Drummers and Short Form Poetry

The latest issue of Four and Twenty (an online journal of short form poetry) is out now with my image featured as the cover art. You can download your pdf copy of the June 2011 issue from the 4and20 website or read it here. There are also lots of past issues to check out here (keep your eyes open for the January 2011 issue that also sports my work as cover art).

My photograph drummers is of the Wai Taiko Drummers performing at the Katikati Haiku Contest prize-giving back in 2008. The drummers performed again at the 2010 Katikati Haiku Contest prize-giving, which was also a big celebration for the 10th anniversary of the Katikati Haiku Pathway. You can read a write-up of the event by Sandra Simpson here.

Read more about the Wai Taiko Drummers on their website.
Find out more about the Katikati Haiku Pathway here.
Submission guidelines for Four and Twenty here.

May Round-Up - Dreamy, Crafty, But Always Poetry

It's hard to believe I'm writing a round-up for May already: the month has seemed to fly by! (Time to find some savings, like Orbitz and plan a winter holiday!) I should have received two journals during the month with my work in them, Haiku Presence and Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, but they are still yet to arrive.

I did, however, receive the copy of Stepping Stones: a way into haiku by Martin Lucas, which I ordered from Snapshot Press. I look forward to digging into that in a week or two, once I finish Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan, which I've been reading a haiku and commentary a day from since February.

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week eighteen - submitted eight senryu and five kyoku to Prune Juice (first time submitting here) two senryu accepted for Issue 6 (July, 2011)
• week nineteen - submitted two haiku, seven tanka and a haibun to Kokako 15, awaiting outcome
• week twenty - submitted ten haiku to haijinx (first time submitting here), awaiting outcome
• AND submitted three haiku to the Sketchbook May/June Haiku Thread (first time submitting here)
• week twenty-one - submitted two haiku to the International "Kusamakura" Haiku Competition

May saw me return to my dream work after the busyness of NaPoWriMo in April, and saw my poem "A Journey in Three Masks" (written during NaPoWriMo using the personal mythology prompts on InkSeeds) published in the May issue of Excellent Writing.

During the month I posted quite a few haiku on the NaiHaiWriMo Facebook page in response to prompts by Cara Holman. It was great to connect up with so many people writing haiku. I'll definitely be dropping in there most days to read and enjoy all the poems people are sharing.

I created two collage haiga for my collection exploring my leukaemia journey, for a new total of 28 pieces. I have another one half completed but am lacking the ingredients to finish it just now: some IV tubing. Hopefully I can ask the nurses at the Cancer Centre for some when I'm there later this month.

To catch the last of the autumn foliage, hubby-to-be took me to Mclaren Falls Park for the first time, and what a gem I'd been missing out on! Beautiful trees, lakes, gardens, grounds, walking tracks, sitting spots and look outs. Will definitely go back there again.

So now it's June and the beginning of winter in New Zealand. I look forward to the June issue of Excellent Writing where I have a quick tip for freelance writers appearing, and the June issue of Four and Twenty, which will be sporting one of my images on the cover. I wonder what else the month will bring...

Mclaren Falls Park, Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, NZ
by Kirsten Cliff 23/5/2011

March Round-Up - The Three "P"s: Poetry, Prose & Photography

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week nine - submitted two tanka and eight haiku to paper wasp (first time submitting here) awaiting outcome
• week ten - submitted an experimental haiku to the HaikuNow! Innovative Haiku Contest (first time submitting here) results out in April
• week eleven - submitted one senryu and three previously publsihed free-verse poems to the 2011 Jacar Press LOVE Anthology (first time submitting here) closes April 30th
• week twelve - submitted a haiku to the HaikuNow! Contemporary Haiku Contest (first time submitting here) results out in April
• week thirteen - submitted eight haiku to the New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition, closes May 31st

March saw me attend to some prose, and write up an account of my paranormal experience, which was published as a guest post "To Help Or To Haunt?" on Marvellous Mable. Then I was asked by Lorraine Holloway-White (A Skeptical Medium) if I'd give my permission for the story to be used in a book she's currently writing. A very unexpected opportunity which I said yes to right away!

I also submitted an article to a fine line, the magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society, which will be published as a feature article in the July issue. Super pleased about this as I've wanted to see an article of mine there for some time (about time I submitted one!). It's about haiku, of course :)

I completed one haiga for my collection exploring my journey through leukaemia, making a new total of 26 pieces, and wrote four new tanka. I'm starting to think about getting the poetry collection together to enter into chapbook competitions, but I'm not sure yet if that is where I want to head with it. As I'm still writing and have over a year of my leukaemia journey left, it will be a while yet before I would seriously consider a complete publication.

For now, I'm sending most of the haiku and tanka I wrote late last year out to journals so I can be sure that it's of a high standard and can stand alone without needing the context of the collection. So far one tanka has appeared in Kokako and three tanka are forthcoming in Presence. I'm awaiting news of submissions to other journals.

I've done a lot more with my photography this month than my writing, and that's just the way it goes sometimes. After two straight months of writing one-a-day, I got to worrying in the second week of March that my poetry writing had stopped short! All I needed was to remind myself that as long as I'm having fun and doing something to quench my creative thirst then all is well with me.

I submitted some images to Four and Twenty for consideration as cover art and editor, Vinnie Kinsella, accepted one for the June issue. :) Yay! I also submitted my cover image for Kokako, which was accepted by the editors, so that's all go for September.

St Patrick's Day saw me spend the afternoon taking my sister's pregnancy photos. We had fun and got some great shots. I'm sure she won't mind me sharing this one seeing as I'm not showing faces or mentioning names (yes, I have more than one sister! more than two, in fact! and two out of the three are pregnant, due a mere six weeks apart!).


