The Haiku Foundation Forums

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Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts Vol.1., No.2., August 2013
http://issuu.com/lijla/docs/lijlaaugust2013

A journal that features creative work by internationally acclaimed and emerging writers/artists like Peter Daniels, Vanessa Gebbie, John MacKenna, Jonathan Taylor, Ashley Stokes, Gopikrishnan Kottoor, Murali Sivaramakrishnan, Nabina Das, Kevin Kadwallender, Archana Mishra, Gina Gibson and many more.

There is also a special feature that focuses on haiku and related poetic forms, guest edited very effectively by our advisory board member Alan Summers.

Runner Up in the Best Magazine category of Saboteur Awards 2013, London. We got a reader comment that goes 'Lakeview is a breath of fresh air, no clichés and obvious choices. Here to stay.' It is indeed a great achievement to get an international recognition soon after the publication of the first issue of our journal.

Jose Varghese
Chief Editor
August 2013

Jose Varghese is Assistant Professor of English at Sacred Heart College in Kochi, India. His collection of poems 'Silver Painted Gandhi and Other Poems' was listed in Grace Cavalieri's Best Reading for Fall 2009, in Montserrat Review.

His stories are accepted for publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, UK and Unthology, UK, and a poem by him is accepted for the Red Squirrel Anthology 10RED, UK. He has done a Faber Writing Course in London under Marcel Theroux and Hanif Kureishi and writes for Thresholds: Home of the International Short Story Forum, Chichester University, UK.

He is invited for the 13th International Conference on the Short Story in English to be held at Vienna in July 2014. He was the winner in River Muse 2013 Spring Poetry Contest, USA, and a runner up in the Salt Prize (UK) 2012. His forthcoming book Silent Woman and Other Stories is slated for publication in 2013.




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Sense of Place and Identity a new series, starts at Area 17.

If anyone else is interested in being part of this series please do email me, with a subject line of Sense of Place and Identity at: alan@withwords.org.uk

Amos White is our first Guest Blogger with Haiku Poetry and the Sense of Place:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/amos-white-guest-blogger-haiku-poetry.html

warm regards,

Alan


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World Monuments Fund Statement:

The ties between poems and monuments are both ancient and contemporary,
abstract and concrete. This past April, in conjunction with National
Poetry Month in the United States, hundreds joined World Monuments Fund in
exploring the special relationship between monuments and poetry by
submitting entries to our second annual haiku contest.

Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to all who participated,
especially our judge, Alan Summers, a recipient of the Japan Times Award
and the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto Peace Museum Award for haiku.

n.b. As the results are not yet on the front webpage, here's a link to get there, do please look around too. :-)


WEBLINK:
The World Monuments Fund 2013 Haiku Contest Winners
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/announcing-world-monuments-fund-2013.html





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A Cup of Snow

Hortensia Anderson, New York, New York
John E. Carley, Lancashire, England (sabaki)
Alan Summers, b. London, England
Carole MacRury, Point Roberts, Washington
Michael Dylan Welch, Sammamish, Washington

In memory of Hortensia Anderson
June 24, 1959 – May 21, 2012

http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/renku-poetry-cup-of-snow-one-of.html

Frogpond 36.2 • 2012
http://www.hsa-haiku.org/frogpond/2013-issue36-2/renku.html

kind regards,

Alan

A brand new collection I can heartily recommend is
noise of our origin,
haiku by Dietmar Tauchner: http://www.redmoonpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=181



"Haiku often contain yūgen, a signature of mystery and poignancy outside the feeling of being sad and lonely. Add the fact the 21st century becomes ever the world of science then haiku is a different kind of instruction manual, its secrets unearthing the reader's creativity, and so indeed it needs to address the fresh century. Noise of our Origin is an attempt to combine the old with the new, and take its readers forward. A wonderful collection!" —Alan Summers

