Poet Profile

Kirsten Cliff Elliot

Kirsten Cliff Elliot fell for haiku in 2007 and has been writing and publishing them, along with other Japanese short-form poems, ever since. Some of her haiku have been prize-winning, many have appeared in overseas journals and anthologies, and she was a featured poet in A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2013). She was previously editor of the haikai section of a fine line, the magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society and judge of the Junior Section of the NZPS International Haiku Competition in 2013. Despite living with the disability fibromyalgia, Kirsten keeps turning lemons into lemonade. She has several writing projects on the go, including blogging with her husband at ‘Help! My husband has Asperger’s: Our life on the spectrum’s edge’, and her first poetry collection is forthcoming from Velvet Dusk Publishing. She is currently working in a high school library and studying towards a Bachelor of Arts in Information and Library Studies. You can find her on Twitter: @bookfuelled

Awards and Other Honors: Highly Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2008); 3rd, Katikati Haiku Pathway Contest (2008); Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2009); Honorable Mention, Haiku International Association Haiku Contest (2009); Third Place, Katikati Haiku Pathway Contest (2010). Some of her haiku were selected to appear in evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2010 (Red Moon Press, 2011); the taste of nashi NZ haiku anthology (Windrift, 2008); Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2011); Highly Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2012); Fifth Place and Commended, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2013); her haiku were selected to appear in A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2013); and NZ Poetry Society annual anthologies (2008-2013).

heat shimmer
a heron drinks
from the horse trough

first winter's day
I slip into
his gumboots

sun-soaked sky . . .
seeking out the wisdom
of beach glass

drifting evensong
pine needles cloistered
in fresh snow

day moon
hoof prints litter
the beach track

coming home
to an empty house
so many stars

Credits: "heat shimmer" - The Heron's Nest XV:1 (March 2013); "sun-soaked sky" - A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (eds. Jim Kacian & Dee Evetts, Red Moon Press, 2013); " day moon" - bravado 14 (2009); 3rd, Katikati Haiku Pathway Contest (2008); "first winter's day" - The Heron's Nest XIII:3 (September 2011); A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (eds. Jim Kacian & Dee Evetts, Red Moon Press, 2013); Now This: Contemporary Poems of Renewals, Beginnings and Firsts (ed. Robert Epstein, Wasteland Press, 2013); "drifting evensong" - 5th Prize, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition (2013); Given an ordinary stone (ed. Owen Bullock, NZPS Anthology, 2013); "coming home" - Kokako 12 (April 2010); evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku (ed. Jim Kacian, Red Moon Press, 2011); A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (eds. Jim Kacian & Dee Evetts, Red Moon Press, 2013).