Wednesday updates

A Hundred Gourds

The first issue of A Hundred Gourds: a quarterly journal of haiku, haibun, haiga and tanka poetry is now online.

http://ahundredgourds.com

The Editorial Team of A Hundred Gourds extends warmest thanks to everyone who submitted their work for consideration for this, our inaugural issue. Thanks to your enthusiastic welcome, it’s a bumper edition.

As well as haiku, tanka, haiga and haibun you’ll find essays, interviews and a review in the Expositions section. There is also a memorial Feature dedicated to the late Janice M. Bostok, Australia’s haiku pioneer.

Please join us in welcoming three new editors to the AHG team:

William Sorlien, of St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, is Renku Editor, already organising A Hundred Gourds’ first renku section, which will be published in AHG 1:2.

Susan Constable, of Vancouver Island, Canada, is the new Tanka Editor. Susan’s first tanka section will be published in AHG 1:2.

Mike Montreuil, of Ontario, Canada, is the new Haibun Editor. Mike’s first haibun section will be published in AHG 1:3.

A Hundred Gourds welcomes your submissions to the New Years’ editions.

·        Special notice for tanka & renku submissions to AHG 1:2 & 1:3

The submission period for tanka and renku only has been extended for the March issue, AHG 1:2. Submissions of tanka and renku received up to the 31st December will be considered for AHG 1:2. Tanka and renku submissions received between January 1st and March 15th will be considered for AHG 1:3. Please read the submissions guidelines page on the AHG website for further details.

The deadline for haiku, haibun, haiga and for the Expositions section of AHG 1:2 remains at December the 15th.

Lorin Ford, haiku editor,
for the Editorial Team
A Hundred Gourds

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Haibun Today (December 2011) is now online.

The winter quarterly issue of Haibun Today is now online for your reading pleasure at http://haibuntoday.com

Contributors to this issue include Melissa Allen, Deb Baker, Dawn Bruce, Owen Bullock, Steven Carter, Marcyn Del Clements, Glenn G. Coats, David Cobb, Anne Curran, Tish Davis, Cherie Hunter Day, Eduardo N. del Valle, Lisa Fleck Dondiego, Claire Everett, Jeffrey Harpeng, Ruth Holzer, Ken Jones, Robert W. Kimsey, Gary LeBel, Marie Lecrivain, Chen-ou Liu, Bob Lucky, Victor Maddalena, Marian Olson, Kathe L. Palka, Carol Pearce-Worthington, Stanley Pelter, Dru Philippou, Patricia Prime, William M. Ramsey, Ray Rasmussen, Bruce Ross, Cynthia Rowe, Miriam Sagan, Lucas Stensland, John Stone, Charles Tarlton, Diana Webb and Rich Youmans.

This issue also features reprints of historically and critically important documents on the art of haibun from difficult-to-find out-of-print or limited edition publications; these reprints include three essays by David Cobb that span the period 2000-2010 as well as an interview conducted by Rich Youmans with William M. Ramsey. In addition, Dru Philippou and Charles Tarlton in separate articles focus upon contemporary tanka prose while Tish Davis reviews the recent highlight of the same in special issues of the journal Atlas Poetica.

Writers are now invited to submit haibun, tanka prose and articles for consideration in the March 2012 issue of Haibun Today. Consult our Submission Guidelines at Haibun Today.

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Sunday Dec 4 Free Music, Dance, Poetry, Food

Sunday, December 4th, 3 -4pm 

Quail Ridge Books, Wade Avenue, Raleigh

Fleur de Lisa Vocal performances by Durham’s award-winning female vocal group (Best Original Song Competition, Harmony Sweeps Mid-Atlantic Regional Finals) Performing original compositions with poetry as lyrics.

Laurece West celebrated Durham jazz singer(International Women in Jazz). 

Stephanie Levin, Smoke of Her Body (Jacar Press)
Sensuous and precise, these poems explore the boundaries and transgressions between parents, children, lovers: the ways we confine one another, the ways we break free. 

