Resides: Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
E-mail: marietta (dot) mcgregor (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) au
A fourth-generation Tasmanian, Marietta McGregor is a retired botanist and science journalist who has lived in Canberra with her family for over four decades. Her honours degree in palynology included collecting peat core samples in the mountain heaths, lakes and bogs of her birth island, which she analysed for fossil pollen, affording insights into vegetational and climate history. She has been a garden designer, university tutor, editor, research observatory visits manager and research grant writer. A photography enthusiast and keen world traveller, she is a late-comer to haiku, which appealed to her for its close observation and sense of wonder at the world. As a nervous newbie, she was encouraged by Michael Dylan Welch to attend HNA 2015 in Schenectady, NY, and was made most welcome by the experienced poets there. Her work appears in international journals, has been featured on Japanese television, and has won awards in Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and the United States.
Awards and Other Honors:Awards and prizes – haiku: Fifth Setouchi Matsuyama Photo Haiku Contest, 2015, Excellence Award (First Place); Wild Plum Haiku Contest 2015, Honourable Mention; World Haiku Review June 2015, Zatsuei (Haiku of Merit), Neoclassical Haiku, and August 2017, Zatsuei, Shintai Haiku; Yuki Teikei Tokutomi Society Annual Contest 2015 and 2016, Honourable Mentions;
4th Japan-Russia Haiku Contest, English Language, Nov 2015, Honourable Mention; Irish Haiku Society 2015 International Haiku Competition, Honourable Mention; Martin Lucas Haiku Award 2015, Commendation; Best of The Mainichi Haiku in English 2016 (five haiku) and 2017 (two haiku); 27th and 29th International ITO EN Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest, 2016 and 2018, Merit Awards; 8th, 9th and 10th Yamadera Bashō Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest, 2016/17/18 – Selected Submissions Collection (two haiku in each);
Australian Haiku Society Inaugural Spring Kukai Haiga Contest 2016 (Ron Moss image) – First Place, Seasonal section. Awards and prizes – haibun: The Ten Millennium Tree, Samurai Haibun Contest 2015, Second Place;
Clear-felled, Ekphrastic Monthly Winner Folded Word March 2017, Pushcart Nominee for 2017;
Last Autumn Apples, British Haiku Awards, 2017 – Haibun, Honourable Mention;
Fake News, British Haiku Awards, 2017 – Haibun, Honourable Mention;
Way of Lilies, Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2018, An (Cottage) Prizewinner;
The Visitant, Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge March 2018, Rattle, Winner – image by Marion Clarke. Other honours: Mann Library Daily Haiku, Featured Poet February 2017 (28 poems), Cornell University, USA; Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, Ohio, USA, Four Seasons Haiku Path Autumn Section, October 2018; The Haiku Foundation Per Diem featured haiku (two poems), October 2018 and December 2018; NHK Haiku Masters, Japan, haiga featured in winners' selection, 2016/2017/2018; The Heron's Nest, 2017 Illustration Contest – selected image for back cover of collection; Matsuyama City Haiku Guidebook in English (featured haiku).
Books Published:Anthologies and Books: Behind the Tree Line - Wild Plum Anthology, 2015; Fire in the Treetops - Haiku North America Anthology 2015; The Edge - British Haiku Society Members' Anthology 2015; Poems to Wear Anthology, 2016; Wild Voices: an Anthology of Small Poems & Art by Women – Volume 1; Wildflower Press, 2016; Jumblebox - NaHaiWriMo Anthology, 2017; Earth Tones - Haiku North America Anthology 2017; Ekphrasis - British Haiku Society Members' Anthology 2017; Write Like Issa: an Issa How-to - by David G Lanoue, 2017; Designs on Me - #MeToo Anthology, 2018; Poetry Bridges - Canberra-Nara Anthology 2018; Best of Paper Lanterns Anthology - Sonic Boom, Yavanika Press 2018; Four Hundred and Two Snails - Haiku Society America Members' Anthology, 2018; Wild - British Haiku Society Members' Anthology 2018.
Selected Work
backlit by the morning star blackbird song
summer dusk
fishing boats set their nets
around the sun
graveside vigil
standing alone
in his rain
yellow eyes
the moon looks out
of a wolf
sweetness of spruce
a violin maker's door
opens to the street
shards of beach glass
she still doesn’t
see through him
Credits: „backlit” - tinywords #17.1, 2017; „summer dusk”- Fifth Setouchi Matsuyama Photo Haiku Contest; Excellence Award, 2015; „graveside vigil” - Presence #62, September 2018; „yellow eyes” - 29th ITO En Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest, 2018, Merit Award; „sweetness of spruce”- hedgerow #124, Summer 2018; „shards of beach glass” - Modern Haiku #47:2, 2016.
