
IHS International Haiku
Competition 2012 announced!
The Irish
Haiku Society International Haiku Competition 2012 offers
prizes of Euro 150, Euro 50 and Euro 30 for unpublished haiku/senryu in
English. In addition there will be up to seven Highly Commended
haiku/senryu. Entrants may win more than one prize.
Details
here: http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm
All the entries shall be postmarked by 30th
November 2012. No e-mail
submissions, please!
Good luck to all!
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
From now on Shamrock
Haiku Journal will publish three issues per
year instead of
four. This is due to the editor starting a new webzine, Emerald
Bolts,
an Irish and international platform for flash fiction. The editor has
already started reading submissions of flash fiction of no more than
500 words for the new webzine.
descending snowflakes
the battlefield
white again
the ascent
of the orange moon �
a dinghy bobs near shore
an old spade
washed to the shore
picked up again
June sunset
ochre cliffs slide
into the ocean
All Souls Day �
night sky alive with
white flares
-- Kara Craig (Ireland)
on one side
of the music school's fence �
trumpet vines
botanical garden...
the zigzag path
of spring
Neighbourhood Watch
a full moon peeks
through each window
-- Vuong Pham (Australia)
sudden storm
a red deck umbrella
lifts in the wind
evening calm
picking cockleburs
from the dog
-- Ben Moeller-Gaa (USA)
first dip
of the tilt-a-wheel
camellias
birthday
she asks why parsley
is biennial
-- Bill Cooper (USA)
Normandy beach
an armada of geese
turn toward shore
the bad part of town �
through pavement cracks,
wild flowers
-- Jay Friedenberg
(USA)
poolside
the rescued wasp
dries its wings
my garden path
an assortment
of droppings
-- Quendryth Young (Australia)
monkey house
my daughter clambers
out of her buggy
hand in hand
we walk in the shadows . . .
split-open chestnuts
-- John McManus (England)
light frost
a flock of starlings across
the gibbous moon
all the things
I meant to do �
falling leaves
-- Juliet Wilson (Scotland)
war museum
children skip stones
across the pond
winter stars �
the mailbox
empty
-- Bouwe Brouwer (the
Netherlands)
dipping sun
daylilies begin
to wrap up
-- John Zheng (USA)
lost memory found �
the smell of wood smoke
on the autumn breeze
-- Joseph M. Kusmiss (USA)
dusk� the homeless
gather on the porch
of an abandoned house
-- Scott Owens (USA)
early morning light
across the backwaters �
beavers working
-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen (USA)
black and white photo
my father
younger than my son
-- Mel Goldberg (Mexico � USA)
first day of spring
running shoes laced
with cobwebs
-- Jim Davis (USA)
full moon night
a leaf spins
under the waterfall
-- Kath Abela Wilson (USA)
skipping stones
across Great Slave Lake
my shadow and I
-- Chen-ou Liu (Canada)
the day lilies blare
red and orange arias �
still, no butterflies
-- Richard Stevenson (Canada)
autumn gust
all the coloured pegs
grip the clothes line
-- Jan Dobb
(Australia)
city forest
birds mimic
a car alarm
-- Tiggy Johnson (Australia)
visible
between the photos,
what didn't happen
-- Beth McFarland (Northern
Ireland)
July deluge
lawn spinkler
joins in
-- Mark Lonergan (Ireland)
kingfisher
gathering the mid-day sun
on its wet feathers
-- Jim Burke (Ireland)
city twilight
the peregrines' nest
chimes the hour
-- Claire Everett (England)
daffodil buds
her pregnancy
now shows
-- Rachel Sutcliffe (England)
crows on a bare branch �
ink-laden
brushstrokes
-- Marie
Coveney (Ireland)
in my teacup,
a somersault
of the full moon
-- Keith Simmonds (Trinidad and
Tobago)
waiting for a friend �
a pigeon struts up and down
the wet pavement
-- Sonam Chhoki (Bhutan)
old wall
ants in and out
of the cavities
-- Stella Pierides (Greece)

windy morning �
my granny�s red scarf
dancing
singing the sorrowful songs
of our forefathers,
the waterfall
this endless valley�
ants crossing
the track of a fox
winter night �
the gloomy sky
lit by snowflakes
at long last
there it is,
sky between the skyscrapers
-- Am�l Engin (Turkey; transl.
from the Turkish by the author and Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
clinging to the window pane,
two dried leaves,
dead butterfly�s wings
-- Melisa G�rpınar (Turkey;
transl. from the Turkish by the author and Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
desolate wet shore �
waves coming and going
moss remaining
-- Evin Ok�uoğlu (Turkey;
transl. from the Turkish by the author and Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
a street beggar �
snowflakes not melting
on his palm
-- Turgay U�eren (Turkey;
transl. from the Turkish by the author and Anatoly Kudryavitsky)


