Poet Profile

Gregory Piko

Gregory's haiku have been widely published in Australia and around the world. His writing has appeared in many anthologies including Haiku 21: an anthology of contemporary English-language haiku, A Vast Sky: An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku, Nest Feathers (selected haiku from The Heron's Nest), The Wonder Code, The Awakened One: Buddha-Themed Haiku from Around the World and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years.
Gregory served as Secretary of the Australian Haiku Society from 2010 to 2014.

Awards and Other Honors:

Gregory's awards include Second Prize in the 'Kusamakura' International Haiku Competition (Japan), a Touchstone Award from The Haiku Foundation (USA), an International Sakura Award in the Vancouver Haiku Invitational, and first prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society’s International Haiku Competition.

Books Published:

breaking my journey by Gregory Piko (Red Moon Press, 2020); Blowing Up Balloons: baby poems for parents, by Vanessa Proctor and Gregory Piko (Red Moon Press, 2017); Gregory was a featured poet in A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, edited by Jim Kacian and Dee Evetts (Red Moon Press, 2011); Gregory was co-editor with Dawn Bruce of Wind Over Water, an anthology of haiku and tanka by delegates to the Fourth Haiku Pacific Rim Conference (2009).

a frond uncurls newborn fingers

if someone asks
say I’m still writing . . .
the narrowing road

I risk showing
a little more of myself
hibiscus bud

a crow at dusk—
ink sinks deeper
into the page

another summer
the butterfly, still safe
under his steel pin

cold tea
in the tea cup
no more to say

Credits:

"a frond uncurls" - Paper Wasp 10:4 (2004); "I risk showing" - Bottle Rockets#20 (2009); A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, (Red Moon Press, 2011); "another summer" - Modern Haiku37:2 (2006); "if someone asks" - Modern Haiku 41.1 (2010); A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, (Red Moon Press, 2011); "a crow at dusk" - The Heron’s Nest XII:1 (2010); Touchstone Awards 2010 for Individual Poems (The Haiku Foundation, 2011); "cold tea" – The Heron’s Nest XII:1 (2010); Big Sky: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2006 (Red Moon Press 2007).