Poet Profile

Beverley George

Beverley George was President of the Australian Haiku Society (HaikuOz) [www.haikuoz.org] from 2006-2010. She was the editor/publisher of Yellow Moon (issues 9-20, 2000-2006), which offered haibun, haiku, tanka, haiku sequences, tanka sequences, kasen renga, as well as western poetry categories. She is the founder/editor of Eucalypt, Australia’s first journal for tanka only. She was an invited speaker at the 3rd Haiku Pacific Rim Conference, in Matsuyama Japan in 2007 and attended Haiku Aotearoa in 2008. In 2009 she convened the 4th Haiku Pacific Rim Conference in Terrigal New South Wales, attended by 57 full-time delegates from seven countries and by many local day delegates. For the past five years she has been on the judging panel of The Seashells Game, convened by Martin Lucas, editor of Presence [UK].

Awards and Other Honors: 1st prize: The Third Ashiya International Festa [Japan] (2004); 1st prize: The British Haiku Society JW Hackett Award (2003); 1st prize: The World Haiku Club Fourth New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Double Kukai (2003/2004); 1st prize: TheWorld Haiku Club R H Blyth Award for Haibun (2004); 2nd prize: The Tanka Society of America’s Annual International Contest (2005); 1st prize and an Honourable Mention: The Tanka Society of America’s Annual International Contest (2006); 1st prize : [English section] Chajin [Paris] International Haiku Competition (2007); 2nd prize: Kokako International Tanka Competition [New Zealand] (January 2009); 1st prize: Genkissu! World Wide Hekinan Haiku Contest (2009); 2nd prize: 6th International Tanka Festival Tanka Competition (2009); An Inspirational Award of Judges in the Second Ashiya International Haiku Festa (2002); an Honourable Mention in the Fifth Suruga Baika Literary Festival (2003) and in the Seventh Suruga Baika Literary Festival (2005); an Honourable Mention in the Kaji Aso International Haiku competition (2006); a prize award in the World Wide Hekinan Haiku Contest (2006); 2nd place Kukai at 3rd Haiku Pacific Rim Conference judged by Ehime Newspaper (2008); commended Klostar Ivanic Haiku Contest (2008); Highly commended and commended Katikati Haiku Pathway contest (2010); 2nd Place in the Kaji Aso Studio International Haiku awards and in the Foreign Language Category 16th Kusamakura International Haiku Competition 2011; haiku and haibun voted by readers ‘best-of-issue’ in Presence [UK] #22 and #26 respectively; 12 haiku published in an interactive computer game, Haiku Journey, by Hot Lava [US] (2006).     Radio interviews: 15 haiku read on ABC Radio National June 21, 2008 (repeated 2010); Radio interview Hobart ABC (statewide) February 13, 2009. Subject: bushfire haiku; Radio interview Central Coast ABC September 15, 2009, Subject: 4th Haiku Pacific Rim Conference.

Books Published: Sneeze Power [a book for children, illustrated by Luke Jurevicius] (Blake Education, 2006); empty garden [tanka] (Yellow Moon, 2006); Spinifex [haiku] (Pardalote Press, 2006); Four Tellings: A Haibun Sequence [a collaborative haibun-renga by Joanna Preston, Owen Bullock, Beverley George & Jeffrey Harpeng] (Teneriffe Qld: Post Pressed, 2009); Walking into Autumn [a haiku collaboration with John Bird, illustrated by Carl Ripphausen] (Eucalypt, 2009); Drawing God and Other Pastimes [poetry] (Picaro Press, 2009); The Preposterous Frog [a book for children, illustrated by Tumi K Steyn] (Kenilworth Tales, 2010).

spring market
we buy blue beads
for the bowerbird

lengthening shadow
above her eggs the hen’s heart
beats against my arm

widow’s cottage—
rosemary edges closer
to the door

train tunnel—
the sudden intimacy
of mirrored faces

children’s zoo
the one black-faced sheep
gets all the pats

first frost
the birds that stay
the birds that go

Credits: "spring market" - Presence #31 (2007); "widow’s cottage" - The Heron’s Nest VI:3 (2004); A New Resonance 4: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2005); Spinifex (Pardalote Press, 2006); "children’s zoo" - The Heron’s Nest IX:1 (2007); "lengthening shadow" - 1st place, British Haiku Society James W. Hackett Award (2003); A New Resonance 4: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2005); Spinifex (Pardalote Press, 2006); "train tunnel" - Best of Issue, Presence #22; A New Resonance 4: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2005); Spinifex (Pardalote Press, 2006); "first frost" - The Heron’s Nest 11:3 (2009); Special Mention, The Heron's Nest Readers' Choice Awards – Volume XI 2009.