Poet Profile

Ken Jones

Ken Jones was an accomplished haiku poet whose professional career was in higher education. He was co-editor of the quarterly Contemporary Haibun Online and contributed regularly to UK and US haiku magazines, as well as being represented in British and American anthologies. He was a founder of the UK Network of Socially Engaged Buddhists, and was a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. His website is being maintained at http://www.kenjoneszen.com/home.

Awards and Other Honors: The Sasakawa Prize for Original Contributions in the Field of Haikai. (2001); First place in the 2005 English Language Haibun Contest; Joint First Place in the British Haiku Society's Haibun Contest (2011); his book Bog Cotton was shortlisted for The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award (2012).

Books Published: Pilgrim Foxes: Haiku and Haiku Prose, co-authored with Jim Norton and Sean O'Connor (Pilgrim Press, 2001); Arrow of Stones (British Haiku Society, 2002); Stallion's Crag (Iron Press, 2003); The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action (2003); The Parsley Bed (Pilgrim Press, 2006); Stone Leeks (Pilgrim Press, 2009); Bog Cotton (Alba Publishing, 2012).

Zen —
in the raked gravel
a paw mark

Freezing wind
the dancing clothes
stiffen into people

Bereft --
for the mirror alone
I comb my hair

Nightfall
the brightly lit interiors
of other people’s lives

Bad day ahead
I spread honey
to the far corners of my toast

On the swing
back and forth
this short life

"It all depends"
the jackdaw
cocks his head

Aging address book
the living squeezed
between the dead

Under a mackerel sky
the running tide
of my ebbing life

Sitting in my winter house
a springless Jack
in a fragile box

Credits: "Zen" - The Parsley Bed (Pilgrim Press, 2006); "Bereft" – Blithe Spirit; "Bad day ahead" - Presence 15; "It all depends" - Presence 34 (2008); "Under a mackerel sky" - Blithe Spirit 15:3 (2005); "Freezing wind" – Frogpond 31:1 (2008); "Nightfall" - Presence 11 - "On the swing" – Modern Haiku 40:1 (2009); "Aging address book" - Blithe Spirit 11:1 (2001); " Sitting in my winter house" – Blithe Spirit .