun; The Japan Times; and The Mie Times.

"Astonishingly moving haiku"

YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Japan) January 2005

"Widely known haiku poet...as dry as vintage champagne"
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (14 million readers in Japan) September 2002

Anthologies include various leading haiku anthologies and a new Norton poetry anthology on haiku: Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years ed. Jim Kacian, Allan Burns & Philip Rowland with an Introduction by Billy Collins (W. W. Norton & Company 2013) http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Haiku-in-English/ 




•    ‘Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac’  Kodansha International, Japan,                 ed. William Higginson ISBN 4770020902 (1996)

•    Iron Book of British Haiku (Iron Press; ISBN: 0906228670 First published 1998, Third print 2000)
•    Stepping Stones:  a way into haiku 
    (British Haiku Society, 2007, ISBN 978-0-9522397-9-6)
•    The Humours of Haiku (Iron Press 2012) ISBN 978-0-9565725-4-7


Co-Editor of five Haiku-based Anthologies:
•    Parade of Life: Poems inspired by Japanese Prints ISBN: 09539234-2-8 (Poetry Can/Bristol Museum and Art Gallery/Japan21/Embassy of Japan 2002)


•    The Poetic Image - Haiku and Photography (Birmingham Words/National Academy of Writing Pamphlet 2006)
•    Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends (Press Here 2010 USA) ISBN 978-1-878798-31-2
•    Four Virtual Haiku Poets (YTBN Press 2012) ISBN-10: 1478307544 ISBN-13: 978-1478307549
•    c.2.2. an anthology of short-verse poetry and haiku (YTBN Press 2013) ISBN-10: 1479304565 ISBN-13: 978-1479304561


Four Haiku Collections:
•    “Does Fish-God Know” (YTBN Press 2012)

“A must-have book for any haiku fan.”
Tracey Kelly, Chicago/Bath musician/journalist

“Thank you for writing such a vital work.”
Paul David Mena, author of Tenement Landscapes (New York) published by Happa-no-Kofu (The Leaf-Miner Press) just after September 11 2001


•    “The In-Between Season” With Words Pamphlet Series (2012)
•    “Sundog Haiku Journal: an Australian Year” (Sunfast Press 1997 reprinted 1998) California State Library - Main Catalog Call Number: HAIKU S852su 1997
•    “Moonlighting” British Haiku Society Intimations Pamphlet Series (1996)