"Children of Indigo" by Armanush Markaryan
(Uzbekistan)


Incarnation on a Train
by Steven
Carter
(USA)
The girls
of Poland are unusually pretty as a rule, but this one, sitting next to
me on the night express up to Warsaw, is remarkable even by Polish
standards. She reminds me of a young Liz Taylor.
We try to communicate, but it�s useless; I know less than a dozen words
in Polish, and like most Poles she speaks no English at all. The odd
thing is that we do talk a lot, even though the conversation goes
nowhere.
As the train parallels the Vistula River glittering in the moonlight, I
bring out a small silver flask filled with top-shelf �bison grass�
vodka, the best in Poland and therefore the world. I offer her a hit
and to my surprise she accepts. Then I hold the flask up to the other
American sitting across from us in our compartment, but he politely
declines.
The girl and I pass the flask back and forth until it�s empty. Each
time our eyes meet, and they do so many times, I melt, and wonder if
she feels the same; of course I�ll never know.
When we arrive at the Warsaw train station, I help her with her bag.
�Dziekuje, pan, dziekuje,� she murmurs, touching my cheek.
�Prosze,� I say softly to myself as she disappears into the crowd of
Poles, Russians, and Estonians. She looks back once at me.
�She must be in the movies,� my fellow American remarks as three
blue-uniformed Polish cops � Smurfs we called them then � walk past
shoulder to shoulder. �I wonder who she is.�
�If we were in an allegory, I�d say �Love� with a capital �L,�� I
shrug, slinging my knapsack on my back.
�But neither of you understood a word the other was saying!�
�Exactly.�
choir of
stars
400 miles away
Chernobyl

James
Norton. �The Fragrance of Dust�
Haiku, Stories, Poems
Alba
Publishing, UK, 2012
ISBN
978-0-955-12548-5
102 pp.
Available
from Alba Publishing for �15 at http://albapublishing.com or write to
PO Box 266, Uxbridge, UB9 5NX, UK
James Norton was the founding editor of the first haiku magazine on the
island of Ireland, Haiku Spirit. It was a paper-based journal of haiku
and related forms that published Irish and international haiku poets.
All in all, twenty issues of Haiku Spirit appeared between 1995 and
2000. James Norton was also one of the first poets in this country to
write haiku as we know them, and he set a high standard for the newer
generations of Irish haijin. This is the reason why a representative
collection of his haiku has been eagerly anticipated.
This collection gathers together the poet�s haiku, haibun and
mainstream poems written, as the author�s introduction prompts, over a
twenty year span. Following the Introduction, Ken Jones�s Foreword
offers the Welsh poet�s insight into Jim Norton�s work.
The body of the book is split into nine sections. Each one has a
mixture of haiku, longer poems and haibun. I can�t resist the
temptation to quote some of James Norton�s haiku gems that I have
admired long since their publication in magazines. E.g. these ones:
dinner over
in the bowl
one grain
dare I
tell him?
from my
neighbour�s dungheap
a double
rainbow
august hear
faint
click of pine cones
opening as
we part
James Norton is a Buddhist practitioner, and the following piece gives away
his leanings:
garden
Buddha
hail rain
or shine
same smile
If we simplify Zen to the utmost degree, we can say that a Zen
Buddhist, rather than adoring and worshipping Buddha, strives to become
a Buddha himself. As the Zen master Ying-An put it, "in order to
achieve a Zen enlightenment, you don't have to leave your family or
give up your job, nor is it necessary to become a vegetarian or a
hermit; you can attain Zen right where you are." The following poem by
James Norton reminds me a Zen koan that can give some kind of elusive
answer to the question what Zen is:
sound of a
spoon
striking
an empty bowl:
that�s it!
The book also offers an ample selection of James Norton�s haibun (a
short piece of prose with incorporated haiku). He is arguably the most
accomplished writer of haibun among the Irish haijin. Many of his
haibun are travel sketches but there�s no place for plain and banal
prose there. �I felt free to experiment,� the poet confesses in the
Introduction, and his haiku prose is a must-read for anyone interested
in the development of English-language haibun.
I will leave the reader of these lines with a couple of James Norton�s
excellent senryu:
single now
I throw
away
the
avocado stones
coughing
and the
stranger upstairs
coughs too
In short, if you want to read Irish short-form poetry at its best,
order this book!
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky

