2020 has been a year like no other in living memory. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world, causing disease and social distress across the globe. Amid the turmoil, Scott Mason has compiled a collection of haiku and related poetry titled: Gratitude in the Time of COVID-19: The Haiku Hecameron. The collection seeks to acknowledge… Read More Gratitude in the Time of COVID-19
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
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
Each year since 2015, the International Poetry Studies Institute at the University of Canberra has run the five-day poetry festival, Poetry on the Move. Normally, the festival includes workshops, panel discussions, poet interviews, symposium papers and, of course, poetry readings. Sadly, COVID-19 has meant Poetry on the Move cannot go ahead in its usual format… Read More Poetry on the Move: 2020
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
Gregory Piko 