"An ambidextrous poet, equally effective in German and English, Dietmar Tauchner is an energetic contributor to the cause of haiku as world literature. Noise of our Origin presents the dreams and reality of a night that rarely comes closer to daylight than dawn or dusk. Confabulating the source of words and cosmic noise, it is like a radio tuned purposefully between stations and interpreted with a discerning ear." — John Stevenson

ISBN: 978-1-936848-27-0
Pages: 98
Size: 4.25" x 6.5"
Binding: perfect softbound [/img]

"Haiku often contain yūgen, a signature of mystery and poignancy outside the feeling of being sad and lonely. Add the fact the 21st century becomes ever the world of science then haiku is a different kind of instruction manual, its secrets unearthing the reader's creativity, and so indeed it needs to address the fresh century. Noise of our Origin is an attempt to combine the old with the new, and take its readers forward. A wonderful collection!" —Alan Summers

"An ambidextrous poet, equally effective in German and English, Dietmar Tauchner is an energetic contributor to the cause of haiku as world literature. Noise of our Origin presents the dreams and reality of a night that rarely comes closer to daylight than dawn or dusk. Confabulating the source of words and cosmic noise, it is like a radio tuned purposefully between stations and interpreted with a discerning ear." — John Stevenson

ISBN: 978-1-936848-27-0
Pages: 98
Size: 4.25" x 6.5"
Binding: perfect softbound

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about senryu which I hope this helps to correct over time.

The invitation is for posters to select what they believe is a good example of senryu, one that shows depth, and give a brief explanation behind their choice.

Alan Summers



Prune Juice magazine said:
"I would highly like to recommend that everyone out there interested in senryu and its history, read the article by Ce Rosenow, "Written in the Face of Adversity:The Senryu Tradition in America," in the WInter-Spring 2013 issue of Modern Haiku.  This is an excellently written, well researched article by Ms. Rosenow and clearly shows how senryu can go well beyond light humor and satire.  As stated in her conclusion, "When its focus centers on human activities during times of great difficulty, senryu offers moment by moment reiterations of human persistence in the face of adversity."
http://prunejuice.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/recommended-reading/

Prune Juice is a journal of contemporary senryu, kyoka and haiga published exclusively online, three times a year. It is edited by Terri French and Bruce Boynton: http://prunejuice.wordpress.com/


Although the Japanese poetic form, senryu, began more than two-and-a-half centuries ago as an often bawdy form of verse focusing on human nature, it developed into a form that accommodated many aspects of the human experience. In the early twentieth century, Japanese immigrants in the United States began using senryu to document daily human activities in response to periods of cultural upheaval. In doing so, they instigated a tradition that continues in English-language senryu to this day. Multiple traditions of English-language haikai [body of literature], including not only senryu but haiku and tanka, exist in America, and varied traditions of senryu certainly have been sustained in order to address the vicissitudes of human experience. The tradition founded by Japanese immigrants, however, remains one of the most vital traditions in the American senryu of the past century.

Written in the Face of Adversity: The Senryu Tradition in America by Ce Rosenow
Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Oregon's Clark Honors College USA.

Senryu are short aftertastes like amuse-gueule, or small arms visual gunfire, and potent as longer satirical poems. The examples in this book create shredded shooting gallery targets within the bull's-eye area, and will help re-invigorate senryu and give a boost to the confidence of new and established writers alike.

Its bittersweet, ironic, poignant, truthful, painfully revealing verses will delight the taste buds of readers as I tend to think honesty has a higher register in senryu, if well done.  Even if we don't want to see the honesty of  senryu verse, it's there as checks and balances in our own lives: It feeds a need of a different place than haiku can accomplish.

