3LIGHTS

Spring 2010

3LIGHTS Journal of Haiku & Related Forms

Issue 2 : Spring 2010

ISSN 2042-910X

Edited by Liam & Diane Wilkinson

3LIGHTS Journal of Haiku & Related Forms

Issue 2 : Spring 2010 ISSN 2042-910X Copyright © Liam Wilkinson 2010

All rights reserved. If you wish to reproduce any part

of this journal, please contact the editor/publisher in writing. Reviewers and scholars may quote up to six poems.

3LIGHTS is dedicated to promoting modern English haiku

and related forms. It is edited by Liam Wilkinson and Diane Wilkinson. Please send all submissions

and correspondence to threelightsgallery@yahoo.co.uk.

3LIGHTS Editions www.3lights.wordpress.com

Editor’s Note

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life.”

– Goethe Five years ago, when I was piecing together the many ideas that became the 3LIGHTS Gallery, it was this quotation by Goethe that was running constantly through my mind. Surely, of all literary forms, it is haiku and its related short forms that most perfectly and succinctly provide man with all the music, poetry and pictures for which one could wish. A good haiku is a painting hung on a wall, a piece of music playing in a day-lit room and a poem on a wide-open page. This second issue of 3LIGHTS Quarterly is a celebration of everything musical that haiku and its related forms can be. Each poem in this edition has been inspired or touched in some way by music and our interaction with it. We’re pleased to welcome Sanford Goldstein, our featured poet for this issue, whose long tanka string Memory Sprawl is a fine example, not only of exquisitely written tanka but also of how tanka, and particularly tanka strings, can provide the writer with an instrument for playing their recollections, their long line of memory. Many thanks again to all those writers who submitted work for this issue. We look forward to receiving your water-themed work for our third edition. Liam Wilkinson York, Spring 2010

a keskidee announcing the dawn with high octaves KEITH A. SIMMONDS

winter trees each a composition arranged in crow MICHELE PIZARRO HARMAN

listing fir – a woodpecker’s muffled drum roll SUSAN CONSTABLE

a grasshopper still in the warbler’s bill . . . evening silence JOHN BARLOW

birds behind glass he insists on a birthday without song GLENN G. COATS

after the shooting star— a single note from the wind chime MICHAEL DYLAN WELCH Originally Published: Mayfly 12, July 1991

shutting off Vivaldi’s Spring to listen RICHARD KRAWIEC

the blackbird shifts to a minor key… autumn deepens LORIN FORD

a mockingbird sings to the homeless man's earphones RICHARD KRAWIEC

busy street only the dust in the busker's case JACEK MARGOLAK

Elvis costume - the circle of pavement around the busker DAVID SERJEANT

Bank Holiday-- the busker gives it all he's got HELEN BUCKINGHAM

between songs . . . pick marks on an old guitar MICHAEL DYLAN WELCH Originally Published: Frogpond 20:2, September 1997, page 31

an essay on postmodernism unfinished – I play a medley of old songs on a new ukulele BOB LUCKY estranged neighbor befriending her strumming ROBERT EPSTEIN business lunch the pianist plays a medley from Les Miserables RICHARD KRAWIEC

String Quartet quartet’s eyes lock at the head of the rapids a still pond violin bows swoop and soar gulls riding thermals bow over strings river water rippling through pebbles waterlily adrift on still water violin cantilena KATE KING

Grand Sonata the viola da braccio nearly too late RAMONA LINKE

My neighbor breaks the dull rain with the violin sounds that way she has also driven the sun PREDRAG PEŠIC Translated by SASA VAZIC

ping of hail timpani of unshelled peas into a bowl MARK MILLER

mozart in the park a gust of wind raises the conductor´s toupee JÖRGEN JOHANSSON

school marching band scanning the feet to find her child DAVID ASH silent grief— the cello's voice almost mine DANA-MARIA ONICA empty trumpet case my father's shadow on the music stand DAVID ASH

