New Zealand's National Poetry Day & a question for YOU!

Well, today's the day! Events are happening all around the country. For a list take a look here. But what I want to know is:   

How do you get your daily dose of haiku?

I read from Martin Lucas' Stepping Stones: a way into haiku daily, and have been doing so for maybe a year now. (I must have missed a few daily readings because there's only a years worth in there!). I also check in to the on-line haiku journal DailyHaiku each day and most days also now see what the Per Diem: Daily Haiku is on The Haiku Foundation home page (mid way down the page on the right hand side.)

My haiku reading also comes from Facebook posts and blogs I'm subscribed to. And then when new journals arrive in my letterbox I'll read them on a daily basis until I'm sated. Lastly, as I've been involved in writing quite a few rengay and renku this year, I'm almost daily reading haiku related to my latest linking verse. So much fun! :)

Enjoy National Poetry Day New Zealand! And enjoy your daily dose of haiku, where ever you are! :)

Competition Results

At the beginning of this month I was busy judging my first haiku competition - The Haiku My Photo Challenge devised and run by Christine L. Villa over at her blog Blosson Rain. It wasn't an easy task! But a great learning experience for me and a joy to get intimate with some really good haiku. You can read my judge's comments and see the winning haiku as a haiga here.

Chrissi ran this contest to thank the on-line haiku community for giving her so much support and encouragement. While you're visiting Blosson Rain please send out a prayer for Chrissi. Her husband is currently battling a brain tumour and they both need our love and support. Kia kaha, Chrissi!

The other competition that closed at the beginning of this month was Kathy Uyen Nguyen's NaPoWriMo Book Giveaway over on her blog Origami Lotus Poetry. It was judged by Kathy and Peter Newton, who's book she was giving away. My rengay writing buddy Cara Holman was the runner-up, and you can see the winning poems and judge's comments here.

I'm hoping to run a tanka competition here at Swimming in Lines of Haiku in my birthday month of July. I have a great prize for the winner! I just hope my health lets me do it. Watch this space! :)

My Most Beautiful Thing

...Is those few minutes at day's end when the mountain range glows orange, lilac, pink or gold in the glory of the setting sun. I speak to the mountains every day from somewhere deep inside of me and each evening, just for a moment, I know my prayers have been heard when I watch Nature's gift of illumination.

  

(I live in the valley of the majestic Kaimai Range in Waikato, New Zealand. My husband and I have a beautiful view of them from our home, however this photo was taken by hubby from just down the road. Please click on the image to see it larger.)

Today I'm taking part in the My Most Beautiful Thing Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things - inspired by Fiona Robyn's new novel, The Most Beautiful Thing. Bloggers from all over the world are taking part and writing or posting pictures of their most beautiful things today. Find out more here and see everyone else's blog posts here. 

A Beautiful Blogsplash

What is your most beautiful thing?

Is it your one year old niece's golden smile? The pale pink peony buds in your garden? A silver ring given to you by your grandmother? Your shiny red Vespa scooter? Is your most beautiful thing a place or a moment? Is it a philosophy or a value?

On Tuesday the 24th of April, we're organising a Blogsplash to celebrate beautiful things, inspired by Fiona Robyn's new novel, 'The Most Beautiful Thing'.

We're inviting people from all over the world to blog, tweet & write about their own most beautiful thing.

You could post a photo or write a prose piece about your most beautiful thing. You could write a small stone or show us a piece of artwork you've made in honour of your most beautiful thing. It's completely up to you. You could be extravagant and post a whole series of your most beautiful things.
 
We'll make a directory of everyone who's taking part here, sending new visitors to your blog, and we'll also re-post our favourite entries on this blog over the following month.

If you're interested in taking part, email Fiona with 'blogsplash' as the title and she'll send you more details. You can get thinking and set up your blog post as soon as you like.

I have no idea what I'm going to do (may have be more than one post!) but I hope you'll join me next week :)

Splish splash!

Happy April Fool's Day!

April 1st - when Daylight Saving ends in New Zealand and [Inter]National Poetry Month begins!

