Each year, WA Poets publishes an anthology of selected entries from their Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest. The judge of this year’s contest, Peter Jeffery OAM, also chose the poems for inclusion in the anthology. As always, the anthology includes a wonderful selection of poems on the subject of love in all its forms. Love… Read More Poetry d’Amour 2021
The Australian ten dollar note features images of the poets: A. B. “Banjo” Patterson (1864-1941) and Dame Mary Gilmore (1865-1962). Mary Gilmore (born Cameron) led an interesting life and her adventures provide the background for my poem Beneath The Southern Cross which was published in the most recent issue of the literary journal, Westerly. In… Read More Beneath The Southern Cross
The online journal, Authora Australis, evolved from the Sydney-based Authora Australis Writing Group run by Roger Patulny. The journal presents poetry, short fiction and artwork from Australia and around the world. The journal’s editors, Roger Patulny, Carlo Caponecchia and Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad recently released Issue 3 of Authora Australis. Each issue is themed, with the… Read More Authora Australis: Issue 3
Dick Pettit, from Denmark, contacted me last year asking whether I would like to collaborate with him in writing a haiku shuffle. We subsequently wrote a poem titled Harbour Beacon which was published earlier this year in the New Zealand journal, Kokako, #34. As you can see in my previous posts about the haiku shuffle… Read More Harbour Beacon
The Poetic City Festival ran through March and April 2021 at a multitude of venues in and around Canberra. Together with a band of willing helpers, local poet Jacqui Malins put together an extensive program of poetry readings, workshops, installations and other events. The Festival opened on 15 March with the launch of Issue 8… Read More Poetic City 2021: Canberra
The New Zealand Poetry Society’s most recent poetry anthology was released in December 2020. Titled Haumi ē! Hui ē! Tāiki ē! Stay Well Here, and edited by Raewyn Alexander, the anthology contains poems from the 2020 New Zealand International Poetry Competition. The Open section of the competition attracted 727 entries and was judged by Johanna… Read More New Zealand Poetry Competition: 2020
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
This year has been a year like no other. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, with some 40 million people having contracted the virus to date and in excess of 1 million people having died. In April 2020, as the pandemic spread from country to country, Muse-Pie Press sought to create a world-wide community… Read More Pandemic: A Community Poem
Gregory Piko 