Memory Sprawl Sanford Goldstein

A Tanka String

3LIGHTS Feature : Spring 2010

a long list of deaths, family, friends, others they keep cropping up sad, sweet, grim flashes of life

by my waiting car on that adolescent trip many women stopped— not once did I open the door for whatever it was

strange how that elementary school embarrassment lingers, she cheated with her pencil and I was punished

Proust lucky in his padded silent room writing a superb past I cannot spill magic though sometimes I try

it was brutal that slap from my father after the ballgame, I had to say shut up I had to defend the Negro

my retirement party and my young niece comes to me, cries, kneels, gone is that old man and still her agony goes on

a killer in the neighborhood, my friend hanging, under my bed all life’s fears rolling through me

the sight of my mother carrying her shopping bag those early years contained a real spring wind of freedom

I too listened fearing that radio voice “Turn off your lights!” afterward the station jazz did not bring on the ease

over the fountain the bullies came and pushed my head down down no wonder I spent my youth looking over my shoulder

at camp stars above the open tent radiant I never thought the years would block out their promise

I wanted each dish, each fork, each knife to be clean the summer camp kitchen crew pushed me back to the dining room

I had a bookworm look a scared look even at fourteen directions pointing nowhere

my brother had the looks, the body, the friends— no, I could not come I stayed behind on the bridge

sentimental waves washed through this silent self was it the movie music? the movie words?

lonely my early tanka road of multiple no’s— sometimes, even now, I want that isolation

so much magic in the Jewish bakery window the outside yearning crept into my mouth

on the synagogue bench each Saturday for years— my grandfather never spoke he died and left me his car

Rodin’s Thinker outside the Cleveland Art Museum, on a bench I watched swans, on yellow sheets I scribbled

joy after the movie matinee and I raced home I woke up in a drugstore the driver’s wife in tears

telling one of the profs my dissertation idea occurred in this very room, smiling, she says they should post a plaque in my honor

finding I can make the past sad or silly, I think Alexis Rotella will stand up and wave

the last time I saw my sister in homecare she was silent I returned to Japan and she was gone

so often over the long-distance phone, dark messages: even today the ring of the phone blunts my mind with images

over the years moods that changed in a second the Zen master could make the socket of his eye vibrate

waiting to cross bridges, I imagined an eternity could be erased with a thirty-one

the kitchen table had a magic bag from the Jewish bakery I always made my own junior high school lunch

called out of my college class and I went by taxi— entering the hospital room, found the white cloth over her face

at five taken by my parents to see A Star Is Born, in my loud crying voice the knowing that life is sad

the hero in that early film I saw at five, his suicide repeated: my student could not swim

on innocents I triggered my depression even in younger years— for a decade I never talked to the cousin living with us

once the dead one said I had never laboured, not once in my life and that set the tone on our trip to Tokyo

my brother went out to pick up our drunk father I lay silent in bed dreading the arrival

I carved on stones at summer camp decades ago, and those stones carried only my own initials

sleeping on the porch of that summer cottage by Lake Erie, I heard my uncle pleading, my aunt crying, refusing

at ping pong how my uncle cursed pounding his paddle— yes, even in table tennis I was always defensive

women’s lib she believed in, the graduate I once dated what I gave her was my bound manuscript of tanka

they tossed condoms on my bed to embarrass me I made my army sheet tight and threw them away

long ago my conviction I would not get old, now the debris of my body settles, refuses to leave

when they gave her a spinal tap in a foreign hospital, I remained tight-handed with her as she cried out

once I felt joy hearing Perry Como sing in Cleveland that feeling seems ancient in today’s world

often I thought Hamlet might enter my tanka music his power through the sound of remembered words

years ago I never thought of tanka success even one on an ink-stained folder would have been enough

searching my memories for moments of joy so hard to squeeze even one into a tiny space

