Poet Profile

Maeve O'Sullivan

Maeve O’Sullivan’s haiku and poems have been widely published and anthologized over the last twenty years. Double Rainbow (with Kim Richardson) was published by Alba Publishing in 2005, as was her first solo collection of haiku poetry, Initial Response, in 2011. Both books were very well-received by readers and critics and, now out of print, have been added to The Haiku Foundation's digital library archive. Maeve is a member of the British Haiku Society, and a founder member of Haiku Ireland. She conducts haiku workshops with adults and children.

Awards and Other Honors: Commendation in Haiku and Music, the International Haiku Contest of the Bulgarian Haiku Club (2006); Haiku Museum of Literature Award, Blithe Spirit 20:4 (December 2010); First Prize, Haiku Ireland quarterly kukai competition (2010 and 2011).

Books Published: Double Rainbow [with Kim Richardson] (Alba Publishing, 2005); Initial Response (Alba Publishing, 2011) (www.albapublishing.com). A new collection of haiku, A Train Hurtles West, is forthcoming from Alba Publishing in 2015.

Basque flower market:
an orange hibiscus
trumpets its presence

cloudy afternoon…
my sweet pea flowers
becoming peas

May breeze
blowing this field of dandelions
to one o’clock

such stillness:
this clifftop castle
its stringed instruments

her bony back
against my palm –
Mother’s Day

this corn cooking
in the time it takes
to sing a song

Credits: "Basque flower market" - seed packets (bottle rockets press, 2010); Initial Response (Alba Publishing, 2011); "May breeze" - A Hundred Gourds 2:4 (September 2013); "her bony back" - Winner, Haiku Ireland Kukai #20 (2010); evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-language Haiku 2010 (Red Moon Press, 2011); Initial Response (Alba Publishing, 2011); "cloudy afternoon" - A Hundred Gourds 2:2 (March 2013); "such stillness" - Poetry Ireland Review 109 (2013); "this corn cooking" - Blithe Spirit 23:3 (August 2013), then selected by its editor as one of ten haiku to be anthologised in Frogpond 37:1 (March 2014).