 Kala RameshBorn: in Chennai, India Resides: Pune, India E-mail: kalaramesh8 (at) gmail (dot) com Kala comes from an extremely artistic and culturally rich South Indian Tamil family and believes, as her father is fond of saying, that "the soil needs to be fertile for the plant to bloom". She also feels that she owes this poetic streak in her to her mother. A proud mother of two young adults and a daughter-in-law, Kala is keen to see children in India take to haiku and its genres. In addition, she is the deputy editor-in-chief of The World Haiku Review; is a member of the editorial team of Modern English Tanka Press’s new anthology, Take Five: The Best Contemporary Tanka 2008/2009/2010, is on the panel of the literary e-journal Muse India, for the areas of haiku and short verse [http://www.museindia.com/feature17.asp]; and is the in-house editor for Katha, New Delhi for the book Seeking the Beloved: The Poetry of Shah Abdul Latif (2005). Since April 2009, she has acted as Katha’s Poetry Editor and, in this capacity, edited an e-book of haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, and haiga encompassing the work of 35 Indian haiku poets--the first such book to come from an Indian publishing house! Currently, she is also the lead poet (sabaki) of a Kasen renku with six other international renkujin: experimenting, discovering, and incorporating the traditional renku with the Rasa Theory of India (which consists of nine rasas or emotions, namely erotic, comic, sorrow, anger, valour, fear, disgust, wonder and tranquillity, traditionally known as the nava rasas). Kala heads the World Haiku Club in India. As director, she organised the World Haiku Club Meeting at Pune in December 2006. The four-day 9th World Haiku Festival she organized at Bangalore in February 2008 was sponsored jointly by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji and Sri Ratan Tata Trust. Awards and Other Honors: Coming to haiku only recently (2005), Kala Ramesh writes haiku, tanka, senryu, haibun, renku and one-line haiku, and her work has appeared in leading e-zines and anthologies all over the world. She has won several prestigious awards, including: First runner-up, The Heron's Nest Readers' Choice Poet of the Year Award and Readers' Choice Poem of the Year Award, and her haiku were featured in the Eighth Annual Valentine Awards issue of The Heron's Nest (Volume VIII, 2006); her work was selected for inclusion in big sky: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2006 (Red Moon Press, 2007); Sakura Award/Haiku: Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (2006); Fifth Place, 4th Annual Poets' Choice Kukai (free format entry, 2006); First Place, 5th Annual Poet’s Choice Kukai (2007); Third Prize, Mainichi Daily News Annual Selection (2007); Commended, British Haiku Society's James W. Hackett International Haiku Award (2007); Merit Certificate for haibun, The Muse Poetry Contest (2008); Honourable Mention, Mainichi Daily News Annual Selection (2008); Honourable Mention, 9th Mainichi Haiku contest (2009); four haiku were selected for the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar Contest (2009); Solo exhibition in Three Lights Gallery [http: www.threelightsgallery.com/kala.html](Spring 2009); Featured Haiku Poet with 25 haiku showcased: Simply Haiku (November 2009) [http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n4/haiku/feature.html]; Winner, Tanka Splendor Award (2009); an exclusive interview on tanka online live from January to July 2010 [http://www.tankaonline.com]; Featured haijin: moonset (Spring/Summer, 2008); Third Place/Neo-Classical, World Haiku Review (May 2008); and Third place / Shintai (New Style), World Haiku Review (May 2008).
Credits: [first publication]: “spring breeze” - The Heron’s Nest VIII:2 (2006); “lotus viewing” - Magnapoets (November 2009); “receding wave” - Honorable Mention, 9th Mainichi Haiku Contest International Section (2009); “the pause” - Among the Lilies: A White Lotus Anthology (Spring 2008); "howling wind" – Commended, British Haiku Society, James W. Hackett International Haiku Award (2007); “new year’s eve” - moonset (Spring/Summer 2008). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
