For several years, a group of haiku writers has been meeting at The Oaks Brasserie in Canberra. Set under stands of mature oak, cypress and other trees, the venue is perfect for the discussion of haiku and other Japanese forms of poetry. During 2021, our group decided it was time to publish an anthology of… Read More Haiku @ The Oaks Anthology
A new Per Diem poem appears every day at the top right corner of The Haiku Foundation Home page. Each poem is part of a monthly, themed collection created by a guest editor. As I noted in an earlier post (which can be found here), The Haiku Foundation kindly asked me to be guest editor… Read More Per Diem Archive: June 2020
Three Canberra poets presented their work at Manning Clark House (MCH) on Thursday 27 June 2019. MCH is a not-for-profit organisation supporting history, literature, culture and human rights. The house was formerly the home of eminent Australian historian, Professor Manning Clark (1915-1991). Clark’s great work was his six volume study, A History of Australia. Nowadays,… Read More Poetry at Manning Clark House
This year, 2018, marks the 25th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Canberra (Australia) and Nara (Japan). To celebrate the occasion, Saeko Ogi, Amelia Fielden and Noriko Tanaka have edited a collection of tanka and haiku by Australian and Japanese poets. The publication is titled Poetry Bridges: Canberra/Nara Commemorative Anthology. The Australian launch of Poetry… Read More Canberra/Nara Poetry Anthology
Canberra poet, Hazel Hall, has teamed with tai chi practitioner and teacher, Angelina Egan, to produce a chapbook titled Step by Step. Their book was published earlier this year by Picaro Poets, an imprint of Ginninderra Press. Step by Step presents the 24 posture tai chi chuan, a popular short form tai chi sequence practised… Read More Hazel Hall and Angelina Egan: Step by Step
In late 2017, the Canberra-based Haiku @ The Oaks writing group was discussing various ways to present haiku in a live situation. Inspired by the ideas from this meeting, I applied a variation of these thoughts to writing a haiku style poem – a form I now like to call the haiku shuffle. Back in 2017,… Read More The Haiku Shuffle
Gregory Piko 