Haiku Journal of the Irish Haiku Society
Haiku from Ireland and the rest of the world
IHS International Haiku
Competition 2013 announced!
The
Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition 2013 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of Euro 150, Euro 50 and Euro 30 for unpublished haiku/senryu in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.
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 2013, i.e. in the
issues TWENTY-FOUR to TWENTY-SIX (you cannot vote for your own poem,
though). To vote, send an e-mail to irishhaikusociety[at]gmail.com with
"Best haiku of 2013" or "Best senryu of 2013" 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 31th January
We
are six 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 Copyright
© 2007 – 2011 by Shamrock Haiku Journal. All
rights reserved.
Published
in Dublin, Ireland. Printed
in the United Kingdom. Price
€15.98 Trade
paperback. 240 pp. Preview available here
Details and previous winners here:
http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm
All the entries shall be postmarked by 30th November 2013. No e-mail
submissions, please!
Good luck to all!
Edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.
ISBN 978-1-4709-3830-7
6"x9", perfect binding.
Big
Sky by Steven
Carter (USA)
Fish
Debate by John
Zheng (USA) Zhuang Zi and
Hui Si, two ancient Chinese philosophers, stood on a wooden bridge
watching fish in the placid pond. When the fish swam toward them,
Zhuang Zi clapped his hands, uttering, “Here come the fish. They look
so happy!” Hui Si shook his head with a smirk, “You are not a fish; how
do you know the fish are happy?” Zhuang Zi gave his friend a meaningful
smile and asked with a drawl, “You are not me; how do you know I don’t
know the fish are happy?” Stumped by the question, Hui Si looked
tongue-tied for a good while. Then he shook his head with an
unbelievable look. To him, man was not fish at all; they were two
different species, but to Zhuang Zi, man and fish were one, for the
whole universe was oneness.
Just
Looking by John
Zheng (USA) Joo-joo-joo…a
cicada drops onto the driveway when the sun’s last radiance gleamed out
behind the dense pecan trees. Lying upside down, it struggles to turn
itself over with its well-veined wings as supporters, but each try just
makes it more difficult for the cicada to stand on its legs. It gives a
buzz now and then, a short, desperate sound for the passing of its
life. Minutes later, one of its wings is broken. It becomes quiet, and
its legs stop moving. Then another brief, weak buzz, like uttering
goodbye to the chorus of cicadas on the pecan tree.
also pausing to stare
the ghost crab
old grasshopper
testing the sway
of a take-off leaf
sand
into sandstone
into sand
-- Bill Cooper (USA)
dustbathing crow
flying deeper
into the drought
beachfront underpass –
the concrete tunnel
winged with mayflies
moist mouse nest
upturned with the plow
pink moon
-- Brent Goodman (USA)
shades of autumn –
a phone call for someone
I used to be
egg moon
the comings and goings
of rabbits
no regrets
about rushing into it –
blossom wind
-- Lorin Ford (Australia)
a flower bank
of magenta and cream…
swish of long skirts
cubist lesson…
I look at my cat
differently
-- Dawn Bruce (Australia)
first snow falling
through old leaves
falling
sunlight breaking –
a worm struggling free
of its trampled half
--
Paul Chambers (Wales)
lightning flashes
trees and mountains
in black and white
winter fireplace
the sound
of popping pine
-- Mel Goldberg (Mexico – USA)
our butcher Frank
gossip punctuated with
his bloody cleaver
great-grandfather’s journal
on the last page a curl from
great-grandmother's hair
-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen (USA)
knee-deep weeds
wave after wave of
autumn sun
sudden shower
the sun a pale halo
behind clouds
-- John Zheng (USA)
summer breeze –
just the way
she shakes her hair
moonlit beach –
a bird flies
into midnight
-- Elizabeth Moura (USA)
old diner
closed down…
“For Sale” sign rusty too
pink-dressed, blue-eyed,
young girl stares at rows
