Poet Profile

Judy Kendall

Having lived and worked in Kanazawa Japan for about seven years, I now lecture as a Reader in English and Creative Writing at Salford University, Greater Manchester, UK. I am an active experimental visual poet, writer of haiku, haibun and renga, and an academic with interest in visual text, poetry, translation and Japanese aesthetics. I have published four collections of poetry with Cinnamon Press, which contain some haiku and a number of poems in the haiku mode, and articles on haiku in Blithe Spirit and Presence. My haiku are published in a number of journals, websites and other locations, including The Haiku Calendar 2016, Presence, Blithe Spirit, Shamrock, Haiku Quarterly and still. I was part of the translation team for Miyaji Eiko's bilingual collection of haiku Suiko / The Water Jar in Japan, and wrote several linked haiku sequences for Alec Finlay's online white peak | dark peak renga project http://www.whitepeak-darkpeak.co.uk/

Awards and Other Honors: I have won awards / runner up in a number of poetry competitions: Presence Best of Issue, the Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar contest, Financial Times haiku contest, and still. One of my haiku was published in the prestigious Forward Collection of Best Single Poems of 2010 and also Best Single Poems of the First Decade of the Twentieth Century.

Books Published: Poetry collections that include haiku and poems in haiku mode: The Drier The Brighter (Cinnamon Press, 2007); Joy Change (Cinnamon Press, 2010); Climbing Postcards (Cinnamon Press, 2012); and insatiable carrot (Cinnamon Press, 2015).

petals torn by the wind
how cold it is
waiting for the dawn

in balmy stillness
blackberries tumble
at the touch

he broke off a piece
of the castle parapet - 
my spring leaving gift

evening wind
the flutter and dive
of sand martins

taken apart, the cabbage
becomes all heart
and leaves

late night cuppa 
I remove the slug 
from the kettle

Credits: "petals torn by the wind" - Presence 16 (2002); selected for best of first 25 issues for Presence 25 (2005); Joy Change (Cinnamon Press, 2010); "he broke off a piece" - Presence 17 (2002); "taken apart, the cabbage" - insatiable carrot (Cinnamon Press, 2015); published as part of "Incredible Edible Todmorden Edible Poetry" at  http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/blogs/?pg=2&c=edible-poetry; "in balmy stillness" - Presence 51 [reached Best of Issue list]; "evening wind" - Presence 51 (2014); The Haiku Calendar 2016 (Snapshot Press, 2015); "late night cuppa" - Presence 47 (2012).