The Chosen One

I am delighted (especially after a terrible migraine yesterday) to find out that one of my haiku has been chosen for the 2013 Red Moon Anthology, which collects the best English-language haiku published each year and puts them together in book form.

true north
the eucalyptus sheds
a length of bark 

The Heron's Nest Volume XV, Number 4: December 2013

I haven't had any haiku chosen for this annual anthology since 2010, when the below appeared within its pages:

coming home

to an empty house

so many stars

First published in Kokako 12 (April 2010) 

But between 2010 and 2013 I was lucky enough to have work represented in other anthologies that also strive to gather the best haikai published in that calendar year.

2012 saw my haibun 'hair ties' appear in Contemporary Haibun 14, and in 2011 three of my tanka were honoured to be amongst those in the forth and final volume of the Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka series. 

So I'm travelling well, and in good company. Let's see what 2014 brings . . .

 

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 . . .

Anthologised

My poetry has appeared in five anthologies this year, which is a record for me. I thought I'd do a round up of them here as part of my end of year review, with thanks to all the editors who've published my work in 2012:

I have one haiku in The Heron's Nest, Volume XIII 2011, which is a collection of all the haiku from all the issues of The Heron's Nest that appeared on-line in 2011. This was my first time appearing in this annual anthology, and, to date, is the only haiku I've ever had published in The Heron's Nest. Copies can be bought from this link (either cheques to the postal address, or scroll to the bottom of the page for a PayPal option). You can read my haiku here.

Three of my tanka were chosen for the final volume of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4. Again, this was my first time appearing in a Take Five anthology, and I'm honoured that my work was chosen from the eighteen thousand tanka read by the editorial team. You can purchase a copy here, or through Amazon. Read the tanka of mine that are included here.

A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems is the second anthology to come from the River of Stones January small stone challenge (now renamed Mindful Writing Challenge for 2013-- Join us!). I have two small stones in this collection, which can be read here. You can buy a copy in print or Kindle from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

When one of my haiku won a Highly Commended placing in this years New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition I automatically made it into the annual anthology, Building a time machine. It was a bonus to have another haiku chosen for the collection by the editor. Read my two haiku here, and purchase your own copy here.

Last but not least, is the Haiku News Anthology 2009-2011, which is a collection of haiku, senryu and tanka chosen from the first three years of this unique on-line newspaper. I have one haiku in the collection that you can read here. Copies can be bought from here.

I can recommend all of these anthologies as Christmas gifts for yourself or the creative people in your life. My work is but a small part of these fine collections that comprise some of the best that short form poetry has to offer. Get into it!

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.

My 2nd Cancerversary

Yep, today is the day that I was diagnosed with leukaemia two years ago. I'm still in remission (yay!) and I have about five months of maintenance treatment left (double yay!) so almost at the end of it all now. If you haven't already, you can read a bit about my leukaemia journey here on the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand website (don't worry, there are no gory details!).

I wanted to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of my treatment and recovery over the past two years: my family and friends, my doctors and nurses, my fellow writers, bloggers, Facebookers and haiku poets. I greatly appreciate your support and encouragement, your kind words and friendship :) You all have made this journey a much easier one to get through. THANK YOU!



          as I'm driven

          to the Cancer Centre

          an old man

          sits on his porch

          playing the guitar 

Ribbons 7:4 Winter 2011

Writing haiku and tanka over the past two years has also helped me enormously in processing my journey through leukaemia. I was so pleased to get an email yesterday telling me that I had four tanka short-listed for this year's Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4, all of which are part of my cancer collection. (And yes, it was one of my secret 2011 goals to get in this anthology:) Maybe this time next year I will have my book (with the working title, Patient Property) ready and published: my third anniversary would be the perfect time to launch it!