of flowers for sale
-- Edward J. Rielly (USA)
circling gulls
a line of cars snakes
onto the ferry
scattered showers
a leopard tortoise
spotted with leaves
-- Robert Lucky (USA – Ethiopia)
gull dispute –
sun rises
in an office window
dawn –
moon rests on the outstretched
arm of the crane
-- Hugh O’Donnell (Ireland)
derelict convent –
black and white little bird
on the windowsill
discarded Barbie
water seeping
through her limbs
-- Noel King (Ireland)
night border crossing --
the elephant calf holds
his mother's tail
passing breeze –
the unexpected gift
of a banyan leaf
-- Sonam Chhoki (Bhutan)
same size as mine,
handprints on cave walls…
the colors of twilight
-- Steven Carter (USA)
early spring morning –
in the drainage ditch,
a lost fish
-- Joseph M. Kusmiss
(USA)
weekend getaway
nothing but our breathing
in the morning light
-- Ben Moeller-Gaa (USA)
night beneath the trees –
cicadas wind down
what katydids began
-- Scott Owens (USA)
yellow cottonwoods
the sunsets lingering
less and less
-- Lolly Williams (USA)
her perfume
following her
down the bicycle path
-- Richard St. Clair (USA)
cutting down
the sunflowers
dusk settles in
-- Erik Linzbach (USA)
autumn rain
the sun-dried leaf
bleeds red
-- David Kavanaugh (USA)
spring planting
I fill the scarecrow
with fresh hay
-- Robert Henry Poulin (USA)
blue moon
waxing and waning
a frog leaps out
-- Doug Norris (USA)
my shadow
pushing the bicycle
winter gusts
-- Chen-ou Liu (Canada)
jazz festival –
a man loses his newspaper
to the wind
--
Marshall Bood (Canada)
snow geese
swirling earthward
more snow
-- Louisa Howerow (Canada)
turning tide
boats at their moorings
point the other way
-- Simon Hanson (Australia)
elderly neighbour
walks round plane tree leaves
her grandson crunches through
-- Peter Macrow (Australia)
chopping wood
a cold wind
across the field
-- Ashley Capes (Australia)
purple clematis...
changing her wardrobe
into summer
-- Anne Curran (New Zealand)
night aeroplane
in and out of silence
then silence
-- Gillena Cox (Trinidad and
Tobago)
autumn dusk...
a poodle somersaults
on a pile of leaves
-- Keith Simmonds (Trinidad and
Tobago)
green grass –
getting used
to patching things up
-- Ernesto P. Santiago
(Philippines – Greece)
road tarmac
sky blue
clinking of a spoon
against the tea cup –
the tolling bells
bronze Buddha
atop the antique buffet –
forever young
-- Ella Krylova (Russia;
translated from the Russian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)
Half-barren, white gumbo-patches showing through the wheat-stubble, it
was a sucker’s dream. Even voracious descendants of German settlers
from the early 20th century wouldn’t touch it with a 57-foot pole.
And a sucker bought it. And made it work! Most ranchers in northwest
Montana – the funny farm is midway between the Browning Indian
reservation and the tiny town of Hadley – said it couldn’t happen.
Rains helped. Cold comforters of winter snow helped. Prayer – Ho!
That’s where imagination kicks in for yours truly. My uneducated guess
(this is what I would’ve done) is that the owners prayed to the Greek
gods. Why not? How do we know they don’t exist unless we pray to them,
or at least invite them for happy (ah, funny) hour?
– Or Polynesian gods; or Norse; or Mayan, etc.
The Blackfeet of Browning, whose gods are – according to the locals –
safely interred beneath the gray earth and twisted wheat-stalks of
their own farmlands, may be seen standing beside their junky cars just
off Highway 89, checking out the lush fields of the funny farm.
The Blackfeet: far-gazing and expressionless, as always.
shaman-songs
singing harmony
a lone coyote
which came
first,
the hen or the
egg? —
endless rain
August evening
cicadas' trill
louder
than the train
whistle
The reviewer this time is a certain R. W. Watkins, a native of Canada. The omnipotent Mr. Watkins starts off with insulting no less than the whole Irish nation. St. Patrick’s Day and dung-yard “could not be mistaken as having originated anywhere else [but in Ireland]”? And Kokako publishes this? The editors surely have got some nerve.