Alan Summers
Pieces of Her Mind: Women Find Their Voice in Centuries-Old Forms
Omega Publications (2012) ISBN-10: 0985035064  ISBN-13: 978-0985035068

"Pieces of Her Mind: Women Find Their Voice in Centuries-Old Forms" is the first anthology published exclusively by contemporary English Language women poets of three types of short Japanese poetic forms (senryu, kyoka and haiga):
http://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Her-Mind-Multiple-Authors/dp/0985035064/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356115931&sr=1-1&keywords=pieces+of+her+mind


In Pre-Islamic poetry there were lampoons denigrating other tribes called hijāʾ (satire of enemies). This genre of Arabic satirical poetry was introduced by the Afro-Arab author al-Jahiz in the 9th century where he introduced biting humor in the developing subjects of  what came be to be known as the subjects of anthropology, sociology and psychology. Well-written senryu verse cover these areas in all its sub-genres enveloping politics in particular, and family life and everything in-between where needs must. R.H. Blyth said one of the properties of senryu should be to expose pretence, and this is where senryu is master or mistress, take for example:

good ending–
too bad it didn't start
sooner in the play

Joan E. Stern

Politics has been where senryu should stand center, but not in its political views of course:

political jokes
are very embarrassing
they get elected

Karyn Stockwell

Brutally honest when it comes to our busy don't make our lives even more difficult existences:

dead body
litters doorway
bloody doormat

Deborah C. Kammer

The bluntness of not including articles to make the syntax smoother further showcases how we brush aside even a fellow human's demise, if it's in our home area.

Senryu can be as soft as a loving parent's caress, at times, when it comes to our children:

first day of pre-school
I tie his shoestrings
ever so slowly

Connie Chiechi

Senryu is coming back into our lives, and we should welcome it for the wake up call that it is, where all too easily a casual thoughtlessness becomes a callous lifestyle choice.

Sometimes we need shock treatment in the shape of a highly focused ruthless focused sense of humor blow to the head, for a moment, and then resume our life, after we've been pulled up abruptly for a few seconds by something thought-provoking.

The above senryu from the above book Pieces of Her Mind.

Lampoons to Senryu, Alan Summers 2012-2013

Bones Journal issue 2:
http://www.bonesjournal.com

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The Bamboo Hut
On-line journal of contemporary english language tanka
http://thebamboohut.weebly.com/


The Bamboo Hut is a new on-line journal featuring contemporary english language tanka which will be published three times a year.Please refer to the "Submissions" page for details of how and when to submit and publication dates: http://thebamboohut.weebly.com/submissions.html



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Writers & Lovers Cafe!

We are looking for short poetry and prose:
http://www.writers-and-lovers.com/writers-and-lovers-cafe.html

Submission Guidelines

All genres accepted. We particularly like haiku, senryu, tanka, and all types of short, Japan-derived or imagist poems. We enjoy hybrid genres, especially haibun and tanka prose. As for straight fiction, we enjoy flash, or skinny fiction, and the 55-word novels. We love visual work of all types. We consider personal and academic essays.

We accept both e-mail and snail-mail submissions. Paste your work directly into the email. Please send all email submissions to the following address:

editor@writers-and-lovers.com                                                                           


If submitting the traditional way, please address your manila envelope to:


Writers & Lovers Studio
Holiday Centre
11F, No.489, Tian-fu Rd.
Hsinchu 30058
TAIWAN


Please send 5 poems. Fiction better be under 100 words, or we consider it "wordy." Essays should be under 1,000 words, but query if you think we have reason to consider your longer work.

Please include a brief bio.

We acquire First Rights, or one-time rights. Copyright reverts back to author/artist after publication. 


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Call Mother a Lonely Field though a memoir, is as rich as the best haibun.  I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about haibun, and also serious about place and tone, and internal worlds staying on beyond the shelf life of the external world of and its own time.

Call Mother a Lonely Field mines the emotional archaeology of family, home and language, our attempts to break their tethers, and the refuge we take within them. In this memoir, Liam Carson confronts the complex relationship between a son thinking in English, a father dreaming in Irish 'in a room just off the reality I knew', and a mother who, after raising five children through Irish, is no longer comfortable speaking it in the violent reality of 1970s Belfast.

