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, December 20, 2021

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Bath Spa University Student Magazine Article



Please click onto images to get larger text.

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Article & images©Aesthetics Magazine 2007
Please click onto image for large text format.

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Blo͞o Outlier Journal issue #3 submission guidelines - nature, wildlife, natural history, wilderness haiku only!

 



Blo͞o Outlier Journal issue #3 submission window is now open!






photo©Alan Summers

Please see this link for what I am looking for


NEW EMAIL ADDRESS!
The new haiku submission email address:

haikutec101@gmail.com



Please send submissions of wildlife/nature/wilderness/natural history haiku to this email address only.


Please don't rush any submissions, take your time.




Submission window open from today:

Saturday 21st August to Monday October 1st 2021


Send up to five (5) haiku

Theme: wildlife, wilderness, natural history



It's also worth looking at the two issues of Muttering Thunder:

Just to warn you that they are big files, but highly worth the wait:

https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/3087




photo©Alan Summers


Make it your own experience, past or present, 

in the wilderness. 


Own that wilderness in your unique way.


Good luck!


Alan


Alan Summers
Editor-in-chief
Blo͞o Outlier








Tuesday, April 06, 2021

The Haiku Foundation Librarian’s Cache: Poet of the Month – Alan Summers

 

Librarian’s Cache: 

Poet of the Month – Alan Summers

by Dan Campbell




I am delighted to be given the honor of being Poet of the Month by The Haiku Foundation.

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

 


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.



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

Tuesday, March 09, 2021

Haibun and the Blo͞o Outlier Journal Special issue #2, 2021 UPDATE

 

photograph by Alan Summers

Wearing two hats today!




Call of the Page regularly has one-to-one sessions with poets and their haibun and tanka story:

https://www.callofthepage.org/courses/special-payments/

There are plans afoot to create another group haibun course too, so do keep checking the website:

https://www.callofthepage.org/courses/



The Blo͞o Outlier Journal's second issue focuses on the art of combining prose and poetry. Namely the two genres of haibun and tanka story. Although you can surprise us and perhaps come up with a new or different haikai or tanka genre that uses poems with prose!

Blo͞o Outlier Journal Special issue #2, 2021 UPDATE 

https://bloooutlierjournal.blogspot.com/2021/03/bloo-outlier-journal-special-issue-2.html






Friday, January 08, 2021

Introducing... Haiku a friendly immersive course designed by Karen Hoy, with feedback from Alan Summers

 




Introducing... Haiku

 

The Winter 2021 course, from January 11th to March 8th, is now fully booked, so we have scheduled the another Introducing... Haiku! 


The course starts at the end of April 2021. The payment button on this weblink is now open for the April course. Thank you!


weblink:

https://www.callofthepage.org/courses/haiku-courses/introducing-haiku/



Start Date: Tuesday 27th April 2021 

End Date: Tuesday 22nd June 2021

 

Level: This course is designed to be gentle enough for complete beginners (at haiku, or at creative writing), but at the same time stimulating enough to introduce haiku as a new form to those who are already writing poetry or prose. It can also be used as a "warm-up" to our intermediate course. It's also a "back to what we first loved about haiku" for writers who would enjoy a reset. A highly pleasurable course to run, and we trust, take part in!

 

No of Assignments and Feedback: 3

 


Group Size:  up to 7. April course now booking.

 


Course Description: Participants are sent introductory materials on the start date, which will include the first assignment briefing. 


We'll engage with haiku as a reader, using gentle and evocative prose exercises to expand our understanding of what these tiny haiku can do. 


As the course continues, we'll consciously encourage our own senses of observation, and learn to key in to moments and observations that inspire haiku. 


By the third and final assignment (or sooner if you are ready) we'll have built up to writing complete haiku poems. 


There'll be feedback from the tutor on the prose exercises, line exercises, and the complete poems, in a safe and nurturing atmosphere. 


By the end of the course you should have three poems, and an inspiring foundation on which to move forward with your writing. 

 

Full Cost: £108 (approximately US$146).

 

Early Bird Rate: £99 (approximately US$134)




Alan Summers is the main online tutor & mentor for Call of the Page relating to haiku, its related genres, and tanka poetry. 


He is also the founding editor of The Blo͞o Outlier Journal, and a Pushcart nominated poet for haiku. As well as being a Japan Times award-winning writer Alan is also both a Pushcart Prize nominated, and Best Small Fictions nominated poet, for haibun.


For more details, and my “provenance” to reveal that I will take great care and diligence, do check out: https://area17.blogspot.com/2017/01/happy-new-year-and-brand-new-honour.html 


The Blo͞o Outlier Journal Winter Christmas Eve Special Issue 2020 (Issue #1) ed. Alan Summers

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SdwR7QdRK7QP73c3ezhCEWBf5I4r8AGb/view?usp=sharing 





Karen Hoy (Newport, Wales), poet, filmmaker, is Courses Director of Call of the Page. 


Karen has been tanka editor for Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society. 


Her haiku appear in many of the major haiku anthologies including:


Another Country: Haiku Poetry from Wales, Naad Anunaad, A Vast Sky, Wishbone Moon, Another Trip Around the Sun: 365 Days of Haiku for Children Young and Old, Last Train Home, haiku, tanka and rengay. 



Karen's poetry is included in Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press 2017). Other poetry that Karen appears in are: "My Mother Threw Knives" (Second Light Publications 2006) as well as Mslexia.


Karen also appears in ‘Ten Years On’ the Welsh Poetry Competition Anthology 2012-2016.


‘Ten Years On’ is a celebration of the best poetry submitted to the international Welsh Poetry Competition between 2012-2016. A diverse look at the world we inhabit - alive, energetic, melodic, unrepentant and moving. This anthology is for all poets who truly feel. For the brave, the exuberant, the feisty, the outrageous and the rule breakers. A chance to revel in the moment and not be afraid. After 10 successful years and nearly 5,000 entries from all over the world the competition is now firmly established on the international literary calendar. This collection contains some formidable poetry, written by established poets as well as many new voices, all of whom were fearless enough to push back the boundaries. The book also includes the judges’ comments by famous Welsh writers John Evans, Sally Spedding and Eloise Williams. ‘Ten Years On’ is a beautiful collection of bright, modern poetry.


Her documentary and wildlife credits include work for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, and Discovery Channels. 


Karen has also been Highly Commended in the BBC Wildlife Magazine's Nature Writer of the Year competition (2009).