forever the memories spill and spill— a tanka tangle, a tanka whirl

Sanford Goldstein

Unplayed Harmonica by Michael Dylan Welch and Carmen Sterba tree fort— the trumpet’s spit valve stuck shut Michael a toy piano out in the rain Carmen a few empty seats— the timpani roll fades into dusk Michael foreclosure— unplayed harmonica on the mantelpiece Carmen a stringless banjo from papa’s attic Michael ring of primroses in an upturned French horn— Easter morning Carmen

pink pink Satie blue HELEN BUCKINGHAM

Sonny Rollins Freedom Suite I stretch out the lives of the children we’re yet to conceive LIAM WILKINSON

augmentation on a sunday in winter by Claudia Coutu Radmore An imaginary afternoon with the composer Robert Kapilow and the poet Pablo Neruda, whose mind is partly on his latest set of poems, specifically the poem ‘Sonata with Some Pines’. They listen to the Gryphon Trio performing Brahms’s ‘Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8’ (the revised version of 1891)

in the half sun of a winter’s day one lengthened note— what Brahms does with this… let us not think about hurry a change in the last note then down a scale down again then .. leap up we forget our tired bones the second theme a downwards arpeggio he springs to mind— the son so far away what makes Brahms great the familiar― the woman you thought you married― becomes exquisite melody

then three simple notes down and back generates a measure the ordinary … seeding the extraordinary pizzicato enchantment a short musical roller coaster ride sun flashes among the pines left hand plays solo the right follows overlapping kingdoms discovered within kingdoms the key to organic flow going back to what has come before a gentle explosion … a surprising intimacy the same phrase slowed this balance of unity and variety sun and pine shadows compose themselves on a white wall

keeping it real the opening theme once again but with a richer ending this new love late in life a different mood cello’s third set of mounting notes a conversation with crows at the top of the pine the piano plays a little idea three notes blossom into slow yearning passage it is time to forget those who cannot love us now a disguised return to the opening theme like Odysseus returning to Ithaca no one notices until the third repetition the last coda Brahms’s blending of wisdom and youthful exuberance― how miniscule shifts change everything

simple decoration suggests an alternate ending the piano copies lower cherish these smallest of moments towards resolution Brahms simplifies and slows augments with a single note such subtle enrichment of relationship a final lengthening— the original theme notes begin the next measures familiar tale eloquently retold then twice as fast to the end— Brahms rushes to touch pine roots with his soul

*Italicized words taken from Neruda’s poem

between cries of neighbor's baby symphony no. 9 CHEN-OU LIU

raining all day- sorting his collection into genres CLAIRE KNIGHT

emptying your closet – on the bottom Rampal LP’s and your silver flute I'm trying to remember when had you stopped playing DJURDJA VUKELIĆ ROŽIĆ

divorce ceremony-- the same songs at their wedding ROBERT EPSTEIN

aging rock star— a hearing aid in each ear MICHAEL DYLAN WELCH Originally Published: Frogpond 15:1, Spring–Summer 1992, page 23

comeback rock concert putting in ear plugs CLAIRE KNIGHT

imagine what he’d be like now at seventy had he lived and peace been given another chance ANDRÉ SURRIDGE

music festival the hum of mosquitoes in the toilet BOB LUCKY

to the rhythm of castanets, our hands slapping mosquitoes LORIN FORD

music shop the guitar body resounds with a fly buzz MAGDALENA BANASZKIEWICZ

dragonfly – the strategic pauses in her song KALA RAMESH

the guard at starbucks eats rice in the back room . . . a musician without a gig ROBERT D. WILSON

after the landslide owners whistle for lost pets MARGARET HEHMAN-SMITH

raindrops drumming on a stringless guitar ... earthquake rubble

NATALIA KUZNETSOVA

the dogs refuse to go out Stormy Weather MARGARET HEHMAN-SMITH

friday night my mantra and the cat's purr hum together JOYCE S. GREENE

playing Misty on a clear day without you ANGELA LEUCK

alone again – my world reduced to radio music PATRICIA PRIME

Mood Indigo— dashes of blue in the garden ANGELA LEUCK

running laps the theme from rocky on repeat DOUG KUTNEY

the elevator shudders as it pulls itself up to the top – all the songs of my youth turned into muzak BOB LUCKY

