Given an ordinary stone . . .

The New Zealand Poetry Society 2013 Anthology, Given an ordinary stone, edited by Owen Bullock, was launched over the weekend in Wellington. You can order your copy here.

The anthology includes the winning poems from the NZPS International Competitions, including the Haiku Junior Section I judged, as well as other poems and haiku selected by the author from the remaining entries.

This year I won 5th Prize in the Open Haiku Section, judged by Nola Borrell, with:

drifting evensong
pine needles cloistered
in fresh snow

This appears in the book, along with my Commended placing:

full morning moon
cows chew their way
through the fog

I look forward to receiving my copy and reading all the poems from 2013! I'm sure it will be an inspiration. :-)

The Books on My 'To Buy' List . . .

In no particular order:

Forgiving the Rain by Lynne Rees (haibun) http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/

twelve moons by Claire Everett
(tanka)
https://www.createspace.com/3923071

breakfast with epiphanies by Owen Bullock (haiku) http://owenbullock.com/haiku.html

 

In the Garden of Absence by Stella Pierides (haiku)
http://stellapierides.com/news/4744

Building a time machine

I'm really pleased to once again have haiku in the annual New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology, which was edited by Owen Bullock this year. It contains all the winning entries of the NZPS International Haiku and Open Poetry Competitions, as well as work chosen 'blind' by the editor from the remaining poems entered.




My first haiku won a Highly Commended placing:

bus stop
the moonlight
on her cane



This second haiku was chosen by the editor:

his gentle snores
when did I last
see the stars . . .



You can order your copy of the NZPS 2012 anthology Building a time machine here (PayPal is available).

Launching into November . . .

Three launches that include my haiku are happening this month, and unfortunately I won't make it to any of them! Never mind because the books will arrive soon. :)

First is the launch of Building a time machine - the 2012 New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology, edited by Owen Bullock. I have two haiku appearing in this anthology: one that received a Highly Commended in the NZPS International Haiku Competition, and a further ku that was chosen by the editor. Order your copy here.

Second is the opening of the exhibition When North meets South, organised by Ruth Arnison. This is where artists of all kinds from the South Island chose haiku from poets from the North Island and made works of art inspired by them. I can't wait to receive my copy of the exhibition booklet that will include my four chosen haiku turned into works of art by four different painters. Hopefully I'll be able to link some photos soon!

Last but not least is the launch of the Haiku News Anthology, edited by Dick Whyte (NZ) and Laurence Stacey (US). I have one haiku appearing in this anthology and look forward to seeing this unique collection. Presales are now being taken here to support the printing of the book.

November 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

Above is the November page of my calendar. The photo was taken last year at Papamoa Beach especially for this project. The haiku is one of my most published ku, originally taking out Third prize in the Katikati Haiku Contest (2008). I've been busy making a 2013 calendar to give to family and friends this Christmas. Lot's of new photos and haiku to enjoy throughout the year. Remember you can see all the pages from my 2012 calendar at the link on the side-bar: Kirsten's 2012 Calendar of Haiku & Photography.

Last month I did several new photo-haiga in collabortaion with Cara Holman. This was the first time for both of us working together in this way, and we've deemed it a great success! Three have already appeared in Margaret Dornaus' Day of the Dead post. Five more have been sent to Aubrie Cox, the new A Hundred Gourds haiga editor, for consideration in the next issue. All have used my images with Cara's haiku; plus I also sent in three that are all my own work. I've only submitted haiga twice to a journal and look forward to seeing how these collaborations fare, and to doing more of the same in the future. Happy haiku-ing, friends! :)

breakfast with epiphanies

This year Owen Bullock started his own e-newsletter called The Greensplat Newsletter to keep those he has worked with in the poetry world in touch with what he's up to with his workshops, mentoring and other events. In his first issue he showcased one of my tanka, and I wrote a bit about his involvement in my poetry career:

It's a pleasure for any teacher to see a Former Student go on to enjoy success and publication. One such name that makes me glow with pride is Kirsten Cliff. She has kindly allowed me to re-print one of her tanka and a few comments which she sent me:

re-negotiating

my drug regime

with the doctors

I tell them that today

they may see me cry

Kirsten Cliff (first published in paper wasp 17:3)

"You have certainly played an instrumental part in my developing as a poet: being the first to say my haiku was good and that I should submit to Kokako, then teaching me through the Waiariki course and again recommending I seek publication for some of my poems, right through to your tanka workshop with the Papamoa Poets group, which got me firmly on the tanka trail." Kirsten

Kirsten is now one of New Zealand's most frequently published poets in the genres of haiku and tanka, appearing in a range of journals internationally. Her work was anthologised in the taste of nashi - New Zealand Haiku.

