Notes from the Gean - haiku journal

Haiku Editor Alison Williams: England haiku philosophy Haiku Submissions	Biography Alison Williams was born in Lincolnshire but left at the age of three for Hong Kong. She now lives in Southampton and works as a business librarian in a university. For a time she was the librarian of the British Haiku Society. Alison didn't start writing until she was over 40 years old—before that she didn't have anything to say. When she found she did have something to say she wasn't sure how to go about it but one day, while searching the internet for something completely different, she discovered haiku and something clicked. For a while she wrote only haiku, then tanka, then longer poetry and occasional prose. In all forms she tries to keep an essence of haiku in her writing. An interest in alchemy and alchemical symbolism led Alison to consider the correspondences between the world of the alchemist and that of the haiku writer. She explored this relationship in an article called The Alchemy of Haiku originally published in the journal of the British Haiku Society, Blithe Spirit. She also expressed the opinion, in an article for the Australian journal Yellow Moon, that haiku is the prima materia of poetry: the raw, unrefined essence of it. Alison's haiku have been published in various places over the years and some of the best were included in the British Haiku Society/Snapshot Press anthology 'Stepping Stones'. She has a blog called Miso Soup which describes itself as a haiku blog basically, with a few other things floating around in it occasionally. A favourite quotation of hers is from Rene Daumal: "Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are cheques drawn on insufficient funds."


Tanka Editor Michael McClintock: United States tanka philosophy Tanka Submissions	Biography Michael McClintock resides in Clovis, California. A discussion of his poetry, critical theory and practice in tanka, haiku, haibun and related poetry, may be found in Barbara Ungar's book, Haiku in English, Stanford University (Stanford Honors Essay in the Humanities, No. XXI, copyright 1978, Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University). His recent publications include The Tanka Anthology (Red Moon Press, 2003); Letters in Time: Sixty Short Poems(Hermitage West, 2005), Meals at Midnight(Modern English Tanka Press, 2008) and Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka(Modern English Tanka Press, 2009). He is former president of the Tanka Society of America (2004-2010) and writes and edits "The Tanka Cafe" for Ribbons: Journal of the Tanka Society of America. To read Jeffrey Woodward's interview with Michael in Haibun Today click here.


Haiga Editor Andrew Pomphrey: England haiga philosophy Haiga Submissions	Biography Andy Pomphrey lives and works in the town of Andover in Hampshire U.K. as a community worker. As well as working in a community based project, I am lucky to be involved in developing and managing a number of poetry and musical projects, with the aim of promoting creative artists and their work throughout Hampshire. I enjoy hill-walking and wandering around the countryside of the South West of England, which is often the inspiration for my work. Indeed it was the “peasant poet John Clare who wrote: “I didn't write these poems, I found them in a field...” For me this is the essence of haiku. Once you have found them, you realise they are all around you; in nature; in human interaction, and of course in the spirit that exists between them. I found haiku; or they found me about five years ago. Consequently I began to show my work online and as a consequence my work was featured in the online website: Simply Haiku. About two or three years ago, I returned to watercolour painting and subsequently allied the two forms of expression, into Haiga, My first piece was published in haigaonline. Since then more of my haiga have has been published in an anthology in the US More recently I was invited to perform my haiku with Chris Redmond’s band; Tongue Fu, which provided another example of the diversity of haiku expression with the exploration of words and music. Similarly, it is perhaps the essence of haiga form that is simplistic and yet beneath the complex association of words and image, there is found that unique experience that for a moment you forget to breathe as you absorb the moment. This is true haiga.


Haibun Editor Richard Krawiec: United States haibun philosophy Haibun Submissions	Biography Richard Krawiec has published two novels, Time Sharing (Publisher's Weekly Recommended List), Faith In What?, a collection of stories, And Fools of God, two books of poetry, She Hands me the Razor (Press 53), and Breakdown (Finalist Indie Book Awards). He has also published 4 plays, two young adult biographies, and hundreds of stories and poems. He has edited the anthologies Taboo Haiku, The Sound of Poet's Cooking, Voices from Home, Cardinal, and the forthcoming ...And Love... His work appears in many fine literary magazines, including Shenandoah, sou’wester, many mountains moving, Witness, Cream City Review, Florida Review, West Branch, Artful Dodge, Modern Haiku, Heron's Nest, Simply Haiku, frogpond, acorn, bottle rockets etc. He's been fortunate to have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the NC Arts Council (twice), and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He teaches online Fiction Writing for UNC Chapel Hill, and won their Excellence in Teaching Award for 2009. He is founder of Jacar Press, a Community Active Literary Press whose published books of poetry have won praise from writers like Jean Valentine(National Book Award Winner), Dorianne Laux, Marie Howe, Betty Adcock, Fred Chappel, and Kathryn Stripling Byer.


