Poet Profile

Mark Gilfillan

I am a writer of haiku, senyru and the occasional tanka. I am also a performance and page poet. My stage name is "The Stokey Bard", this was a jokey name that was given to me when I started out and now it seems to have stuck. The Stokey part relates to Stoke Newington in North London, where I was residing at the time. However I am originally from Sheffield, South Yorkshire. I have had haiku published in several volumes of The British Haiku Society's quarterly journal Blithe Spirit and in Sound, the 2014 edition of the British Haiku Society Member's Anthology.

through mangroves
a Mississippi steamboat
churning up the night

seasons
set to change
amber light

old photos found
in the kitchen drawer -
last shot just curtains

a squadron of geese
fly over
winter's victory

she's out late again
surrounding the candle
morning's waxed tears

Credits: “through mangroves” - Blithe Spirit 24:3 (2014); “old photos found” - Blithe Spirit 24:4 (2014); “she's out late again” - Blithe Spirit 25:2 (2015); “seasons” - Blithe Spirit 25:3 (2015); “a squadron of geese” - Sound (British Haiku Society Members Anthology, 2014).