I'm now pleased to tell you about his newest haiku collection, breakfast with epiphanies.  

  

                                           two attempts

                                           at the trouser leg

                                           New Year's Day 

“Reading breakfast with epiphanies reminds us again why Owen Bullock is one of New Zealand’s most accomplished haiku poets. Owen’s haiku makes its impact quickly with a minimum of words. The haiku enter our minds the way experience of the physical world does, through our senses. In each of his finely-crafted poems, he directs our attention to specific moments, helps us to celebrate them and to let them go. Owen’s finely honed haiku explore a range of ideas, from the self, to his innermost thoughts about relationships, to his delight in nature.”

Patricia Prime, Co-editor of Kokako

                                            log split
                                            a moth
                                            flies out


Owen Bullock began writing haiku in 1999 and since then his work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, such as Presence, The Heron's Nest, Magnapoets, Red Moon, etc, in seven countries. This is his second collection of haiku, following wild camomile (Post Pressed, Australia, 2009). He also publishes tanka, haibun and renga, as well as longer forms of poetry, and fiction. Owen has been an editor of Spin, Kokako, Bravado and Poetry NZ, and was one of the editors of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume IV.

Copies of Owen Bullock's new collection of haiku, breakfast with epiphanies, can be purchased direct from him by cheque to: 890 State Highway 2, RD1, Katikati 3177, priced NZ$20 (plus $2 p&p; $4 outside NZ). Or email him to arrange a direct transfer. Find out more at: http://www.owenbullock.com/

Take Five Tanka

I'm so very excited to have three of my tanka chosen for the latest (and last) volume of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka. M. Kei and a team of editors from around the world (two of which were New Zealanders! Patricia Prime and Owen Bullock) read over 18,000 tanka published over the course of 2011 and chose the best to come together in this fine anthology.

Although a tanka may be as small as a pebble, it creates expanding ripples in the mind of a receptive reader, ripples that touch far shores, with the polished perfection of the poem as the still center of meaning and experience. ~M. Kei

I'm honoured to be there alongside so many of my friends within the on-line haiku community, and especially two that we've lost to cancer - Svetlana Marisova and Hortensia Anderson. My three tanka to be included are all from my leukaemia journey and I'm grateful that they can now be read by many more people so that they might reach the very souls that need to read them.

browsing

the second-hand books

from my wheelchair

today I decide

not to feel ashamed

Eucalypt 10 (May 2011)

                    planning our wedding

                    in the hospital chapel

                    while I have chemo

                    I am not dying

                    but a part of me is

                    Presence #44 (June 2011)

                                        re-negotiating

                                        my drug regime

                                        with the doctors

                                        I tell them that today

                                        they may see me cry

                                        paper wasp 17:3 (October 2011)


My thanks to M. Kei and his editing team, and to the editors that first published my tanka. You can by your copy of Take Five from Createspace or from Amazon.com.

Two NZ Haiku Contests Closing In May

Katikati Haiku Contest

Cash prizes totalling $NZ175 in the senior section. All proceeds to the Haiku Pathway project. Judges are Owen Bullock (senior) and Catherine Mair (junior).
Closes: In hand May 16.
Cost: Within NZ: 18 & over - $5 for 3 haiku or $2 for 1 haiku. 17 & under - $1 for up to 2 haiku. For overseas entrants: $US5/3 haiku or $US2/haiku.
For full details see the website.

NZPS International Haiku Contest

Top five haiku/senryu will be awarded $NZ100 each; first place will also receive the Jeanette Stace Memorial Prize of $NZ150. Winners will be published in the NZPS annual anthology. Judge is Barbara Strang.
Closes: May 31.
Cost: $1.50/haiku, for NZPS members every 5th haiku is free.
Full details from the website.

NZPS Haiku Junior Contest

Cash prizes, plus one winner will also receive the Jeanette Stace Memorial Prize of $NZ100 open only to entrants who are 17 years of age or younger on May 31, 2012. Schools may send bulk entries, but poems must be clearly attributed to authors. Winners will be published in the NZPS annual anthology.
Closes: May 31.
Cost: $1/haiku.
Full details from the website. For information on group school entries, go here.

Straight From the Haijin's Mouth #1

'Straight From the Haijin's Mouth' is one of the features that makes up my haikai column in a fine line, The Magazine of the New Zealand Poetry. This edition is from the September 2011 issue, and is reprinted with the kind permission of Laurice Gilbert, Joanna Preston and Owen Bullock. 

Straight From the Haijin's Mouth

I asked this year's NZPS International Haiku Competition Judges, Joanna Preston (Open) and Owen Bullock (Junior), 'What is it about haiku that keeps you coming back for more?'