We experience the author's childhood through still-present echoes of the Second World War, dystopian science fiction, American comic books and punk. At the same time he explores how language, literature and stories are transmitted ó bhéal go béal, from mouth to mouth. Only after years in London and Dublin and the deaths of his parents will he begin to heal his own fractured relationship with Irish through literature.

Against this background, Carson's rediscovery of Irish as a tearmann or sanctuary is a haunting testament to the potency of our own vanishing worlds, with implications reaching far beyond the experiences of one family or city.

Liam Carson is the director of the IMRAM Irish Language Literature Festival. His father, the late Liam Mac Carráin, was well known in Belfast as a postman, Irish-language activist, writer and much-loved storyteller.

weblinks:
http://www.hagsheadpress.com/ourtitles.html
http://www.serenbooks.com/book/call-mother-a-lonely-field/9781854115881


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Laughing To Myself

A collection of haiku and senryu by Tom Clausen, a favorite poet of many readers of haiku. Tom has been writing haiku for over twenty years and has enchanted readers with his very personal outlook on family, nature and living in this modern world. Tom opens his heart so that those who read his poems not only feel like they know him, but because his poems touch a universal chord readers also feel like they know themselves a bit better too.

before sleep
laughing to myself
           at myself

Since 1989, when Tom Clausen first came onto the haiku scene, he has been in the forefront of English language haiku, senryu, haibun and tanka.  Tom was a pioneer in the haiku movement that let haiku not only roam through the natural world, but let it into our cities, homes, and all other aspects of our modern world. No other haiku poet has so openly let the reader into his life and into his heart.  Tom, while retaining his individual voice,  manages to convey the aspiration and angst of all of us who live in this modern world and does so with a wry and whimsical smile. This collection which spans the entire 24 years of Tom's insightful, honest and often humorous poetry will give those who know Tom's work a chance to revisit old favorites and find gems they might haves missed and give those less familiar with Tom's work a chance to see why he is one of the most influential haiku and senryu poets of his generation.

bitter wind-
we circle our candles
for peace

Laughing To Myself
http://www.freefoodpress.com/page12.html

Checks:
http://www.freefoodpress.com/page4.html

Paypal:
http://www.freefoodpress.com/page13.html

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The World Monuments Fund Haiku Contest

World Monuments Fund invites entries for the second annual haiku contest.

FREE TO ENTER haiku contest: http://www.wmf.org/national-poetry-month


Submission

Submissions are accepted April 1-30, 2013. All haiku must be submitted through our online submission form.


Awards

First Prize, $100; Second Prize, $75; Third Prize, $50; and three semi-finalists.

All six winning haiku will be published on WMF's website.


Adjudication

Alan Summers runs With Words, a nonprofit that provides literature, education, and literacy projects, often based around Japanese literary genres. He is a recipient of the Japan Times Award and the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto Peace Museum Award for haiku.

He is a founding haiku editor for Bones, and serves as editor of haiku/haibun for the Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts. He has four haiku collections, the most recent being Does Fish-God Know, and has also co-edited haiku-based anthologies.

His haiku has appeared in 75 anthologies in fifteen languages, including Japanese, and has been printed in Japanese newspapers including Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, The Japan Times, and The Mie Times. A forthcoming work is Writing Poetry: the haiku way.


Submission details weblink:

There is an online submission to click onto:
http://www.wmf.org/get-involved/haiku-contest

online submission form:
http://www.wmf.org/get-involved/2013-haiku-contest






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This will be a place where published haiku can be posted, where personification and anthropomorphism can have been considered as successfully incorporated into a haiku poem.

I hope this will become a useful resource to newcomers coming to learn about haiku.

Alan Summers

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HAIKU - the holistic approach
The Week-end Residential Haiku Course with Alan Summers
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/haiku-holistic-approach-week-end.html

South East England, U.K.

Claridge House, Dormans Road, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6QH
Registered Charity no. 228102.

Telephone: 0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150

www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/breaks.php

The course has been filling up really nicely!

