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)

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Haibun - From one-bun to monobun to longer pieces of prose with haiku writing and Journeys 2015 in at no. 7 in Amazon Hot New Releases

photo by Alan Summers 2015      

































Available Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Journeys-2015-Anthology-International-Haibun/dp/1515359875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473772150&sr=8-1&keywords=Journeys+2015 

I feel tremendously privileged to be in this haibun anthology expertly edited by Dr Angelee Deodhar.

These three haibun are not in the anthology because I want you to buy the book and see what selections were made of my work. 

These three monobun written by me are published in Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society.  




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One-bun  (idea and name created by Jim Kacian):
where i leave off waar ik ophoud 
one-line haiku and haibun éénregelige haiku en haibun 
Jim Kacian
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/7e0f3dafee3546b56aa7cc773e5803be.pdf

Although enticing, I decided to create either single line prose, or single paragraph prose, often incomplete, followed by a three-line haiku rather than a monoku (1-line haiku). The following three are my first monobun, and straight after are three more, this time published by Human/Kind journal.


Here are my monobun (created by Alan Summers in 2015)




Sippin
       
this single malt I handwarm so gently letting go…

peat smoke–
one more angel’s share
of handcrafted whisky


N.B. 
The "Angels' Share” is the amount of alcohol (around 2%) that evaporates normally from oak casks.  Whisky producers once thought it was angels taking a small sip before the whisky was matured for bottling.

Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit Vol. 25 issue 2 (2015)




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80 gsm
        
probably copier paper that became creased and stained not just with tears, but grief, forced through finger pores…

her sweet tooth-
Dear John letters
stuffed in a box



Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit Vol. 25 issue 2 (2015)




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Blackbird singing
   
and a long long walk to be brain-tired out to avoid the internal black dog and survive each footfall at a time

boys fishing 
a pointillism of raindrops
dotting the river



Alan Summers
Blithe Spirit Vol. 25 issue 2 (2015)

Three monobun (over two issues) of Human/Kind journal:
https://www.humankindjournal.org/contrib_alan_summers/category/monobunonebun


Here's one published back in March 2019:



the uncertainity principle…

is something that haunts so many of us just starting out on life, hovering just beyond the periphery of parental constraints, where we fly or fall on a single smile, and…

blustering wind 
does she really love me 
dandelion?


after Heisenberg


Human/Kind ISSUE 1.5 - ALAN SUMMERS 5/3/2019
https://www.humankindjournal.org/contrib_alan_summers/issue-15-alan-summers


To see the other two monobun in Human/Kind journal:
https://www.humankindjournal.org/contrib_alan_summers/issue-16-alan-summers

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A longer haibun with eleven haiku appeared in the November issue of Blithe Spirit:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-beat-is-back-haibun-prose-and-haiku.html 


Do please consider a Call of the Page course or one-to-one feed if haibun fascinates you: https://www.callofthepage.org/learning/


Haibun - the practise of interspersing prose writing with haiku, are prose pieces in numerous styles from journalistic writing, diary entries, prose poetry, long fiction through to flash fiction, that usually include one or more haiku within the body of prose or starting or concluding a body of prose.


THE HISTORY OF HAIBUN

In 1689, the famous poet Matsuo Bashō (known to some as the "Shakespeare of Japan") travelled to the northern provinces of Honshu (Japan's largest island, home to Tokyo and Kyoto and other major cities).

He wrote a travel diary, called Oko No Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) in which he wrote haikai verses (the precursors to haiku) as well as prose text.

Here is an extract, in fact it's the opening pages:

The days and months are travelers of eternity, just like the years that come and go. For those who pass their lives afloat on boats, or face old age leading horses tight by the bridle, their journeying
is life, their journeying is home. And many are the men of old who met their end upon the road.

How long ago, I wonder, did I see a drift of cloud borne away upon the wind, and ceaseless dreams of wandering become aroused? Only last year, I had been wandering along the coasts and bays; and in the autumn, I swept away the cobwebs from my tumbledown hut on the banks of the Sumida and soon afterwards saw the old year out. But when the spring mists rose up into the sky, the gods of desire possessed me, and burned my mind with the longing to go beyond the barrier at Shirakawa. 

The spirits of the road beckoned me, and I could not concentrate on anything. So I patched up my trousers, put new cords in my straw hat, and strengthened my knees with moxa. A vision of the moon at Matsushima was already in my mind. I sold my hut and wrote this just before moving to a cottage owned by Sampū:

even this grass hut
could for the new owner be
a festive house of dolls

This was the first of an eight verse sequence, which I left hanging on a post inside the hut.