“This one just has that punch in the stomach, ‘wow, who the f#!% wrote this’ factor going for it. I like how the poems are strong, yet understated, loud and quiet at the same time.” 

        - Dorianne Laux, The Book of Men (W.W. Norton)

Lou Lipsitz, If This World Falls Apart (Blue Lynx Poetry Prize)

Quiet and deep reflections upon our inner struggles: loss, psychological change, the ways in which we are unknown to ourselves. Many poems focus on men’s issues.

Kathryn Kirpatrick, Unaccountable Weather (Press 53)

Honest, moving and uplifting poems about the woman who undergoes mastectomy, the woman who survives, the woman as mother, lover, goddess.

Richard Krawiec, She Hands me the Razor (Press 53)

A stunning collection about love, loss, moving on, and finding love and transcendence again. Poems performed with dancer Claire Constantikes, director Neck of the Woods, Wake Forest.

Food samples from The Sound of Poets Cooking (Jacar Press). 

Part of the proceeds go to the Angel Tree at Quail Ridge Books.

Also, we may plan a holiday drop in on Sunday Dec. 11, in the afternoon, so kids can come.  Might ask anyone who writes, paints, crafts, to bring items for display upstairs in case anyone wants to shop.  Are any of you going to be around/interested on Dec. 11?

Richard Krawiec,

Check out my websites!

http://www.press53.com/BioRichardKrawiec.html

http://www.rkeditor.com/

http://jacarpress.com/index.html 

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the Basho-ki Pages are completely up!

http://cliffordroberts.tripod.com/bk.htm

I want to thank you once again for contributing to basho-ki 2011.

I hope you enjoy an obsessive compulsive walk around the haiku frog pond through the years with us.

leaping
into the sound
of haiku

kawazu
aka
Cliff T. Roberts,
President, Fort Worth Haiku Society
http://www.facebook.com/FWHaikuSociety
basho-ki http://cliffordroberts.tripod.com/bk.htm

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Contest for College Writers

Dear Professor,

We are writing to let you know about the sixth annual Anthony Abbott Undergraduate Poetry Award, a celebration of student writing, sponsored by the Charlotte Writers’ Club. We welcome poems from college students all over North Carolina. This year’s deadline is February 1, 2012.  There is no entry fee.

Judge this year is the renowned poet and nonfiction writer Rebecca McLanahan. Rebecca McClanahan has published nine books, most recently Deep Light: New and Selected Poems and The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, which won the Glasgow Award for nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, in anthologies published by Norton, Doubleday, Putnam, and Beacon, and in numerous journals. Past recipient of the Wood Prize from Poetry, the Carter Prize from Shenandoah, a Pushcart Prize in fiction, and fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts and North Carolina Arts Council, McClanahan teaches in the low-residency MFA programs of Queens University and Rainier Writers Workshop.

The contest winner will receive $150, and five honorable mentions will receive $50.  One special honorable mention of $100 will be given in honor of the founder of the contest, dramatist, poet, and art activist Louise Rockwell, who passed away last year.

Winners will be announced on April 17, at the Central Piedmont Community College Sensoria Event sponsored by the Charlotte Writers’ Club. Winning poets will have the honor of reading before a large audience of their peers alongside featured poet Dorianne Laux, in celebration of National Poetry Month.

This year for the first time we will accept online entries. Students entering poems must also provide proof of undergraduate status by having an instructors email a verifying statement to: lisa.williams.kline@gmail.com. Questions about the contest may be addressed to Terri Wolfe at twolfe900@gmail.com.

Complete guidelines appear on the Charlotte Writers Club website, www.charlottewritersclub.com.

Please urge your students to enter! And please forward this information to any other instructors you think might be interested.

Best,
Terri Wolfe                            
Lisa Kline
Co-chairs

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There will be a guest poet with a recipe and poem on The Frugal Poet web site soon.

Friday Updates

Gabriel Rosenstock sent this:

Dear All,

The Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition offers prizes of Euro 150, Euro 50 and Euro 30 for unpublished haiku/senryu in English. In addition there will be up to 7 Highly Commended haiku/senryu.