There's space for a few more cool people to come though!

Find out how haiku can do so much more for you than you know. 



HAIKU - the holistic approach
The Week-end Residential Haiku Course
with Alan Summers

Friday to Sunday April 5th - 7th 2013

A friendly inclusive course to find out what makes a haiku poem.

We'll look at how our experiences, both external and spiritual, can become haiku, and act as important records of our life.

Alongside learning about haiku, we'll also have a go at a new type of short poetry derived from Chinese puzzle-poems for fun.  Then we'll finish the course with the ever popular linked group verse renga as a memento of our weekend.

This weekend course will be held at Claridge House, a Victorian building with disabled access set in two acres of gardens in the Surrey countryside (England, U.K.).

Cost £190 per person
non residential option £109 for course and meals

Booking: 0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150

Email: welcome@claridgehousequaker.org.uk

Finding Claridge House:
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/find.php


Claridge House, Dormans Road, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6QH
Registered Charity no. 228102.

Telephone enquiries and booking:
0845 345 7281 or 01342 832 150

www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk
http://www.claridgehousequaker.org.uk/breaks.php


Previous courses at Claridge house:

    http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/purely-haiku-residential-course-at.html
    http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/purely-haiku-unique-uk-based.html
    http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/unique-residential-course-monday-friday.html
    http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/check-out-raku-firing-haiku-haibun.html

The very first course:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/new-residential-haiku-course.html


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Haiku poetry showcase by Alan Summers at Cornell University USA
http://tinyurl.com/CornellUniversityAlanSummers

Cornell University, Mann Library
Supporting learning and research in the life sciences, agriculture, human ecology and applied social sciences: http://mannlib.cornell.edu/

A month through March 2013 of haiku poems by Alan Summers
at Cornell University USA

Daily Haiku series created by Tom Clausen
http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/



woodfire
flickering in the silence
corralled horses

Alan Summers



Publications credits:
Modern Haiku vol. xxvi  no. 3 (1995); Moonlighting  (Intimations Pamphlet Series British Haiku Society Profile, 1996); sundog haiku journal: an australian year  (sunfast press 1997 reprinted 1998); California State Library - 1997; First Australian Haiku online Anthology (1999); First Australian Anthology (Paper Wasp 2000); haiku dreaming australia the best haiku & senryu relevant in and to australia (Australia 2006); The Crow Walk haibun (HAIKU HIKE, World Walks, Crossover UK 'Renewability' project 2006)); Stepping Stones:  a way into haiku  (British Haiku Society 2007)

Note by Tom Clausen about haiku:

"Haiku has consistently appealed to me as a means of centering, focusing, sharing, and responding to a life and world bent on excess.

As the layers of my own life have accumulated, I've often felt overwhelmed by both personal changes and the mass of news, information, and survival requirements that come with being human today.

Haiku are for me a way of honoring and celebrating simple yet profound relationships that awaken in us, with a gentle and silent inner touch, a spiritual relevance that adds meaning to our lives."
http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/about/


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I am pleased to announce that the 20 page Special Feature on haiku and other haikai has been increased to 30 pages, so there are a few more spaces.

Please send me your best work, and again these spaces will fill incredibly fast once the announcements via social media are released.

Alan


Great news, my Special Feature on Haiku has been increased from its original 20 pages to 30 pages, so please do send some work.


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HAIKU SUBMISSION DETAILS
=======================

A maxiumum of six haiku.

Haiku submission address:
"Alan Summers, Lakeview Journal" <haiku@dircon.co.uk>

Please put into the subject line of your email:
"Lakeview Journal haiku submission"


Alan Summers
Haiku Editor, Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts

o   website: http://lijla.weebly.com/index.html
o   subscribe: http://issuu.com/lijla/docs/feb2013
o   February issue: http://issuu.com/lijla/docs/feb2013#download



Due to the incredible response of haiku/haikai submissions to Lakeview Journal the haiku section of the journal is now closed.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me at:
"Alan Summers, Lakeview Journal" <haiku@dircon.co.uk>

kindest regards,

Alan Summers
Haiku Editor, Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts




Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts

I am fortunate to be able to offer a section within the journal to showcase haiku.