It was the twenty-seventh day of the Third Month [16 May]. There was a wan, thinning moon, and in the first pale light of dawn, the summit of Mount Fuji could be dimly seen. I wondered if I should ever see the cherry trees of Ueno and Yanaka again. My closest friends, who had gathered together the night before, got on the boat to see me off. We disembarked at Senju, and my heart
was overwhelmed by the prospect of the vast journey ahead. Ephemeral though I know the world to be, when I stood at the crossroads of parting, I wept goodbye.

the spring is passing –
the birds all mourn and fishes'
eyes are wet with tears

I wrote this verse to begin my travel diary, and then we started off, though it was hard to proceed. Behind, my friends were standing in a row, as if to watch till we were lost to sight.

So that year – the second year of Genroku [1689] – I had suddenly taken it into my head to make the long journey into the deep north, to see with my own eyes places that I had only heard about,
despite hardships enough to turn my hair white. I should be lucky to come back alive, but I staked my fortune on that uncertain hope.

With The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the haibun form reached an early pinnacle, and this work is acknowledged as important world literature today.



ONLINE COURSES IN HAIBUN

If you are interested in an online internet course on haibun we will run the course again later in 2017.

Please don't hesitate to contact Karen at:

Karen will be delighted to send you details about the course. 

warm regards,

Alan

Friday, October 23, 2015

British Haiku / English haiku poet Alan Summers
























This haiku is deeply influenced from my reading of the Greek myths and legends as a boy from populist literature through to The story of Orpheus and Eurydice,
 as told by Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil and Ovid and others, in translation.

night of small colour
a part of the underworld
becomes one heron

Alan Summers


First Publication Credit: Modern Haiku Vol. 45.2 Summer 2014

Feature: Brass Bell Showcase: Alan Summers (July 2015):


Anthology credits:

Haiku 2015 (Modern Haiku Press, 2015)

Yanty’s Butterfly Haiku Nook: An Anthology (2016) https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/yantysbutterfly


Poetry as Consciousness - 
Haiku Forests, Space of Mind, and an Ethics of Freedom
Author: Richard Gilbert Illustrator: Sabine Miller. 


This haiku is classified as mythopoetic reality. The mythopoesis [is] evident in the semantic twist of “small colour” of night, a part of which “becomes on heron.”
  
What lies between realism and imagination, between living and dreaming, [as] a particular form of sanctuary; a space of poiesis. It seems most most fragile and nuanced, insignificant and ephemeral—yet it calls or we call, in seeking deeper, more enriching, increasingly multiple, multifarious dimensions of knowing in psyche.
  
Wallace Stevens refers to this poetical process as “enlargement”.
Pages 223 and 224:
Richard Gilbert, Japan


My haiku is both experiential, and inspired by the late evening/night. This is a modified photo I took but the night of small or little colour was very much like this to my naked eye. You may or  may not see that it has 17 syllables, 5-7-5 pattern.




fuller's teasel
lapwings call out
to a stray cloud

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Presence #53 2015

Fuller's Teasel, Barton Park, Bradford on Avon by Alan Summers




























pacing clouds
the new station cat
changes sunspots

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Acorn October 2015



train station
the heat of the platform
in my blood

Alan Summers
NHK World - Europe and Japan


train entering Bradford on Avon by Alan Summers













The haiku was composed for the NHK TV (Japan) feature: 
Europe meets Japan - Alan's Haiku Journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VS36AGVI6s
Permission given by NHK Television to The Haiku Foundation to appear on YouTube.





dandelion fluff
I lose count of my time
on this earth

Alan Summers
Publication Credit:  Brass Bell: Alan Summers  Wednesday, July 1, 2015

dandelion photo and alterations by Alan Summers





















wildflowers adding a little evening to the daylight

monostich by Alan Summers
Publication Credit:  Presence #52 (2015)

blue wildflowers at Darling Range © Alan Summers






















peat smoke–
one more angel’s share
of handcrafted whisky


Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Haibun, Blithe Spirit Vol. 25 issue 2 (2015)



a lamb’s cry
scudding clouds over
the cemetery wall



Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Scope April 2015 volume 61 no 3



splitting the sky
a kingfisher lifts a branch
off the breeze

Alan Summers
Award Credit: Best of Mainichi Japan 2014
kingfisher in the distance River Avon,
Bradford on Avon by Alan Summers
























after rain midnight dreams a hedgehog

Alan Summers
Publication Credit:   brass bell: a haiku journal
One-Line Haiku curated by Zee Zahava (Monday, September 1, 2014)




Kirkstone Pass
a sheepdog gathers
its part of the world

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Muttering Thunder vol. 1, 2014
haiku and photo by Alan Summers, Lake District U.K.

















