The Haiku Foundation Forums

Quote from: sandra on March 22, 2020, 10:17:38 PM
Beautiful exhibition, well worth spending some of your lockdown/self-isolation/quarantine time on!

Thanks Sandra!  :)

warm regards,
Alan

Congratulations Lorraine!

The museum selected the haiku out of 800 plus poems myself and Karen collated.

I'd say it's definitely been read by a lot of people as there was quite a Twitter storm yesterday in particular.  :)

Karen is going to start answering the emails we've received, and this question of publication has been raised. Karen will also be bringing out a second newsletter, which will touch on this, as well as a new exciting project in these strange self-isolation times.

It's quite a hefty publication credit in a great way, as this doesn't often happen. Kate Newnham, the Senior Curator, is a Japanese expert, and visited Japan in February this year. Phew, yes, no sign of the virus anywhere but in poor China at that time.

I have to say it's a great haikai verse!

The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is a highly respected museum in the UK:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_City_Museum_and_Art_Gallery

Famous for various things including Banksy exhibition, where the queues just got longer and longer, and was highly innovative. And also the shrouds put over the animals who are extinct or about to become extinct. I bet many animals are getting a breather now that humans cannot range as freely currently.

A working title for a publication credit might be:

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Masters of Japanese Prints: Haiku
Online Exhibition (Launched on Unesco's World Poetry Day 2020)

or just:

Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Masters of Japanese Prints (2020)

Yes, it was great being commissioned by the museum, and an honor indeed!

warm regards,
Alan

Quote from: Lorraine Pester on March 22, 2020, 08:13:49 PM
Alan,

Beautiful writings to accompany the beautiful prints.

I'm so excited that one of mine was chosen.

Which begs the question: is my haiku considered published? It's in the public.

Such a wonderful thing for you and Karen as well!

Lorraine

The Bristol Museum & Art Gallery has made their selection of haiku and tanka for their online Japanese prints exhibition!


In autumn 2019, poets from around the world responded to a call for haiku, a form of short Japanese poetry, based on Japanese prints in the collection at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. People sent in more than 800 beautiful, thought-provoking poems from thirty countries worldwide.

Many poems were inspired by woodblock prints in our popular 2018-2019 exhibition series, Masters of Japanese Prints.

The project was arranged by haiku poets Alan Summers and Karen Hoy of creative writing consultancy Call of the Page. The call for poems was linked with a haiku workshop delivered at the museum with Call of the Page and with writer and producer Bertel Martin of City Chameleon.

Huge thanks to Alan, Karen and Bertel as well as to all the poets who took part. You are bringing the world together through poetry.

Why not try writing a haiku or other poem based on Bristol's collections?

Web link: https://exhibitions.bristolmuseums.org.uk/japanese-prints/haikus/

eBooks by Proletaria:

Working with Demons by Hifsa Ashraf
nothing to explain by Eva Limbach
Glint by Alan Summers
painting birch by Michael O'Brien

Web link:
https://proletaria.org/2020/03/08/e-chapbooks-march-2020-march-2021/

NOTE:
Hifsa Ashraf's collection WORKING WITH DEMONS is about:
(Workplace Islamophobia)

I really hope the virus crisis stops thoughtless and reprehensible bigotry and racism.

A spiffing video has been published on Facebook from our lovely 500 year old charity about the Fringe Festival in Chippenham.

I designed gently subversive haiku-inspired street signs with Charlie Graham-May, and Karen Hoy led an amazing typewriting event which became lovingly emotional. A typewritten letter is something special and personal isn't it?

Enjoy the Fringe Festival mini-video that includes subversive haiku inspired street signs (myself and Charlie Graham-May); Karen Hoy at the typewriter, and a wealth of fun and very British Fringiness!

Posted at Call of the Page FB page (not sure there's a direct video link):
https://www.facebook.com/CallofthePage/

Enjoy!

warm regards,
Alan

Delighted to have my second ePamphlet/Chapbook out!

The first was the joint eBook called The Comfort of Crows.

This time it's a solo collection and called "Glint":
https://proletaria730964817.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/glint-1.pdf




Enjoy the other eBook too at:
https://proletaria.org/2020/02/23/e-chapbooks-march-2020-march-2021/

Please do click likes for us on that page, and there'll be more ebooks in the near future.

warm regards,
Alan

Fun, except someone didn't read their Head Office emails and we had two very big security officers flank us in one place. Thank goodness we both had proof of legal permission, and one guard remembered the email.

I've shared on Facebook the photos taken by Charlie the artist (and painter) and designer of the street signs at Call of the Page: https://www.facebook.com/CallofthePage/

It was great that myself and Charlie launched the festival!

warm regards,
Alan

Quote from: Seaview (Marion Clarke) on February 18, 2020, 03:06:59 AM
What fun!

If there's any UK haiku poets who might be able to visit Chippenham around 27th, 28th or 29th February 2020, there'll be a number of warm, funny, slightly subversive haiku street signs around central town!

We'd love you to take photos, make them funny ones too if you like!

Local companies Call of the Page and Rag and Bone Arts CIC, have worked together to present a visual poetry display throughout the town centre. Look out for Haiku poems through the town centre and join in by making up your own Haiku and sharing them via #ChipHaiku on Twitter!

You can see one of the more 'conventional' ones here:
https://www.facebook.com/CallofthePage/

warm regards,
Alan

Great!  :D

Yes, the collaboration over 18 months or more, though various versions and different poems meant the styles converged. I think Vanessa Proctor said it was a similar experience for her collaboration too!  8)

warm regards,
Alan

Quote from: Seaview on January 22, 2020, 05:34:10 AM

Quote from: AlanSummers on January 21, 2020, 06:53:27 AM
It was a year and a half of close collaboration, so that we became incredibly in sync. Even the publisher could not tell always who wrote which poem.