Also, there will be prizes from Dóchas Ireland of Euro 100, Euro 30 and Euro 20 for unpublished haiku/senryu in English or in Irish Gaelic (with an English translation) about poverty + up to 3 Highly Commended haiku/senryu in this category.

Details here: http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm All the entries shall be postmarked by 15th November 2011. No e-mail submissions, please!

Good luck to all!

Irish Haiku Society

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Haibun Today (September 2011) is now online.

The autumn quarterly issue of Haibun Today is now online for your reading pleasure at http://haibuntoday.com

Contributors to this issue include Melissa Allen, Steven Carter, Marcyn Del Clements, Glenn G. Coats, L. Costa, Anne Curran, Tish Davis, Cherie Hunter Day, Claire Everett, Al Fogel, Autumn N. Hall, Jeffrey Harpeng, Michele L. Harvey, Laura Hill, Mary Hind, Ken Jones, Roger Jones, Patricia Kennelly, Gary LeBel, Bob Lucky, Victor Maddalena, Michael McClintock, Kathe L. Palka, Carol Pearce-Worthington, Dru Philippou, Patricia Prime, Kala Ramesh, Ray Rasmussen, Lynne Rees, Richard Straw, Charles Tarlton, Diana Webb, Harriot West and Theresa Williams.

This issue also features an in-depth interview with Michael McClintock, “Wheeling through the Cedars,” on the subject of his haibun, tanka and other writing as well as an insightful critical essay, by Ray Rasmussen, on the rarely examined role of the title in haibun. Bob Lucky and Charles Tarlton reflect upon their individual writing of tanka prose in short personal memoirs. In addition, a long review of Gary LeBel’s Abacus is reprinted and the final results of British Haiku Awards (Haibun Section) 2010 are announced.

Writers are now invited to submit haibun, tanka prose and articles for consideration in the December 2011 issue of Haibun Today. Consult our Submission Guidelines at Haibun Today. Forward any submissions by email to Jeffrey Woodward, Editor, at haibun.today@gmail.com

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 A new issue of The Heron's Nest is is available.

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 A new issue of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature is available.

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 A new issue of World Haiku Review is available.

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Narrative Magazine has an interesting story by Elisabeth Harvor. The title of the story is Prison Nights, Winter Nights. The story is about a woman teaching poetry to prisoners and, yes, there are a few haiku in the story.

You'll have to register to read the story, but registration is free.

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Scott Owens sent this:

My fall schedule of readings is pretty well set now.  There have been a few changes since I first posted this online, so I'm emailing it to my friends and those I think might be interested in the new book, "Something Knows the Moment," which will be the primary focus of my readings for a while.  Specifically, the Joe Milford Show has been at least temporarily cancelled; the Fuquay-Varina reading has changed date, time, and location; the 10/14 reading has moved from Young Harris College to a coffee shop in Hiwassee; and I've added the NetWest Picnic on 10/16 and Barnhill's on 12/9.  I hope at least one of these is close enough to you that you'll be able to attend, hear some of the poems, and get a signed copy of the book.  If you can't make it to a reading, you can still order a book from Main Street Rag or directly from me.

Thanks for all your interest and support.

9/13, 5:30, "Something Knows the Moment" Release Party, Taste Full Beans Coffeeshop, Hickory, NC
9/15, 6:00, Lazy Lion Bookstore, Fuquay-Varina, NC
9/16, 7:00, Lincoln County Cultural Center, Lincolnton, NC
9/17, 1:00-4:00, Momentous Writing Workshop, Coastal Carolina University, Pawley's Island, SC
9/24, 2:00-4:00, 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Minetta Lane Center, Hickory, NC
9/25, 2:00, McIntyre's Fine Books, Pittsboro, NC
10/14, Writers’ Night Out, Mountain Perk, Hiwassee, GA
10/15, Perpetual Writing Prompts, The Writers' Circle, Hayesville, NC
10/16, 2:00, NetWest Annual Picnic, Location to be determined
11/3, 7:00, Royal Bean Coffeehouse, Raleigh, NC
11/6, 3:00, Malaprops, Asheville, NC
11/6, 5:00, WordPlay with Jeff Davis, http://www.ashevillefm.org/wordplay
11/18-19, NCWN Fall Conference, Asheville, NC
12/9, 6:30, Barnhills, Winston-Salem, NC