a flink of cows
the blue before a night
of falling snow


Cow: A kine of cows (twelve cows are a flink)

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Blithe Spirit 2014




hard frost-
the snail-hammerings
of a song thrush

Alan Summers
Publication Credit: Muttering Thunder vol. 1, 2014; The Haiku Calendar 2016 (Snapshot Press, 2015)
Award Credit: Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2015



marsh marigolds-
opening up hidden suns 
to the morning 

Alan Summers
Publication Credits:  earlier versions: Under the Basho Vol 1.1 Autumn 2013



Cat moon
my wife ill with posset
at the restaurant 

Alan Summers
Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts Vol.1, No.2 August 2013



working the ice cream 
we walk all the way back 
to yesterday

Alan Summers
Publication Credits: Notes from the Gean Haiku Monthly no.21 July 2013;




sunflower heart
the chiffchaff sings
its name

Alan Summers
Publication Credits: 
tinywords 13.2 2013  (ISSN 2157-5010) 
eJournal/eMagazine San Mateo, CA : D.F. Tweney : El Camino Press


exchanging winks
how come this cat knows
my midnight reasons


Alan Summers
Publication Credits: Raindrop  A Journal Of Short Form Poetry Issue 1, 2013 




dad and son
a wasp changes knuckles
at the football match

Alan Summers
Publication Credits: 
Second Haiku Contest, Sharpening the Green Pencil 2013 The Book of the Contest 




The Night Train
of paper rock scissors
you sleep into me

Alan Summers
Publication Credits: 
c.2.2. Anthology of short-verse ed. Brendan Slater & Alan Summers 
(Yet To Be Named Free Press 2013)




drifting rain  
my hundred autumn rooms  
to be alone

Alan Summers
Publication Credits: Mainichi Shimbun (Japan, Oct. 2012); Best of Mainichi 2012 (Japan 2013); Under the Basho ('Best of . . . ' Showcase, Autumn 2013)

Anthology Credit:  A Vast Sky, An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku (Tancho Press 2015)


For those who are new to haiku and may not know about me.  I'm very much a global haiku poet, but I'm also someone who captures a little of Britain from time to time.

Alan Summers MA (Bath Spa University)

Alan is a double Japan Times award-winning writer; recipient of the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto Peace Museum Award for haiku (1998); and a Pushcart Prize nominated poet.   

He served as General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000).

Do consider joining!

His work regularly appears in leading anthologies around the haiku genre: Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton 2013); Haiku 2014 (Modern Haiku Press, 2014); Haiku 2015 (Modern Haiku Press, 2015); The Disjunctive Dragonfly, a New Approach to English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press 2012); A Vast Sky, An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku (Tancho Press 2015); and Journeys 2015 - An Anthology of International Haibun (prose and haiku). ed. Dr Angelee Deodhar

NHK World TV of Japan recently featured him in Europe meets Japan - Alan’s Haiku Journey, and he regularly appears in Japanese newspapers:

"Astonishingly moving haiku" 
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (Japan) January 2005

"Widely known haiku poet...as dry as vintage champagne"
YOMIURI SHIMBUN (14 million readers in Japan) 
Part of a piece on Alan while he was in Tokyo on my birthday (16th September 2002)

Alan is Co-Editor of five Haiku-based Anthologies and four Haiku Collections, and author of the forthcoming book Writing Poetry: the haiku way (Spring 2016).  

Alan runs Call of the Page, with his wife, for online courses and live events. 


Alan has been over the last twenty years: 
   
  • General Secretary, British Haiku Society (1998-2000)
  • Panel of Judges: Biennial Sasakawa Prize for Original Contributions in the Field of Haikai (Sasakawa Foundation/British Haiku Society)
  • Embassy of Japan (2009) Roving “Japan-UK 150 Haiku & Renga Poet-in-Residence” 
  • Creator and co-ordinator, The 1000 Verse Renga Project in partnership  with Bath Libraries (U.K.) and supported by the BBC Poetry Season website
  • Creator and co-ordinator, The Hull Global Renga Project in partnership with Hull Libraries/The James Reckitt Library Trust/Larkin25
  • 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 haikai literature (2000-2005): www.redmoonpress.com
  • Foundation Member, Australian Haiku Society
  • a founding editor with Haijinx, showcasing humor in haiku
  • a founding editor for Bones Journal showcasing cutting-edge haiku
  • Former Renga/Renku/Linked Forms Editor, Notes from the Gean
  • moderator, Shiki-temp Forum for Matsuyama University, Japan
  • current admin and moderator, The Haiku Foundation
  • current co-moderator, British Haiku Society Members Forum