I'm far too exhausted in every possible way to do something daily on my blog this month. But I'm very excited to have been invited by three poet friends - Angie Werren, Margaret Dornaus and Cara Holman - to appear on their respective blogs with haiku, tanka, haibun, haiga and a few words about my poetic life. Tune in to Angie's feathers, Margaret's Haiku-doodle and Cara's Prose Posies this April to read lots of great poetry and be inspired!

Below is the April page of the calendar I made for my family. The haiku was first published in the taste of nashi - New Zealand Haiku (Windrift, 2008) and the photo was taken in the backyard of my old home in Papamoa last year. Remember it's autumn in New Zealand so monarch butterflies are in abundance right now! (Click on photo to see larger image.)

April 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

Speaking of New Zealand haiku - The Haiku Foundation's 'Per Diem: Daily Haiku' feature this month is being edited by award-winning Kiwi haijin Sandra Simpson and features haiku from Aotearoa (NZ). Check in to THF homepage daily to see a fresh poem on the lower right-hand side of your screen, including one of mine. Enjoy! :)

all hallow's eve haiga

Appeared in Aubrie Cox's Tea with Trolls Halloween blog post at Yay Words!

(click image to view larger)

Mushroom Haikai Collecting

Melissa Allen put a call out on her blog, Red Dragonfly, last month for mushroom haiku, tanka and haiga. She was planning to gather the haikai in an illustrated post dedicated to the humble mushroom. I answered the call with what turned out to be the only tanka -

winter cemetery:
careful to tread between
the headstones
& these small clusters
of white mushrooms




Tanka and photograph © Kirsten Cliff 2011
Read the full Mushroom Harvest post here and delight your senses!

Half-Way Through My 2011 Challenge

In the first week of January, buoyed by the excitement of writing a small stone a day during A River of Stones, I decided to set myself the challenge of submitting to a poetry publication or competition every week in 2011.

It was my way of getting back out into the world through poetry, after a year of writing taking a backseat to four cycles of chemotherapy and over four months of hospital stays. While I did resume writing regularly in the later part of 2010 (when I could finally say I was home! and felt the need to process the whirlwind of events that began with my diagnosis of leukaemia on March 2nd) I wasn't submitting my work, instead using it purely to process my journey.

It's now week 26 of 2011 and I've faithfully kept to my goal; sometimes submitting to more than one outlet a week. I've never before been waiting on so many editors' verdicts and competition results: currently awaiting replies from seven publications (on-line and in print), two anthologies and five competitions. Phew!

It's opened me up to submitting to several publications/competitions I had never submitted/entered before, and a few places that I'd been meaning to send haiku too for a couple of years, but had chickened out! So, lots of firsts coming out, including:

• my first time submitting tanka to and appearing in Eucalypt
• my first time submitting to, and first ever haiga submission, appearing in Notes from the Gean
• my first time submitting senryu to and appearing in Prune Juice

Hopefully many more to come!

I've also really enjoyed sharing my poetry on Swimming in Lines of Haiku and through Facebook by participating in A River of Stones, NaHaiWriMo and NaPoWriMo. These month-long poetry challenges have lead to me connecting up with several writers/poets/haijins on Facebook, blogs and the Writing Our Way Home community. It's great to be introduced to new publications, be exposed to new ideas, and be encouraged by this thriving and supportive online community. I'm reading, writing and sharing more poetry than ever before and it feels good! Thanks for being part of it :)

Inside the Mind of a Haiku Competition Judge

Joanna Preston is the 2011 judge of the adult section of the New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition. Over at her blog, A Dark Feathered Art, she is posting about her experience and it all makes for very interesting reading.

So far she has posted -

• ‘An island entire’ – judging the NZPS 2011 Haiku comp (check out the comments section on this one where she gives a great explanation to a reader's question - what is haiku?)
• Whittling soberly – the preliminary deliberations
• Dawn, reprieve, and mercy – the preliminary deliberations continue

I look forward to reading more as the weeks progress; all judging must be done by June 30th. And no, it hasn't put me off wanting to take on the task myself someday! :)

Joanna is co-editor of Kokako - New Zealand's only specialist haiku and related forms journal. She has edited the NZPS annual anthology three times; this is her first time judging for the NZPS. You can check out her books here.