The Music From Your Mouth (Tanka Sequence)

in sickness and in health so many years ago hippie hair long on our wedding day so much worry about the transplanted organ no time to appreciate this cherry petal season serving you breakfast in bed topless wishing the grapefruit were larger

I peel the grapefruit into a perfect treble clef the discord of frequent migraines and nausea despite angry words I still hear the music from your mouth so long since you have smiled if only Cassiopeia could light your way TERRY ANN CARTER

a ride in a road train – the miles of country music LORIN FORD

midnight bus low tones of a mother's lullaby MARK MILLER

Between your quiet high-windowed carriage and mine some rough symphony, two hundred miles’ worth of air compressed into a handclap. JAMES RODERICK BURNS

lull in traffic flute music from an upper window CATHERINE J.S. LEE

still in mourning dad calls me Mary my mother's name, he whistles as he drives taking us back home again JOYCE S. GREENE

indian summer an off-key greensleeves stops mid-tune DAVID SERJEANT

driving fast to the rehearsal ma non troppo fast DAVID ASH

windscreen wipers for a moment I’m back in the music room headmaster demonstrates the metronome ANDRÉ SURRIDGE

windy morning snowflakes shadows dance on the piano lid JACEK MARGOLAK

autumn sonata... leaves landing pianissimo on the Steinway keys JÖRGEN JOHANSSON

vibrating along the piano keys my mobile phone LIAM WILKINSON

grand piano all closed up -- fingerprint traced through dust

B.J. LEE

the piano tuner plays an arpeggio winter rain SUSAN CONSTABLE

he listens to the whistling wind... piano tuner DANA-MARIA ONICA

Duet (Tanka Sequence)

one year since her passing I prepare a Christmas tea in my mother’s memory the calendar stained with grease winter light through the blinds all the baking supplies lined up on the counter from another room the ascending notes of “The Flower Duet” from Lakme a slight snow falling such an exotic tale set in India Lakme and her servant gather flowers by the riverside my frozen thermometer in mother’s apron I hum along with the famous sopranos flour dusting my arms white jasmine – the snow TERRY ANN CARTER

misty morning with measured croaks the pond sings BARBARA A. TAYLOR

swamp frogs . . . singing the chorus all over again KALA RAMESH

Old phonograph in the middle of the lake – frog songs. PEYCHO KANEV

steam rising from the bath her song into the night (for Penny Harter) TERRY ANN CARTER

She likes to bathe in, The harmony of the Sun, On a singles beach. GUY SHAKED

long winter . . . the way she hummed to herself in the kitchen MARJORIE A. BUETTNER

dessert – whilst she serves he plays the spoons ANDRÉ SURRIDGE

literacy classes she misses the music of her language GLENN G. COATS

my daughter listens to a sea shell sand-speckled toes keep time CRAIG W. STEELE

inside the snail's shell, one too many tunes ROBERT D. WILSON

lunar eclipse my grandson tap dances in women’s shoes GLENN G. COATS

starless night mindlessly thumbing a kalimba BOB LUCKY

still our song… the girth of the elm expanded BARBARA A. TAYLOR

BIOGRAPHIES DAVID ASH David Ash, publisher of Basho Press, produces humorous 5-7-5 gift books such as Haiku for Coffee Lovers and Haiku for Cat Lovers. Ash’s frog sometimes hops from Mukilteo, Washington, into the literary pond, where he has appeared in Frogpond, The Heron's Nest, Acorn, Roadrunner, and other journals. (www.BashoPress.com) MAGDALENA BANASZKIEWICZ Magdalena lives in a small village in western Poland. She was a teacher, but now she's taking care of children, running a family emergency house. She's fond of poetry, hatha yoga and alternative medicine. She also creates and solve charades. Haiku poems written by her have been published at Tinywords, Asahi haikuist network magazine, The Mainichi Daily News, Shamrock and the haiku.pl forum's anthology. JOHN BARLOW