Joanna Preston's answer: It's less a case of ‘what keeps me coming back’ than haiku refusing to let me go in the first place! Every few years I decide I want to leave the genre alone for a while, but something will happen that just can’t be expressed in any other form, or that announces itself to me that way. And then I'm astounded all over again at the depth and complexity of the genre. For me it's that shock of recognition, of purpose, of rightness, that’s crucial in all poetry, but most powerfully concentrated in haiku. And there’s no better training for a poet – to be precise, to be good at recognising exactly what elements of a scene or experience are the really important ones, and to be as supple in meaning and frugal in expression as possible. You feel the really good ones in your body, as a physical impact, as well as in your mind. So maybe my need for haiku is a form of addiction, the way runners can come to crave the endorphin high. Or maybe it's the nuclear physics of poetry – the power to blow the world apart packed into a tiny, seemingly innocuous package.

Read more from Joanna on her blog – A Dark Feathered Art

Owen Bullock's answer: I love the variety that is possible in haiku, and the depth that is sometimes held by such few words. That depth is like a lake, you can swim on the surface or dive deep, chase sticks or skim stones. But it is always about what is real, what is experienced, grounded in sensation. The technique is hidden; the approach of the best haiku so subtle that it is as if no effort goes into it, that it tumbles out of the sky fully formed. Haiku takes me by surprise more often than other forms of poetry.

My own search as a poet is for truth and simplicity. Truth, in this context, means a faithfulness to what actually occurred. The simplicity required to frame the experience is a great lesson and training ground for any and all writing.

waiting . . .

a leaf falls

into my lap

~from wild camomile

Read more from Owen on his website

Haiku Festival Aotearoa 2012

Don't forget about the Haiku Festival Aotearoa happening in Tauranga this June, being organised by Sandra Simpson and Margaret Beverland. These gatherings don't happen that often in New Zealand so if you're curious but not sure then I recommend you go for it!

There will be Haiku and Haibun Master Classes by US haijin Jim Kacian, and workshops by Owen Bullock (Haiku as Performance), Dr Lawrence Marceau (Haiku, Haibun & Everyday Things), Tony Beyer (Better English Haiku & Tanka) and Sandra Simpson (Introduction to Renku).

Also on the programme is a trip to the Haiku Pathway in Katikati and the prize-giving of the bi-annual Katikati Haiku Contest.

You can find all the information at the HFA 2012 website here.

Cicada Song

cicada song

replaces the heavy traffic

of home

Haiku and photographs © Kirsten Cliff 2011

From Spider's Strand in Lynx: A Journal for Linking Poets

(scroll down to find Spider's Strand: a linked haiku verse with Patricia Prime, Catherine Mair, Margaret Beverland, Steve Cordery, Owen Bullock, Sandra Simpson, George Swede and myself) 

The Start Of My Tanka Journey

These were my first two published tanka, appearing in Valley Micropress Vol.13 Iss.3 (April, 2010). They were written after Owen Bullock did a tanka talk at the Christmas do of the then Papamoa Poets group. The subject matter is very Kiwi summer.
_____________________________________________________

after the gypsy fair

seeing summer

in a flowering pōhutukawa

the smell of snow

drifts into my mind

Pōhutukawa tree, affectionaly known as New Zealand's
Christmas tree. Photo by Kirsten Cliff, Papamoa Beach.

plaza Christmas tree

decorated with starfish

and jandals

I automatically look

for a pair my size

______________________________________________________

Klostar Ivanic International Haiku Contest - FREE entry!

The Klostar Ivanic International Haiku Contest is my submission for this week (that's week 16 of 2011). I entered for the first time in 2009, but took a break in 2010 due to illness, and am pleased to get back to it this year. Here's all the details:

Klostar Ivanic International Haiku Contest

Organised by the Tourist Community of Klostar Ivanic, Croatia,

and Three Rivers Haiku Association.

Entry is FREE

Cash prizes totalling $US100

Deadline: May 31, 2011

Limit of 3 haiku which must contain "nature and man as part of it".

Results on the internet by November 1.

Send entries by email with the subject line "For the contest",

with haiku in the body of the email to:

dvrozic (at) optinet (dot) hr

Or by post (include addressed envelope with 1 IRC for results) to:

Haiku Association Three Rivers,

Kolodvorska 44,

10310 Ivanic Grad,

Croatia.

In 2010 New Zealander's did very well, with Pat Prime receiving Third equal, Catherine Mair receiving an Honourable Mention, and Margaret Beverland and Owen Bullock both receiving Choice of Haiku placings. I'm very pleased with the haiku I submitted and hope I can live up to the New Zealand standard!

What is Tanka?

