The results of the Irish Haiku Society’s 2020 international haiku competition are available here. First Prize was awarded to Canberra poet, Marietta McGregor, for her timeless nature poem: bracket fungusa fallen beech softensinto its future Marietta says the poem is the result of a visit to the Border Ranges National Park in New South Wales,… Read More 2020 Irish Haiku Competition
What better way to begin 2021 than with the release of my new book of haiku! This collection, titled breaking my journey, is published by Jim Kacian from Red Moon Press in the USA. Jim is a tireless supporter of haiku writers around the globe and I’m thrilled with the way the book has come… Read More breaking my journey
Robert Epstein’s collection, The Helping Hand Haiku Anthology, was published earlier in 2020 by Middle Island Press. Robert has brought together an extensive collection of haiku, senryu, tanka and haiga on the theme of care, kindness and helping others. As with most of Robert’s collections, the book commences with a thoughtful Preface. In this case,… Read More Helping Hand Haiku Anthology
Every day, The Haiku Foundation Home page features a different haiku at its top right hand corner. The poems for the October 2020 Per Diem were selected by Tasmanian poet, Lyn Reeves, and addressed the theme of ‘Sky’. As Lyn said in her introduction to the Sky haiku: “Constantly present and constantly changing, sky accompanies… Read More Haiku Foundation Per Diem: October 2020
Each spring, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival celebrates the Japanese tradition of flower viewing with a program of concerts, cultural events and The Big Picnic in Queen Elizabeth Park. Unfortunately, due to COVID, the 2020 program was curtailed with some events moving online and others being cancelled. Nevertheless, planning is underway for the 2021 Festival,… Read More 2020 Vancouver Haiku Invitational
There’s been some interest in the poems I’ve published using the haiku shuffle format, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to explain my thinking about this format a little more clearly. I’ve written on this topic in two previous posts (see links below). The first of these explained how the idea grew out of… Read More How To Haiku Shuffle
The Signature Haiku Anthology: Including Senryu and Tanka was published earlier this year by Middle Island Press. Editor, Robert Epstein, describes a signature poem as ‘a unique and authentic expression of one’s haiku spirit or sensibility’. Acknowledging that many of a writer’s poems reflect their poetic spirit, he argues a poet will often have one… Read More The Signature Haiku Anthology
The widely-read New Zealand journal, Kokako, publishes haiku, tanka, haibun and related forms. As usual, the most recent issue (#32) includes writing from New Zealand and around the world. This issue of Kokako includes a poem of mine titled, Night Sky, which is written in the form of a haiku shuffle. In an earlier post,… Read More Kokako #32: Night Sky
Gregory Piko 