Yay! Kokako 20 Out Now!

The new issue of Kokako arrived in my letterbox this morning sporting a lovely cover by Ron Moss, "Summer Dreams". Issue 21, due out in September, will have one of my images as cover art, which I'm super excited about!

Back to this issue, here's one of my haiku:

autumn cool his features in the firelight

We haven't started lighting fires yet this autumn, but the mornings and nights are definitely getting pretty chilly!

Here's a tanka of mine that was printed incorrectly in the previous issue, and has been kindly reprinted in KK20:

a rush of tears

at our airport parting . . .

home, I search my luggage

for a last love note

that isn't there

Lot's of great haiku, tanka, haibun and more in Kokako, as well as the details for The 5th Kokako Tanka Competition. Email co-editor Pat Prime for more information. There is also a review of A New Resonance 8. A reminder that copies can be purchased from me - just leave me a message! :-)

100 Tanka by 100 Poets

Cover & inside art by Ron Moss

Yesterday I received my copy of 100 Tanka by 100 Poets of Australia & New Zealand. It's beautiful!

My tanka included in this fine collection is:

planning out wedding
in the hospital chapel
while I have chemo
I am not dying
but a part of me is

Published in Presence #44 and Take Five vol 4


 It was also mentioned in the introduction by Kiyoko Ogawa (co-editor 2010-2011 Poerty Nippon 1967-2011) who wrote:

"Kirsten Cliff's tanka of 'our wedding / in the hospital chapel' sounds sad, yet her shadowed love must be all the more pure and profound."

This fine collection is edited by Amelia Fieldon and Beverley George of Australia and Pat Prime of New Zealand.

Reading through the tanka last night I was blown away. So good, so moving, so delicate. I'm over the moon to be included within the pages. And dare I say that tanka is edging ahead of haiku as my first love . . .

When I told Him . . .

I was lucky enough to have this tanka made into a haiga by Ron Moss, who chooses a handful of haiku and tanka from each issue of AHG to illustrate. You can view it at the bottom of the page here.
 

the way he didn't
even look at me
when I told him…
midsummer & still unripe
this tangle of wild blackberries 

A Hundred Gourds 2:2, March 2013

Poems in Kokako 14



Cover art (c) copyright Ron Moss

holy-day

his sleepy smile

across the sheets

homeward bound

the car driven fast

round winding roads

a feeling in my stomach

that's not car sickness

at his gravestone

beside the buddha

a bottle of lager

Copyright © 2011 Kirsten Cliff