A very rewarding partnership and just proves that a lot of hard toil and sweat and focus pays off!  8)

Alan Summers

Oddly enough, I was trying to guess which of you had written certain poems — almost impossible ... although I already knew "comfort of crows", of course!  :)

marion

Hi Marion,

Thank you so much for helping this anthology in honor of Rachel!


This came in earlier from Jacob Salzer:

Hello Everyone!

1) The proof copy of Half A Rainbow is in the mail as we speak! : )

2) The Half A Rainbow Anthology website is also near complete! 

Here is the link:  https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/halfarainbowhaiku   

For our anthology website, let me know what you think! I'm open to constructive comments and/or suggestions.

3) Our anthology flyer is almost done!

I'll let everyone know when our anthology can be bought on Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites. It should be available to buy sometime in February, or early March at the latest.

Half A Rainbow will be available to buy on Lulu (technically you can buy it now, but I think it's wise to wait until I approve the proof copy for us to make sure there are no printing/format issues).

In short, at this point, we are fueling for the flight of Half A Rainbow. Without a doubt, Rachel is onboard with her seatbelt on, as well as everyone else in the Haiku Nook G+ community. We do not know our destination, but we are performing maintenance checks and checking the landing gear should we need to touch ground and refuel on this very long flight together. : )

Sincerely,

Jacob / Jack

Quote from: Seaview on January 22, 2020, 05:46:27 AM
Alan, I have just received a request for permission from Rachel's parents to use a photo for this collection of her work, so it looks as though it is going ahead! The proceeds will go to research into autoimmune disease at Leeds Cares - the Leeds Clinical Immunology Research Fund, where donations in lieu of flowers for Rachel's funeral also went, and for which her mother tirelessly fund-raised during her life. Will pass on news as I get it...

marion

It was a year and a half of close collaboration, so that we became incredibly in sync. Even the publisher could not tell always who wrote which poem.

A very rewarding partnership and just proves that a lot of hard toil and sweat and focus pays off!  8)

Alan Summers

Just got my copy from Rick, and it's beautifully produced, with the addition of B&W photos.

It's one of those must-have books.

Alan Summers
Call of the Page

The Comfort of Crows
Hifsa Ashraf and Alan Summers
(Velvet Dusk Publishing, December 2019)
https://www.velvetduskpublishing.com/uploads/3/7/5/9/37595991/the_comfort_of_crows_ebook.pdf

https://www.velvetduskpublishing.com

https://area17.blogspot.com/2019/12/end-of-year-comfort-of-crows-haiku.html

Look forward to people replying to this question!

Yes, the USA introduced more and more emotion into their haiku, while perhaps British (England, Wales, Scotland) might be less subjective, with much less emotion. 

Japanese haiku (1890s onwards) is varied, with multiple schools, from basic shasei (stage 1) through stages 2 & 3. Many are similar to hokku and other haikai verses pre-1890s and would include a classic, traditional, or authorised kigo. Kigo often require to be "re-authorised" yearly, so new kigo might be trialed through the year in journals, and then there is the anticipation to see whether the major saijiki (kigo almanacs) incorporate them. Sometimes a kigo published one year is dropped the following year or following years. The seasonal aspect to haiku in Japan, through designated kigo, is still a main feature of haiku.

Other schools in Japan might either do ultra-contemporary, gendai, non-kigo, or a mix. Folklore and mythology are of course strong in Japan and their language systems (plural) allow for much more content and whole quotes from poems etc...

Eastern European haiku were famous for explicating the wars when Yugoslavia broke up, with intense realism rarely seen before, even in anti-WWII haiku from Japan.

Check out hadaka: all that comprises life:
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/forum_sm/index.php?topic=2130.0

With the internet, Twitter, and Facebook, for starters, people from various countries would expand their approaches. African haiku is often interesting because they focus on their national or personal culture:
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/files/original/45bbf38ca68bb214b04e4476bdb0b9a2.pdf

I've witnessed from India over three decades, where they struggled with moving aside from their world literature supreme epic poetries, into 'pocket' verse such as haiku and senryu. Dr Angelee Deodhar and K. Ramesh (male) were frontrunners and slowly slowly Indian haiku became world-beating and world-winning haiku dominating global haiku.

Now for the last few years it's been African haiku, and I was involved years ago with the Kenyan wave of haiku, not always seen globally, but despite all the odds, coming through. Now Ghana, Nigeria, and other African countries are strong!

Who knows what country from Africa, or an entirely different continent is next?  And of course most of us only read haiku in English, and not Romance languages (France, Italy etc...).

There'll be a wave of Urdu poetry, from Pakistan mostly, coming soon. Stay tuned!   8)


Perhaps parts of the U.K. such as England, which is quieter place for haiku in comparison with Wales and Northern Ireland? Scotland also had strong haiku writers who have either passed away, or stepped down.

As Marion Clarke is from Northern Ireland, I'd love to hear more about that part of Ireland!

Alan

Quote from: XYZ on December 31, 2019, 05:18:41 AM
I would appreciate insights on the differences in haiku of different countries. For example, some of Japanese haiku have a surreal tone which is not present in the haiku in United States. The haiku in United States focus on emotional resonance while Eastern European haiku have an incline towards the mystic and nature. I've also observed that Indian haiku are social in nature. I would appreciate your views on this.

The Notes from the Gean back catalog:
https://geantreepress.com/catalog