The next issue will be out in August 2013, and I look forward to submissions from February 16th.

A maxiumum of six haiku.

Haiku submission address:
"Alan Summers, Lakeview Journal" <haiku@dircon.co.uk>

Please put into the subject line of your email:
Lakeview Journal haiku submission


What I am looking for:
Previously unpublished haiku that lend a fresh and original approach to haikai literature.

I like haiku that are strong on place and identity, and mostly haiku that are not formulaic.

I am open to various approaches whether traditional (your definition); experimental; experiential; gendai; haiku with kigo and without seasonal reference.

The Kigo Lab Project
I am also interested in submissions to The Kigo Lab Project where fresh new approaches may be made in the experiment of certain well-known words and phrases within, or used by, the English language, which have potential into being utilised, even evolving, into kigo over time.  This is a long term personal project, and I'm aware that kigo outside Japan could take anything from decades to hundreds of years. If it's not started we will never find out if such a thing as a modern source of local/regional/national/global kigo can be made available for writers within the haikai genre.

I am not looking necessarily for nature poems, but haiku that successfully embrace today's culture and an awareness of where we come from.

Season words, and the Japanese kigo system, are not only derived from observations of nature, they can allude to a country's historical, cultural and literary past.

Kisetsu: The seasonal aspect of the vocabulary (kigo) and subject matter (kidai) of traditional tanka, renga, and haiku; a deep feeling for the passage of time, as known through the objects and events of the seasonal cycle.
William J. Higginson with Penny Harter, The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku, published by Kodansha International. Copyright (C) 1989 by William J. Higginson.

The current issue is now out, with an essay on gendai haiku by myself:
http://issuu.com/lijla/docs/feb2013#download

The next issue will be out in August 2013, and I look forward to submissions from February 16th

Alan Summers
Haiku Editor, Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts

The Feburary issue contains poems, short fiction, photography, essays, interviews and paintings by the following writers/artists – Hanif Kureishi, George Szirtes, Sudeep Sen, K Satchidanandan, Meena Alexander, Antonio Casella, Alan Summers, Michelle Cohen Corasanti, C.S. Jayaram, Jose Varghese, Ampat Koshy, Mohammad Zahid, Mariam Henna Naushad, Jude Lopez, Collins Justin Peter, Jesto Thankachan, Kirpal Gordon, Gerrard Williams, Bijay Biswal, Balbir Krishen, Abdul Salim, Ananya S Guha, Mike Keville, Indran Amirthanayagam, Sofiul Azam, Sunandan Roy Chowdhury, Michelle D'costa, Kulpreet Yadav, Nepa Noyal, Krishna Girish, Kalpana, Maria Issac, Hari Krishnan, Kalpana N.S., Reshma G.S., Sethu John, Naina Dey, Archana Kurup, Minu Varghese, Markus Sailor, Glenn Andrew Barr, Barry Charrman, Aishwarya and Rosemary Tom.

The editorial board consists of:
Jose Varghese (Chief Editor - SH College), Aravind R Nair (Associate Editor – SH College), Mariam Henna (Student Editor – SH College), Collins J Peter (Student Editor - SH College), Alan Summers (Advisory Board - London), Bill Ashcroft (Advisory Board - University of New South Wales, Australia), George Szirtes (Advisory Board - University of East Anglia, Norwich), Mel Ulm (Advisory Board - Canada), Rana Nayar (Advisory Board - Punjab University), Sanjukta Dasgupta (Advisory Board - University of Kolkata) and Sudeep Sen (Advisory Board - London).

Our editorial board members and contributors were either born or brought up in countries like India, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Hungary, Australia, United States of America, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, France, Sri Lanka, Peru, Bangladesh, Bahrain and Germany.