Scott Owens
www.scottowenspoet.com
www.scottowensmusings.blogspot.com
www.poetryhickory.com
www.wildgoosepoetryreview.com
www.234journal.com
www.poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com

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And finally, let's start the weekend with a little music.

Sunday updates - 5-23-2010

Sachiyo Ito sent this press release:

Poetry in Motion

Thursday – Saturday, June 10-12, 2010 at 8pm
Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street, New York City (Houston/Prince)
Direction: 6 to Bleecker, R to Prince, B/D/F/V to Broadway-Lafayette
Contact Information
For press ticket requests: Cathy Eilers, Joyce SoHo Program Manager 212-334-9907 or ceilers@joyce.org
For non-press ticket inquiries: Sachiyo Ito, Artistic Director 212-627-0265 or sachiyoito@verizon.net
Box Office: 212-242-0800/www.joyce.org
Ticket: $20 15 (Student/Senior/Dance Pass)

Poetry in Motion is a collaboration of dance, poetry recitation and music.  Created by award-winning New York City based Japanese dancer and choreographer, Sachiyo Ito, it fuses together music, dance and poetry drawn from ancient and modern sources.  Presented through dance, the language of the soul, it aims to deepen and strengthen the connection within ourselves, with others and the world.

Selected poems include Chieko-sho by Japanese modern poet Kotaro Takamura, Before the Beginning by Rainer Rilke, Please Call Me by My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh, Summer Day by Mary Oliver and Only Breath by Rumi. Guest singers and musicians include Beth Griffith, Elizabeth Knauer, Egil Rostad, and Yukio Tsuji.

The program offerings include two revivals from the 80s and 90s. Please Call Me by My True Names is a revival of the 1981 Joyce SoHo production originally entitled as An Invitation to Bell- reproduced at Lincoln Center in the same year. The dance is based on a poem written by Thich Nhat Hanh about a young boat refugee raped by a sea pirate. The year 2008 marked the 30th anniversary of the poem, but the condition of our society has changed little and Hanh’s voice of humanism is still resonant today. Day-to-day, we are surrounded by tragedies, the adverse conditions of our own humanity and violence stemming from hatred and prejudice. We are in need of finding inner balance and Please Call Me by My True Names invites the audience to contemplate together on a message calling for compassion, reconciliation and inner harmony-the basis for world peace. Another revival is Chieko: the Element, choreographed to the contemporary poem, Chieko-sho. The piece was originally produced in 1985 at Japan Society and the poem will be sung and recited to a score set by Dan Erkkila.

The ensemble piece, Only Breath, features dancers from various disciplines, cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. The dance calls for the coming together of all humanity on earth to form a global village surpassing boundaries of east, west, and other geographical, cultural, and social differences. 

From The New York Times: Peace Quest, Personal And Global

Sachiyo Ito and Company offered a 'Concert Dedicated to World Peace' on Saturday afternoon at the Clark Studio Theater and made the program artistically meaningful as well as idealistically honorable. …In 'An Invitation to Bell,' a production emphasizing processional movements for Ms. Ito and for an ensemble, Jennifer Kato read poems by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk and peace activist. Many celebrated a spirit of renewal, and the choreography was appropriately calm. But poems about violence and tyranny inspired jagged gesticulations from Ms. Ito. Then order was restored and the audience was invited to join the cast in a meditative walk onstage. Most accepted, stepping serenely while guided by the sounds of a gong and a bell. The unhurried progress became a pilgrimage into peace. (Jack Anderson, December 14, 1999)