Linked Forms Editor Alan Summers: England linked forms philosophy Linked Forms submissions	Biography Alan Summers, born London, England, is a Japan Times award-winning writer for haiku and renga; 2009 Embassy of Japan 'Japan-UK 150' haiku & renga poet-in-residence; and published on the BBC Poetry Season website. Alan is the founder of With Words, a UK-based provider of quality literature, education and literacy projects, often based around the Japanese genres. He is also the judge of The With Words International Online Haiku Competition. As part of the first online Global Haiku Tournament (2002) organised by the World Haiku Club his multi-national team, The Seven Samurai, came second. He was the lead poet of The 1000 Verse Renga Project in partnership with Bath Libraries (U.K.) and supported by the BBC Poetry Season website. Also Alan was lead poet for the Hull Global Renga which attracted over 3000 verses over a six month residency in the City of Hull, U.K. You can see some of his work at The Haiku Foundation He's been General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000); served on the Board of Editors for the award-winning Red Moon Anthologies; and is a Life Member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Queensland. Alan is also a founding editor of Haijinx, an online magazine that showcases humour in haiku. He has been a moderator of the Shiki-temp list while Matsuyama University's haiku forum was under construction, and is currently a co-moderator on the British Haiku Society Members Forum. Alan's work is published in over 75 haiku anthologies; and published in over fifteen languages including British Sign Language. He also helped create possibly the World's first ever Sign Language Renga which can be seen on YouTube, and an article was published in the Journal of Renku and Renga (Darlington Richards 2010). -------------------- Poetry Collections: -------------------- Sundog Haiku Journal: an Australian Year (Sunfast Press 1997 reprinted 1998); Moonlighting British Haiku Society Pamphlet (1996) --------------- Poetry Editor: --------------- The Poetic Image - Haiku and Photography Birmingham Words/ National Academy of Writing Pamphlet (2006) ----------- Co-Editor: ----------- Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends published by Press Here (2010 USA). Parade of Life: Poems inspired by Japanese Prints (2002) ISBN: 09539234-2-8 Poetry Can/Bristol Museum and Art Gallery/Japan21 "Parade of Life is very impressive." Hiroaki Sano, Japanese Embassy Alan has a retrospective collection coming out in March 2012, and a pamphlet of gendai haiku out in late 2011. He has a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and is a widely published and translated haiku poet, as well as an experienced workshop leader. You can see Alan in action as part of Antony Gormley’s Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth Project now archived by the British Library: Alan's website: www.withwords.org.uk Alan's events blog: http://area17.blogspot.com


Photographic Artist Grum Robertson: Scotland geanphoto@gmail.com	Biography Grum F. Robertson was born in 1965, in Aberdeen, Scotland. From the age of 17 to 20 he worked for an engineering company as a metal failure analyst where he developed a passion for photography. Grum studied a B.A. in Photographic Arts at Edinburgh. In his final year, Grum, produced and directed a short film, called Billy Tattoo, based in and around a tattoo artist's shop in Leith. Billy Tattoo was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and subsequently the Piccadilly Film Festival – where it was the only short film – screened alongside Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Grum has worked as a freelance photographer for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper and an assistant for MTV Europe. He has worked on the short films: Wheels, 1992 – shot in Nairn and set in the 1970s; Quality of Life, 2004 – screened at the Berlin Film Festival and Apocalypse Oz, 2006 – shot in and around L.A. and screened at the Sundance Film Festival; and various other independent Scottish television productions.


Editor-in-Chief / Resources Colin Stewart Jones: Scotland philosophy Resources Submissions	Biography Colin Stewart Jones was born in Manchester and brought up in Edinburgh and the Isle of Lewis. His father is English and his mother a Gaelic-speaking Scot. Colin now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he writes Japanese short form poetry and inhabits a strange place between three very different cultures. Colin studied Gaelic language and literature at King's College, the University of Aberdeen. He was given full marks for his MA final dissertation on points of contact between Gaelic poet Somhairle MacGill-Eain and the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, though he was eventually penalized for it being late. Colin went on to study an MLitt in Irish and Scottish Studies under Professor Tom Devine at the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. Colin has published widely in the Japanese Short Forms in many online and print journals. He placed joint first in the 2008 Haiku Poets of Northern California International Rengay Competition and received commendations for poems in both the contemporary and innovative categories of THF's 'Haiku Now! 2011 Contest'. Colin's work has also been anthologized in white lies: The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku 2008, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume Two (2009), contemporary haibun Vol 10 and 12 and he is one of the featured poets in New Resonance 7 and is the poet in residence for Cornell University’s, Mann Daily Haiku, throughout August 2011 . Colin is currently experimenting with graphics. His one-word haiga were published by The World Haiku Review, and his graphic haibun can be seen in Simply Haiku and Haibun Today. In a his review of Colin's first collection of haiku, A Seal Snorts out the Moon, Published by Cauliay, Robert Wilson, managing editor of Simply Haiku, described his writing as a cross between Bukowski and Kerouac. Colin, however, still feels his education is ongoing and is privileged to be able to learn from his peers. More of Colin's thoughts on his work and all things haiku can be read at Curtis Dunlap's Tobacco Road blog and also in his interview with Robert Wilson in Simply Haiku. Samples of Colin's published work can be read at: http://serendipiku.co.uk/


Former Editors	Issue 1:1 - 3:1 Lorin Ford: Haiku Issue 1:1 - 1:4, 2:2 H. Gene Murtha: Tanka Issue 1:2 - 3:1 Melinda Hipple: Haiga Issue 1:4 - 3:1 Ray Rasmussen: Haibun Issue 1:1 Origa: Haiga



Guest Editors	Issue 3:2 - Colin Stewart Jones: Haibun Issue 3:1 - Kirsty Karkow: Tanka Issue 2:4 - Kirsty Karkow: Tanka Issue 2:3 - Lorin Ford and Melinda Hipple: Tanka Issue 2:1 - Kirsty Karkow: Tanka

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