April Calendar Page

My apologies to all of my readers out there for letting my blog fall silent this month. I have big plans in the works and they've taken up most of my creative time. But I thought I'd at least put up the April page of the calendar I did last year with my husband, for our friends and family. Enjoy!




April 2014 - Photo & Haiku by Kirsten Cliff (click on image to enlarge)

Some good news to share: the haiku I choose as the winner of the NZPS Haiku Competition (junior section) last year has been shortlisted for a Touchstone Award. I nominated this haiku by Harry Frentz and am delighted to see it's made the cut. You can read my judge's report here and find The Haiku Foundation shortlist here. Congratulations to all the shortlisters!

December Round-Up - Week 52: TICK!

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

• week forty-nine - submitted two haiku for the 2011 Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems
• AND I submitted my third set of ten haiku for DailyHaiku
• week fifty - submitted three tanka and two haiku to Aubrie Cox's New Year's Dragon blog post at Yay Words!, two haiku and two tanka accepted!
• AND submitted six haiku to The Heron's Nest, awaiting outcome
• week fifty-one - submitted one haiku to the Fujisan Haiku Competition (closes 20 January 2012)
• week fifty-two - submitted one haiga to the WHA Haiga Contest (first time submitting here)

And that's it. I've done it! For every week of 2011 I submitted a poem of some kind, some where :) Phew!

It's been a very rewarding year poetry-wise: not just because I reaped the benefits of so many submissions by being published much more, and much more widely, but because I also meet heaps of great haiku-folk through blogging and on Facebook, and through participating in a few PAD (poetry-a-day) challenges (small stones x2, NaHaiWriMo, NaPoWriMo) so that I'm now happily part of the on-line haiku community - a great place to be and to be part of :)

Thank YOU for being part of it with me through Swimming in Lines of Haiku. I'll be back next year with more poetry, and, knowing me, another challenge to be working towards...

Have safe and happy New Year's celebrations!