Sachiyo Ito has brought together East and West through her delicate and powerful performances of classical, traditional and contemporary Japanese dance for the last 40 years. In 2008, she received the Foreign Minister’s Award from Japanese Foreign Ministry. Born in Tokyo, she has taught at major colleges such as the Juilliard School and New York University since 1972. She holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in Dance from New York University. She was awarded the name, Sachiyo Fujima from the Fujima School of Japanese classical dance in Tokyo. She was Kabuki consultant for the Off-Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, and choreographer for Off-Broadway productions of Shogun Macbeth. Extensive performance credits in Japan, U.S., South America, and Europe include: American Dance Festival, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Japan Society, Asia Society, City Center in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Dublin Theatre Festival, and Bonn International Dance Workshop.

The creation of Joyce SoHo was made possible by the magnanimous support of the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.  Joyce SoHo is supported by private funds from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation and The Shubert Foundation and by public funds from the New York City Council the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.  Special support for Joyce SoHo has been provided by The Harkness Foundation for Dance New York Community Trust Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

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Three New Tanka Titles published by MET Press

Modern English Tanka Press is pleased to announce the publication of three new collections of fine tanka in English. Two are individual collections and the third is a collaborative effort.

May 1, 2010 – Black Jack Judy and the Crisco Kids: Bronx Memories, by Alexis Rotella, is the latest in a series of fine collections of Rotella’s verse published by MET Press. In a bravura performance, Rotella adopts her husband’s voice to write his “autobiography” in verse. This memorable work evokes a potent sense of time and place, another world, long gone. This is a must read for Rotella fans and for all lovers of fine poetry. M. Kei, editor of Atlas Poetica: A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka, says, “In Black Jack Judy and the Crisco Kids, Alexis Rotella writes her husband's autobiography as if she had lived it herself. Replete with moments both magical and tragic, she provides a portrait of Italian American life at a time when there were still small farms in New York City, Italians were discriminated against, mothers plotted marriage, and all manner of relatives, friends, neighbors, and coworkers might appear at the dinner table. Each moment is rendered in tanka or kyoka, and occasionally prose or senryu. A piece of broken mirror the shape of Sicily, the curls from a little boy's haircut, a Christmas pizza with a star made of anchovies, and many other details paint a vivid picture of life long ago in a fairy tale country called the Bronx.”

May 2, 2010 – Home to Ballygunge: Kolkata Tanka by William Hart, has been published as a pocket paperback by MET Press of Baltimore, Maryland. Preparations for the book were begun inadvertently in the summer of 1986, when William Hart married his graduate school girlfriend in Kolkata (Calcutta at that time) and met several hundred of his new Bengali relatives. Return visits to India in the years since have convinced Hart that he does indeed have a home in the largely middle-class district of Ballygunge. In writing the poems, Hart tried to portray his Indian family and their city with accuracy, insight, and a bit of magic, as the subjects require. The sixty poems in the cycle borrow from the Japanese waka or tanka for their form. William Hart’s poems and stories have appeared in several hundred journals, newspapers and anthologies, including most periodicals that feature English-language haiku or tanka. Nine of Hart’s poetry collections have been published, along with two well-received novels. One of his haiku collections, Paris, won a Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America in 1996. Hart also produces documentary films with his wife for PBS.

May 17, 2010 – Double Take: Response Tanka, by Sonja Arntzen and Naomi Beth Wakan, has been published as a trade paperback by MET Press. It is an extraordinary collection of responsive tanka. Michael Dylan Welch says, “You will surely come back to these poems for a closer reading, returning to each collaborative pairing to dwell in their candor, their echoes, their surprising turns, their drinking in of all it means to be alive.” Angela Leuck writes, “Like the pleasure of a lingering, afternoon tea party, Double Take is a book that you’ll want to read slowly and savour.” Beverley George says, “Double Take demonstrates the power of the compressed poem to delight and satisfy an attentive reader.”

