We are five years old! Founded in January 2007, Shamrock Haiku Journal has since been published quarterly. On this occasion, we have prepared SHAMROCK HAIKU JOURNAL: 2007 – 2011, a print edition of the twenty issues of Shamrock, the Journal of the Irish Haiku Society, as they appeared on the Shamrock website. This paper-based collection comprises works by 248 authors representing 38 countries. It covers the full range of English-language haiku, from classic to experimental styles, as well as haibun and selected essays on haiku.

The translated haiku that appeared regularly in Shamrock over the last five years are not included in this book, as we hope to arrange a separate publication for them.

Shamrock Haiku Journal: 2007 – 2011
Edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.

Copyright © 2007 – 2011 by Shamrock Haiku Journal.

All rights reserved.

Published in Dublin, Ireland.

Printed in the United Kingdom.

Price €15.98
ISBN 978-1-4709-3830-7

Trade paperback. 240 pp.
6"x9", perfect binding.

Preview available here

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Shamrock Haiku Journal Readers' Choice Awards 

We invite all the readers of Shamrock Haiku Journal to vote for the best haiku/senryu poem published in 2011, i.e. in the issues SEVENTEEN to TWENTY (you cannot vote for your own poem, though). To vote, send an e-mail to irishhaikusociety[at]gmail.com with "Best haiku of 2011" or "Best senryu of 2011" in the subject line. Please insert the full text of the poem you vote for (only ONE poem in each category) plus the name of its author in the body of your e-mail. The deadline for vote is 28th February, 2012. The best poems will be named in the next issue of Shamrock Haiku Journal.

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at the edge of the town
a granny and a moggy
spinning silence

-- Malvina Mileta (Croatia; translated from the Croatian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




deserted village –
between the gusts of wind,
a dog’s bark


postman
sorting snowflakes
in his huge bag

-- Marija Pogorilic (Croatia; translated from the Croatian by Djurdja Vukelic-Rosic and Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




desolate house
moonlit cobwebs
on the pane

-- Marija Pogorilic (Croatia; translated from the Croatian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




leaking roof –
the cat drinks
from buckets and tubs


field of crown daisies
embracing the yellowness
of the rising sun


chess-board
a black beetle takes the place
of the white queen


drizzling
parrots perched on branches
form a rainbow


moss in the yard
awaiting rain
to climb up the walls


sun comes out –
clouds jump
from puddle to puddle


frozen sea
words on the page
melting as you read

-- Terence Portelli (Malta, translated from the Maltese by the author)




light over the sea
brighter than over the shore –
the sky breathing


pond water changed
a few dead fish
left behind


gull standing on one leg
in the sea water
not feeling the cold


this winter day,
folds of the ground frost-hardened –
tomorrow’s forecast: thaw


in the park, birds sing,
an orchestra plays –
they don’t hear each other


four empty chairs
by a table on the lawn –
awaited guests


scorched grass
sprayed with the lashing rain
water makes birds sing

-- Herman van Rompuy (Belgium; translated from the Flemish by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




chewing shadows
the morning falls
on the pasture


dew on the car window
all the letters
I never sent


simple dreams –
surrounded by ripe wheat,
a poppy


wet horse
a field where
the rainbow spread


cannonball
from a long-forgotten war
wandering moon

-- David Rosen (Sweden; translated from the Swedish by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)




black oyster
the night devours the redness
of a tired sun

-- Lino Spiteri (Malta; translated from the Maltese by the author)

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Pollution

 

by Ignatius Fay (Canada) 

 

Not that old, really, he walks the same route at the same time each day carrying his oxygen tank. His wide-brimmed Tilley on his head and aided by a gnarled walking stick almost thicker than he is, he has become a fixture on the street these past twenty-five years. Anyone who uses that thoroughfare in mid-afternoon has come to expect him.

He suffers from lung and, now, heart disease and should be long dead. Twenty-five years ago, when they removed most of his left lung, they said the disease would kill him within four years. His response was to ask what he could do to maximize his stay on the planet. They told him.

And damned if he didn’t go home and do what they told him to do! And he continues to do it.

So, he walks every day. He carries a net cloth bag attached to his tank with a carabiner. As he encounters them, he slowly and carefully bends to pick up recyclable pieces of trash and stuffs them in his bag. He pauses at the bus stops to empty his bag into the appropriate recycling bins. He believes if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the pollution.

huge iguana
draped over his shoulder
waiting for the bus

 

Fairy Tale Forest 

  

by Steven Carter (USA)

 

Another dodge that doesn’t work, or work very well: tippling cold Polanaise brand vodka (straight) in the morning. Polish vodka is the best in the world (trust me: better than Russian), and with time on my hands, it’s way too tempting, My Fulbright lecture schedule at the Marie Curie-Sklodowska University is once a week, and I can’t wait for Thursdays to roll around.

Crossword puzzles don’t make the nut either – I mean, how many can you do before depression comes creeping out yet again, like weasels from beneath the antediluvian TV (which, heaven help me, doesn’t work).

I know I’m in trouble when, walking back to my apartment past the ebony statue of Marie and through the miniature forest toward my apartment on Skowiniego Street, I notice that the sun is significantly lower in the sky at 2 p.m. Toto, I don’t think we’re in California any more. So now we have the long Polish night coming on, exacerbated by coal smoke and lowering skies… I ask Sean Molloy, the Irish professor who’s been here for six years, what his secret to getting through last winter was. He says, “Simple: I read Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – all seven volumes; twice.”

 

 

night wind from Ukraine

from the ancient forest

a scream

 

 

a beautiful graveyard

1000 candles –

Day of the Dead