Next comes Mr. Watkins’s fatuous comment on the phrase from the Introduction, in which I mentioned that “a few of the Irish haiku poets have chosen to join the British Haiku Society.” Mr. Watkins deems appropriate to say: “I cannot help but wonder if such haijins (sic!) have been labeled ‘traitor’ and subsequently tarred and feathered and tied to utility pole.” I feel obliged to reassure Mr. Watkins that we spare such treatment only for those who compare Ireland to a dung-yard. As for the Irish members of the British Haiku Society, there’s ample representation of them in both Bamboo Dreams and Shamrock. It is enough to name such poets as Gabriel Rosenstock, Leo Lavery, Clare McCotter, Beth McFarland and Thomas Powell.
So who is this R. W. Watkins who openly displays anti-Irish sentiment but was still chosen by the editors of Kokako to review an Irish anthology? Not much is known about him in the haiku world. None of the recognised haiku periodicals display his works on their pages or websites. The only two haiku that he has ever published online are available for viewing on the site that he edits himself (http://www.redfez.net/poetry/1710). Here’s one of them (this piece was later submitted to Shamrock, which is why we can reproduce it here):
along the cow path,
where the barn and fog once stood,
all the ghosts have died
Mmm, a 5-7-5 piece about ghosts? Dear reader, does it look convincing to you? Questions, questions...
Mr. Watkins's excursion into the plentiful pastures of haiku theory shows him as an outspoken advocate of 5-7-5 haiku writing in English, which is nowadays considered obsolete. It has been stated zillions of times that English syllables are much longer than Japanese onji (e.g. the word “haibun” has two syllables in it, whereas in Japanese it has four on). It has long been agreed upon that, quoting the late great Keiko Imaoka, “something in the vicinity of 11 English syllables is a suitable approximation of 17 Japanese syllables, in order to convey about the same amount of information as well as the brevity and the fragmented quality found in Japanese haiku” (http://www.ahapoetry.com/keirule.htm).
However Mr. Watkins clearly believes that the 5-7-5 structure is the equivalent of the similar Japanese one, and must be enforced. And the editors of Kokako gave him a platform for expressing such views. In his article, he slams Bamboo Dreams saying that the included haiku are “brief and truncated”, and “the truncated form (consisting of roughly twelve syllables or less) [i.e. free-form English-language haiku] is not conductive to detail and clarity.” He doesn't seem to be very much in step with the times.
Next comes my turn. “Irish haiku scene is synonymous with the standards and visions of one Anatoly Kudryavitsky.” Well, if Mr. Watkins seriously believes that I am solely responsible for free-form haiku being widespread in Ireland, he must have completely lost his grip on reality. The further, the better: “Kudryavitsky is the semi-official filter which virtually all aspects of contemporary Irish haiku must pass.” I thought I only edited a magazine filtering good haiku from husk like Mr. Watkins’s oeuvres.
Which brings to mind that in May 2013 Mr. Watkins submitted a few “haiku” of a kind (the ghost piece among them) to Shamrock, mentioning in the cover letter that he was “currently putting together a review of Bamboo Dreams for one of the North American haiku journals” (if it’s the same review, it had obviously been turned down by that magazine due to its offensive nature before it crash landed in Kokako). This is a nice little detail. Why would Mr. Watkins mention that he was going to review Bamboo Dreams if he wasn't expecting favours from me because of that? Unfortunately for him, I am not prepared to compromise on the quality of haiku I publish, so he didn’t manage to force his way onto the pages of Shamrock. Of course, a more ethical person would refrain from mentioning to an editor he was submitting poems to that he was going to review the editor’s book. But Mr. Watkins doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned with ethics.