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EDIT REASON: The Summer issue is now due out in August.  This is because the first issue was originally planned for January 2013, but was delayed until Feburary 3rd due to the good problem of receiving a lot of good work in various genres.

I'm one of those poets (and as a haiku poet) who often gets filmed, or regularly does performances, not just a reading.   I see haiku as transmedia which I promoted when I ran Naked Haijin Productions back in the early 2000s before I founded With Words.

I just thought I'd share this image of what's behind the scenes:

Learning my lines:
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/reuters-international-news-photos-1314895172-slideshow/haiku-poet-alan-summers-rehearses-reading-jane-austens-photo-142741576.html

The live reading, streamed to America and Europe:
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/pictures/detail.dot?mediaInode=cf0b8751-ba45-48e3-861e-1fc82c21de6a

What's actually behind the scenes:
http://www.trust.org/dotAsset/8410e0b7-a8a5-49bd-a58b-b30997c4225e.jpg

photos by SUZANNE PLUNKETT/REUTERS


So when you see my presentation of Amazement of the Ordinary: Life through a haiku lens, there's a lot more going on then some of you would guess:
http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/5181

I'm a communicator because haiku poetry opens up vistas for people for all different reasons, be it self-belief, literacy, or enjoying a fine literature that can enrapture you, and continue to be a healthy challenge, for the rest of a person's life.

Alan

Alan

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TEDx talk by Alan Summers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE&feature=player_detailpage


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I was very gratified to see this haikai verse selected by Isamu Hashimoto for a weekend's viewing at Mainichi Daily News:


drifting rain 
my hundred autumn rooms 
to be alone

Alan Summers


This haikai verse had a long and fascinating discussion over at Facebook and was recognised as a hokku.  I'm tempted to initiate a renku around this in 2013 as a project.

Alan

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Does-Fish God Know (gendai haiku and experimental short verse) by Alan Summers, published by YTBN Press.
   

Available at Amazon USA; UK; and Europe:

USA:
http://www.amazon.com/Does-Fish-God-Know-Alan-Summers/dp/1479211044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359118146&sr=8-1&keywords=does+fish-god+know

U.K.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Does-Fish-God-Know-Alan-Summers/dp/1479211044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359120118&sr=8-1

Germany:
http://www.amazon.de/Does-Fish-God-Know-Alan-Summers/dp/1479211044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359120302&sr=8-1

Spain:
http://www.amazon.es/Does-Fish-God-Know-Alan-Summers/dp/1479211044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359120433&sr=8-1

Italy:
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Does Fish-God Know [Paperback]
Alan Summers (Author)

Publisher: Yet To Be Named Free Press (October 15, 2012)

158 Pages

ISBN-10: 1479211044
ISBN-13: 978-1479211043


Modern western haiku written by a Japan Times award winning author. Poems that will bend your mind and tempt you to re-evaluate your sense of reality. A must for lovers of experimental short-verse poetry.

Brendan Slater, YTBN Free Press


Ah, out of the old pond and into the city!

Does the Fish-God know? And if, what is it he knows? He knows of life with its hard sides and gloomy shades as it is for the many people really subjected to reality. He knows that life is not all flowers and wonderful sunsets.

These are NEW haiku as they live and breathe on the back of tradition but are present in the world of the 21st century. Alan Summers makes use of the Western mind  and a Japanese tradition to show that haiku has a place in the modern world, and will still have one if we are ready to keep our minds open to every experience and influence that befalls a human.

A manifestation of gendai haiku that shows it's not a dream ...

Johannes S. H. Bjerg
International writer and artist writing in Danish & English. Author of  "Penguins/Pingviner" 2011"

Johannes has grown to be one of the most impressive new haiku practitioners:
http://www.cyberwit.net/authors/johannes-s-h-bjerg
http://www.saatchionline.com/Johannes
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/poet-details/?IDclient=868
http://tajmahalreview.com/poetryaward.htm



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