Poet Profile

Ernest J. Berry

Ernest J Berry, after a decade of shepherding in Poverty Bay and the Canterbury high country, spent several years in business in Auckland before retiring to a wilderness beach in Mexico. There he rediscovered his childhood love of [short] poetry. He un-retired in 1993 and settled in Picton where he adopted haiku as a retirement project. He has been deeply involved with the haiku movement worldwide ever since. Two of his many haiku books have been honoured by The Haiku Society of America and he has long lost count of his successes in haiku competitions. After founding Picton Poets in 1994, Ernie has taught haiku in workshop, secondary schools, poetry meetings and special-interest groups.

Awards and Other Honors: Life member: New Zealand Poetry Society. . . British Haiku Society; recipient of two Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America, plus a few hundred haiku contest awards.

Books Published: Forgotten War [with Jerry Kilbride] (Post Pressed, Flaxton, Australia, 2000); a raindrop, a flowing river (G Matthews, Blenheim, NZ 1998).

lull in the fighting
i crush a butterfly
for no reason

treeless plain
a vulture lands
on its shadow

unknown soldier
a steel helmet
on his cross

tank -
a daffodil
holds it up

dusk
the darkness
inside me

spring morning
making eye contact
with a body

Credits: All selections are from Forgotten War [with Jerry Kilbride] (Post Pressed, Flaxton, Australia, 2000).