William
E. Cooper. "The Dance of her Napkin"
Published
by Cyberwit, Allahabad, India, 2012
105
pp.; ISBN 978-8-182-53316-5
Available
from
Cyberwit via http://cyberwit.net/publications/410
Priced
at USD 15
The
India-based publish-as-you-pay (or, if you prefer, pay-as-you-publish)
Cyberwit have come up with a collection of haiku from William E.
Cooper, the American academic and poet who, according to his
biographical note placed on the back cover, has started writing haiku
in 2009 and whose publication credits include the best haiku
periodicals.
This collection includes 100 haiku and senryu, one on a page. The title
refers to one of the poet�s better known pieces, which can�t be
described as anything but excellent, due to its subtle humour:
old
ballerina
the
dance
of her
napkin
Strangely enough, the cover photograph (not a very high quality one)
depicts nothing connected with the title, or with the title haiku, but
a lake (a river?)
with a kayak in the distance.
Like many American haijin, William E. Copper is primarily a minimalist,
and one can only admire the economy of haiku like these:
hammock
the sway
of Orion
or
zoo bend
suddenly
flamingos
or
cauliflower
fractals
everywhere
I look
Of course, if you strip a haiku to the bare bones, there still have to
be bones, and the minimalist approach doesn�t always help, especially
if you haven't got sufficient imagery:
sea oats�
leaning
over
the long
pier
In the majority of cases William E. Cooper uses a shasei technique, and
his thorough sketching of nature results in such excellent haiku as
these:
bulging
acorn
the grey
squirrel
adjusts
his grip
daily
walk
the
welcome jig
of an
emerald beetle
Equally convincing are the poet�s senryu:
baby�s
hand
the long
tunnel through
a pajama
sleeve
working
overlong
the
slack mouth
of a
trout on ice
The poet doesn�t always maintain the desired level of perfection, and a
few so-what pieces found their way onto the pages of this collection:
Mayan
ruins
slowly
down
uneven
steps
Grand
Canal
a
soccer
ball
floats
to my daughter
while
daughter�s (should have been �daughters�, really) negotiate,
the
banana split
melting
Unfortunately, notes from a poet�s diary, even if they have a
sentimental value to the poet, don�t always make good haiku/senryu.
Still, there�s a lot to admire in this collection, and the readers will
surely bear in their
memory some of
the best pieces, like this:
green tea
tasting
a mountain
I will
never climb
This book is a worthy addition to anyone�s haiku library, and comes
highly recommended.
Anatoly Kudryavitsky
DOGHOUSE Books have
just published the first ever national anthology of haiku poetry from
Ireland, Bamboo
Dreams, edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky and featuring 77
Irish haijin. It
is
available to order via the Doghouse Books website.

Also, we have a
limited number of copies left of three collections of haiku poems by
two
Irish haijin:
John
W.
Sexton.
Shadows Bloom. DOGHOUSE Books, 2005. Reviewed here
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky.
Morning at Mount Ring. DOGHOUSE Books, 2007. Reviewed here
Anatoly
Kudryavitsky. Capering Moons. DOGHOUSE Books, 2011
One can get them
postage
free for the price of �12 to anywhere in the world.
Also, check out here
the range of poetry books and anthologies we've published.
DOGHOUSE Books
PO Box 312
Tralee
Co. Kerry
Ireland
http://www.doghousebooks.ie
Tel: +353 (0)66 7137547
Fax: +353 (0)66 7137547
info[at]doghousebooks.ie

"Dream. After Dream" by Anatoly
Kudryavitsky, a collection of his novellas, stories and
prose poems
in English translation, has been published by and is available to order
via Honeycomb Press (http://honeycombpress.webs.com).

Copyright
� by Shamrock
Haiku Journal. All rights reserved. All the Shamrock
Haiku Journal contents
are copyright by the indicated poets/artists. All the rights
revert to the authors and artists upon publication in Shamrock.
Any unauthorised copying of the contents of Shamrock
Haiku Journal is
strictly forbidden. The Shamrock logo
image is copyright � by Christine Zeytounian-Belous (Paris, France).
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