This description by Yoel Hoffmann in his book Japanese Death Poems:

Most tanka contain two poetic images. The first is taken from nature; the second, which may proceed, follow, or be woven into the first, is a kind of meditative complement to the nature image. Tanka produce a certain dreamlike effect, presenting images of reality without that definite quality of "realness" often possessed by photographs or drawings, as if the images proceeded directly from the mind of the dreamer. The tanka poet may be likened to a person holding two mirrors in his hand, one reflecting a scene from nature, the other reflecting himself as he holds the first mirror. The tanka thus provides a look at nature, but it regards the observer of nature as well.

I found this description within Richard von Sturmer's judge's report of the 3rd Kokako Tanka Competition, in Kokako 14 (April, 2011) and had to share it. It's the philosophy of tanka writing that I was taught in a workshop with Owen Bullock in December 2009. I've been writing tanka ever since.

The 6th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition

Closing date: 31st October 2011

First Prize NZ$200

Second and Third Place prizes of NZ$50 each

Judge: Owen Bullock

Send entries to:

The Kokako Haiku Competition,

Patricia Prime, co-editor

42 Flanshaw Road

Te Atatu South

Auckland 0610

New Zealand

Please make cheques out to Kokako

Overseas entrants may send cash at their own risk

Conditions of entry

1. Haiku must be previously unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
2. Entry fee is NZ$5 for every 3 haiku; for overseas entries, US$1 per haiku, cheques acceptable or cash at your own risk.
3. Send two copies of each haiku, or group of haiku, with your name and address on one copy only.
4. 1st, 2nd & 3rd haiku, 3 Highly Commended and 3 Commended entries will be published in Kokako 16 (April 2012).
5. Winners will be notified by email or mail.
6. Any theme is acceptable.

Any queries, email: pprime (at) ihug (dot) co (dot) nz



Breaking News of the Haiku Variety

Finally some good news!

I found out on Friday (while visiting Haiku NewZ) that one of my haiku was selected for evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2010, edited by Jim Kacian and the Red Moon Editorial Staff (Red Moon Press, 2011).

The exciting thing about appearing in the annual Red Moon Anthology is that you don't submit your haiku: it is chosen from the pool of haiku that is published internationally each year.

This from Johnye Strickland in her review of the 2008 anthology:

The key to the selection process for all works nominated by the editorial staff was that they should be considered to be "of exceptional skill." Those making the final cut had to receive approval of the editor-in-chief, as well as votes from five of the ten staff editors (50%). My PhD dissertation didn't receive this much scrutiny.

And these thoughts from Michael Dylan Welch in his 2000 essay A Survey of Today’s English-Language Haiku Activity:

Also of note in the last four years are annual anthologies published by Red Moon Press, primarily edited by Jim Kacian, that aim to collect the very best haiku poems published each year. Though the selection process remains flawed and the editor includes too much of his own work, this annual publication is beginning to serve a very useful purpose in attempting to collect the best haiku in English each year.

I am pleased as punch that I made the grade and promptly bought two copies of evolution from the Red Moon Press website.

My haiku sits alongside other New Zealand haiku poets: Ernest J Berry, Owen Bullock and Andre Surridge. And here it is: 

coming home
to an empty house
so many stars

Copyright © Kirsten Cliff
First published in Kokako 12 (April, 2010)

Frogpond Submissions Open

Frogpond, the Journal of the Haiku Society of America, is open for submissions for it's Winter Issue. The cut off date is November 15. See full submission guidelines here. And you can connect with the HSA on Facebook.

I had the pleasure of meeting, and writing with, editor George Swede in 2009 when he came to New Zealand. A linked haiku verse that was written over lunch with George Swede, Catherine Mair, Pat Prime, Owen Bullock, Steve Cordery, Margaret Beverland, Sandra Simpson and myself is published in Lynx (scroll down to find 'Spider's Strand').

Bravado - now with haikai pages!

Bravado 18 is out now with the first, of what will be a regular feature, of four haikai pages in the magazine's centre.

This issue's haikai pages were edited by Owen Bullock, and showcase haiku by Nola Borrell (2), Sandra Simpson (3), Tony Beyer (1), Barbara Strang (3), Patricia Prime (1) and karen peterson butterworth (2). There is also tanka from Andre Surridge (1), Tony Beyer (2) and karen peterson butterworth (1).

The next editor of Bravado's haikai pages is Barbara Strang, recent editor of moments in the whirlwind, the New Zealand Poetry Society's 2009 anthology. I look forward to seeing who and what appears in the mix!

Bravado 18 has an interview by me of cover artist Timo Rännäli, my last as Bravado's 'roving arts reporter'. You can see more of Timo's work here: http://timodesign.co.nz/

A photograph of mine also appears in Bravado's pages - angel - the colour version of which won 2nd prize in the 2009 Creative Te Puke Forum Photography Competition, man-made structures category.