Nor is he committed to the truth. He implies that his “submitting to Shamrock drew a barrage of suggested edits and omissions”. Really? Like any magazine editor, I may occasionally offer my suggestion for a particular piece. This is editor’s prerogative. It is entirely up to the poet to take it or leave it. In this particular case, I e-mailed back to Mr. Watkins three of his submitted 5-7-5-ers in shortened versions – just to show him that an overblown and wordy haiku can sometimes benefit from trimming. Would a person of sound mind call a single e-mail a barrage? By the way, I keep my correspondence with our wannabe contributors – just in case one of them decides to go public with blatant disinformation.
The following is from Mr. Watkins’s modest statement that came with his haiku: “I was increasingly devoting my talents to those of a 5/7/5 structure. […] What fills publications like Modern Haiku and Frogpond nowadays is mostly bland, artless hack jobs that lack alliteration and consonance, pivot, epiphany.” The editors of these publications have obviously rejected his 5-7-5-ers about ghosts. Shall I give a word of warning to my colleagues? Watch out, Mr. Watkins will soon be after you!
By the way, Mr. Watkins in his article repeatedly calls Shamrock a website. I believe, it is a common knowledge that an online magazine, unlike a website, publishes work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule, and therefore is called a periodical. It seems like Mr Watkins didn’t bother to familiarize himself with the publication he was quick to submit his pieces to.
The next figment of Mr. Watkins’s imagination is the claim that “the majority of haiku in Bamboo Dreams were selected from Shamrock.” It seems like something prevented Mr. Watkins from viewing the Acknowledgements page, where he could have found the list of the magazines, in which the poems selected for Bamboo Dreams first appeared. All in all, twenty haiku periodicals are listed, including Acorn, A Hundred Gourds, Ambrosia, Blithe Spirit, Frogpond, Haiku Presence, The Heron’s Nest, Haiku Spirit, The Lace Curtain, Lishanu, Modern Haiku, Notes from the Gean, Paper Wasp, Poetry Ireland Review, Roadrunner, Shamrock, Simply Haiku, Time Haiku, Tinywords, World Haiku Review, as well as twenty-seven anthologies and individual collections by the contributors. I wonder if Mr. Watkins’s statement is anything but yet another attempt to mislead the public.
I’ve seen too many reviews of haiku collections where the reviewer offers no critique of the book and the haiku included in it. This is the trouble with Mr. Watkins’s article. For him, all free-form haiku are “brief and truncated”. Furthermore, he is unable to define accurately what constitutes perfect and imperfect haiku. The reviewer quotes a few pieces that he liked, one that he didn’t like, and yet another one (arguably one of the best in the book) that he didn’t know what to think of because of “cultural differences” (!) He goes on about “the lack of indentation [in Bamboo Dreams] that can make many of these little poems difficult to comprehend.” I wasn’t sure what kind of indentation he was talking about until I stumbled upon his own piece submitted to Shamrock:
extorted fluid
amidst the thorns, morning dew
on wild rose petals
I don’t think that the indentation Mr. Watkins employs here makes this piece easier to read and comprehend. I wonder if he is aware of the fact that classical Japanese haiku were not presented as three-liners but were written in a single vertical line; that's why a cutting word (kireji) was used to separate one part of a haiku from the other.
The further you read this “review”, the more amusing it gets. The next Mr Watkins’s statement will surely raise quite a few eyebrows: “75% of the poetry featured on the [Shamrock] site has undergone rewriting or abridging at the hands of Anatoly Kudryavitsky.” What the dickens, or rather, what the Watkins? As Francis Bacon once put it, "Slander boldly, something always sticks." A statement like this cannot be an honest error; it is the result of data fabrication, i.e. the reviewer’s gross misconduct. How the editors of Kokako, Patricia Prime and Margaret Beverland, who take full responsibility for what they print, approved such drivel for publication is beyond me.
So now the readers of these pages can take a guess what the aim of Mr. Watkins’s “review” was, if not to settle accounts with me. Isn't it a shame that the editors of Kokako failed to make sure that the underlying feelings were more appropriate? They are now saying that an apology to me “will be published in the next issue of Kokako (April, 2014).” We'll have to wait and see...