These fine books are available from www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka. Publisher information is available online at www.themetpress.com

About MET Press: MET Press (Modern English Tanka Press) is an independent publishing house in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to producing work of lasting literary value, especially fine verse. A family business, we treat our customers and partners in publishing like family. We use modern print-on-demand production and distribution methods. Our special mission is to promote the tanka form of poetry and to educate newcomers about this most ancient poetic form.

Contact: Denis M. Garrison, owner, MET Press / Modern English Tanka Press, 443-559-2776
Email to dmg@themetpress.com


best wishes,
Denis
MET Press, www.themetpress.com
dmg@themetpress.com

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Dave Russo sent this:

The Haiku Foundation is looking for an Assistant Web Administrator

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Paul Conneally sent this:

Photos of Acorn Bank Full Bloom Renga On Sticks

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A new issue of Lynx is online:

http://www.ahapoetry.com/ahalynx/252hmpg.html

July 12 - Salon at Musicoal!

On Sunday, July 12, at 7 pm, the Meymandi Theater at the Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, in Raleigh, NC will host a Salon of music, dance and theater.

The evening will feature Fleur de Lisa, a group of four women singers who write and perform all original music, blending elements of art, jazz, classical and folk. At turns, playful, moving, and inspiring, Fleur de Lisa songs feature complex harmonies and rhythms, with lyrics based on poetry from Japan and the United States, including Piedmont Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Greene. For the July 12 show Fleur de Lisa will premiere a song based on the work of NC Poet Laureate Kathryn Stripling Byers. Fleur de Lisa will also unveil a longer suite of songs based on poems by Roberta Beary.

Dance solos will be presented by Carol Finley, Artistic Director of Meredith Dance Theater, whose piece "Prelude to the Breakup" is the opening section to a suite she will perform in concert next Fall. Senior Dance Major Matney Murad will dance "Confession from the Bride Room."

Rounding out the evening, Director Johannah Maynard, BFA Tisch School for the Arts, will lead some of Raleigh's finest actors and actresses in performing favorite monologues.

The July 12 show is part of the Musicoal Series presented by Burning Coal Theater. Tickets are available only at the door, and cost $10, $5 for students and Seniors.

For more information call 919-810-2863, 834-4001, or email haikusongs@gmail.com

Gualala Arts 2009 Whale & Jazz Festival

POETRY & JAZZ
– a night of Japanese poetry –
Saturday, April 11
7:30 p.m.
– Book Signing Party –

All performances accompanied by Shirley Muramoto on koto and Karl Young on shakuhachi unless noted otherwise.

“Notes from a Jazz Geisha, Tokyo” written and performed by Blake More. “I discovered Jazz in Tokyo, thanks to the tutelage of a delightfully generous, engaging Japanese patron.”

"Cast Your Fate To The Wind" an American pop standard written by Vince Guaraldi, with lyrics by Carel Werber arranged for koto and shakuhachi by Shirley Muramoto and played with Karl Young.

On this Same Star by Mariko Kitakubo, Tokyo performance artist and tanka poet, performs her original tanka in Japanese. Linda Galloway, American tanka and haiku poet, will present the English translations by Amelia Fielden. In addition to the koto and shakuhachi accompaniment, Mariko plays the hamohn.

“A Selection of Haibun” written and performed by Renée Owen accompanied by musician Brian Foster on shakuhachi flute.

INTERMISSION

"Shaei" – Diagonal Shadows by Hikaru Sawai – a koto solo played by Shirley Muramoto

"Yoshino Shizuka" – is a classical-style number by Katsuko Chikushi played by Shirley Muramoto and Karl Young

"Basho Inspired Butoh” arranged and performed by Don McLeod. Don McLeod is an internationally acclaimed butoh dancer and movement artist. Haiku selected from Basho: The Complete Haiku by Jane Reichhold.

Thanks to Sponsors

Kodansha Books of New York & Tokyo

Sue Friedland and Karl Young for lodging

Joel & Jeremy Crockett of Four-Eyed Frog Books for tonight’s bookstore

– Cover artwork “Kimono” by Barbara Kelly –

For more information about this event or the performers, see the Gualala Arts Center website at http://www.gualalaarts.org/.