Photo by Kirsten Cliff (c) 2011



Found Poem Friday

I haven't written any poems this week, nor done any craft work: my concentration has been on dream work. I am using the four-step approach found in Robert A. Johnson's book Inner Work: Using Dreams & Active Imagination for Personal Growth.

• Step One: Associations
• Step Two: Dynamics
• Step Three: Interpretations
• Step Four: Rituals

I have previously done dream work with a Jungian analyst, but this will be the first time I've taken a dream through these four steps at home. It is focused work, demanding of the mind, which wants to wander terribly and do anything but explore the truths that lie in the unconscious.

Jung observed that dreams perform restorative, corrective, compensatory, prophetic, and developmental roles in our psyche; that to attend to our dreams is to attend to the cry of the soul.

The above is from the other book I use in my dream work, The Art of Dreaming: A Creativity Toolbox for Dreamwork by Jill Mellick. And this brings me to Found Poem Friday...

Four and Twenty post a daily prompt on their facebook page and Friday is always found poem day. So, today I wanted to share this found poem I wrote from The Art of Dreaming as it perfectly sums up my week.

Receive Dreams as Messengers from Another Realm

Dreams haunt us.

Their images, words, sounds, feelings.
They disturb, amuse,
intrigue, inspire.
They are messengers
from another realm
with their own logic.

The narrative structure of the soul –
a logic that dispenses
with cause and effect,
exists in a timeless
spatially unbounded universe
where we are allowed
to do the impossible:

occupy two time frames or places at once.

What if we pay attention to our dreams...
Let their images feed our imaginations...

The heart of the dream will beat
in our actions, and lead us onward.

Copyright © Kirsten Cliff
First published in the Bay of Plenty Times 'Poets Corner', Saturday 19 September, 2009

Four and Twenty Calling for Poetry Submissions

Four and Twenty, an online short form poetry journal edited by Vinnie Kinsella, is calling for submissions for its annual double issue out in April for National Poetry Month.

See the full submission guidelines including the online submission form, information on rights and permissions and the submission calendar.

They are also looking for cover art for multiple upcoming issues, check out the guidelines here. The January issue of Four and Twenty featured my image on the cover, you can see it here.

I haven't yet submitted any poetry to Four and Twenty so will look at making that one of my submissions for this month.

January Round-Up - What a Month!

A warm welcome to my new readers and all those that have popped in over the course of January - international small stones writing month. I greatly appreciate your comments, and ticking of the 'like' and 'cool' boxes at the bottom of my posts :)

I've loved writing a small stone a day and adding it to the river, and have benefited greatly both mentally and spiritually from doing so. At the same time, I wrote up my small stones in my Mslexia Writer's Diary: a diary I bought for the first time this year and am so glad I did; highly recommend!

I've also enjoyed stopping into other stoners' blogs who I may not have found if it wasn't for this challenge, and I thank you all for sharing your stones. I look forward to submitting my ten best stones this month, and eventually reading many others' in the book to be put together by Fiona Robyn.

January saw me make a goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week for 2011. Here's how I'm doing:

• week one - submitted six tanka to Eucalpyt (first time submitting here) won't hear outcome until after March 31st submission deadline for Issue 10
• week two - submitted one senryu to Haiku News (second time submitting here) was accepted, you can read it here
• week three - submitted five haiku and three tanka to Kokako; had two haiku and one tanka accepted for Issue 14, April 2011
• week four - submitted to Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Competition (first time submitting here) results will be announced March 31st

I also created a 'My Photography' page here at Swimming in Lines of Haiku, and submitted images to (all for the first time):

• Four and Twenty (online short form poetry journal) - my image was chosen as the cover art for the January issue
• The Bay News 'Weather Photo' Page
• The Bay News 'Holiday Photo Competition' - closes Feb 4th
• And I'm very excited to have been asked to provide cover art for the next issue of Kokako (Issue 15, September 2011) Many thanks, Pat :)

I've continued making collage-style haiga for my collection: four this month, to make a total of twenty-three. I have written two new tanka so far this year for the collection, and still have several haiku and tanka already written to turn into haiga.

I had the opportunity to show them to my local fellow haiku writers at a small gathering in Tauranga on the 29th, which resulted in some good feedback. I'll carry on with this project while it still has meaning for me and the creative process brings me great joy.

January is extra special too because I made it to my first 100 blog posts! Thanks again to all those who have come along for the ride :)

So as you can see, there has been lots of great things happening for me, alongside my continuing treatment for leukaemia. Roll on February!

My Image as Cover Art for a Poetry Journal

The latest issue of Four and Twenty is out now, sporting one of my images on the cover! I was delighted when editor Vinnie Kinsella chose my photograph - artist's table. You can check it out here.

I have now added a My Photography page to this blog. You can view it by clicking on 'My Photography', which is next to the 'Home' tab, under the image of Mt Maunganui at the top this page.

Two Online Opportunties for Your Haiku

Four and Twenty: short form poetry

A monthly online pdf poetry journal interested in fresh and emerging voices. Named for their guideline on what short form poetry is - poems with four lines or less that have no more than twenty words. Full submission guidelines here. The website also features a Four and Twenty of the Week, and if you join them on Twitter or Facebook you'll receive their Monday to Friday writing prompts.

a handful of stones: celebrating the extraordinary in the ordinary

This poetry blog zine is edited by author Fiona Robyn. A small stone is described as, "...a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment." One is published each day. Read more about the small stone philosophy here and check out the submission guidelines here.