I also wonder if Kokako is now going to raise the Jolly Roger of 5-7-5. Because if you have said “A”, you will also have to say “B”, otherwise you’ll be accused of bias, and rightly so. Of course, a scientific periodical can get one of the books on the origin of the species reviewed by a creationist and the other ones by evolutionists – but after that who is going to take this magazine seriously? Now I am curious to see how the editors of Kokako are going to pull through.
In Part 1 of our “Unscrupulous Reviewers and Negligent Editors” series (see Shamrock No 25) I wrote the following: “The question is, if a writer sets out to destroy another’s reputation, should a respectable magazine give him a platform for that kind of activities? Because this is exactly the situation we all have been trying hard to avoid.” I sadly note that my lamentations didn’t stop the rot and it has now reached yet another haiku publication. The bitter personal bile poured out by some individuals and readily printed by some negligent or sensation seeking editors leaves me quite speechless. Of course, it tells its own story, an old story of incompetence and jealousy.
As for Mr. Watkins, his very inspired look can be viewed here. Just so you know who I am talking about. I sincerely believe that Mr. Watkins deserves a place in encyclopedias – alongside a certain person from Porlock. His innovative approach to getting published is clear as a crisp spring morning. I do realise that, having received from somebody a “publish me, or else!” ultimatum, most editors will simply tell this person to go to hell, but I can suggest a better place to send him to. Just tell him, “Go to Kokako!”
As our readers will notice, I do not comment on Roberta Beary’s graceless reply to my essay in Shamrock 25, which sullied the pages of Frogpond 36.2. Instead of an admission of presumption and carelessness, accompanied by an apology, readers are treated to Ms. Beary’s self-excusing reference to sources she (unthinkingly) relied upon. If she had any experience in publishing, she would have known that there are attributable sources of material that an editor of a book can name on the Acknowledgements page, e.g. other books and periodicals, including online magazines, and not attributable ones (other websites, blogs, personal pages, promotional leaflets, etc.). The website of the Irish Haiku Society is not an attributable source, so I couldn't possibly name it. In such a case an editor names the closest attributable source, which I did. Now that the revised version of the poem by Seamus Heaney has appeared in Bamboo Dreams, this book becomes an attributable source for it and can be referred to as such. The fact that no information regarding a revised version of a poem is made within a publication is no grounds for a reviewer to account for a discrepancy by jumping to the conclusion that, therefore, the editor must have taken liberties with the text. This reply only confirms what the readers of my essay already know: that the reviewer who has been caught out in what amounts to slander (intentional or otherwise) is guilty as charged.
Glenn G. Coats. Snow on the Lake. Haibun and Haiku
Pineola Publihing, Virginia, USA,
2013
Available from Pineola Publishing, 467 North Hardtimes Drive, Prospect,
Virginia 23960, USA
evening snow
a scent of rabbit
in all the air
Glenn G. Coats is also one of the top haibun writers of today. His book will be a worthwhile addition to any haiku library.
Klaus-Dieter Wirth. Im Sog der Stille / In the Wake of
Silence
208
Haiku. German/English/French/Spanish
Hamburger Haiku Verlag, Hamburg,
2013
Available from http://haiku.de
The previous collection by Klaus-Dieter Wirth, Zugvögel / Migratory Birds, has been reviewed in Shamrock 19. This ones brings together 208 of the poet's more recent haiku and senryu from various haiku periodicals where they first appeared. It represents German and, wider, European haiku at its best. Just one example:
button mushrooms
breaking through the asphalt
Hiroshima Day
This book comes highly recommended.
DOGHOUSE Books have published the first ever national anthology of haiku poetry from Ireland, Bamboo Dreams, edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky and featuring 77 Irish haijin. Reviewed here. 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. Reviewed here
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
Tel: +353 (0)66 7137547
Fax: +353 (0)66 7137547
info[at]doghousebooks.ie