John Barlow’s haiku have received awards in the United States , United Kingdom , Ireland , Australia , New Zealand , and Japan , while works he has edited have been honoured by the Haiku Society of America and the Poetry Society of America. His books include The New Haiku (2002) (co-edited with Martin Lucas), Waiting for the Seventh Wave (2006), and (with Mat the w Paul) Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (2008). He recently contributed a paper on “Traditional and modern haiku responses to birds” at a symposium on Birds, Culture and Conservation at the University of Oxford.

HELEN BUCKINGHAM Helen Buckingham was born in London, 1960, and presently lives in Bristol. MARJORIE A. BUETTNER Marjorie Buettner lives in Minnesota with her family. She has received numerous awards for her tanka and haiku. She has taught at the Loft in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a frequent book reviewer. Seeing It Now ( published by Red Dragonfly Press ) is her first collection of haiku and tanka. TERRY ANN CARTER Terry Ann Carter is a co-founder of KaDo Ottawa, a local haiku group that meets regularly and launches a broadsheet each spring at the Japanese Embassy. Her small poems have appeared in frogpond, bottle rockets, Raw NerVZ, Basho festival Anthology, Haiku Canada anthologies, HSA anthologies, Simply Haiku, Snapshot Press calendar, and Red Moon Press Anthology, 2009. She has organized four haiku Canada conferences at Carleton University in Ottawa and was the chair for the HNA conference held in Ottawa, August, 2009.

GLENN G. COATS Glenn G. Coats is an educational writer and teaches adults in rural Virginia how to read. This past year, his poems appeared in: Moonset, White Lotus, Shamrock Haiku Journal, Magnapoets, The Heron’s Nest, Acorn, Bottle Rockets, Wisteria, and New Resonance Six. SUSAN CONSTABLE Susan Constable’s haiku and haiga have appeared in numerous print and on-line journals in the past four years. More recently, she’s also been writing haibun and tanka. A selection of her work is featured in New Resonance 6, as well as in the 2008 and 2009 editions of the Red Moon anthologies. Retired from dual careers – education and business – she lives with her husband on the west coast of Canada. CLAUDIA COUTU RADMORE Claudia Coutu Radmore is a Montrealer transplanted to Carleton Place , Ontario . As a member of The Canadian League of Poets, Haiku Canada and Kado Ottawa, she writes and edits prose, lyric poetry and Japanese-form poetry and has been published internationally in these fields. MICHAEL DYLAN WELCH Michael Dylan Welch is currently serving as vice president of the Haiku Society of America, and in 2010 is a fellow in Seattle's Jack Straw Writers Program, for which he is writing and developing more of his neon buddha poems. He curates two monthly poetry reading series, and is a board member of the Washington Poets Association. He edited the haiku journal Woodnotes from 1989 to 1997, and currently edits Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem, and publishes haiku and tanka books with his award-winning press, Press Here. He cofounded the Haiku North America conference in 1991, and the American Haiku Archives in 1996. In 2000, he founded the Tanka Society of America, serving as its president for five years. Michael's haiku and longer poems, essays, and book reviews have appeared in hundreds of journal and anthologies in more than a dozen languages. He has won first place in each of the Henderson, Brady, Drevniok, and Tokutomi contests, among others, and has also won a Museum of Haiku Literature Award and Merit Book Awards from the Haiku Society of America. Recent books include Noh (Tokyo: PIE Books, 2010), For a Moment (Pointe Claire, Quebec: King's Road Press, 2009) and 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court (Tokyo: PIE Books, 2008). A longtime photographer (his photographs appear with his poems here), for many years he was a judge for the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs, and his photographs have appeared in several calendars and books and on magazine covers. Michael now lives in Sammamish, Washington, with his wife and two perfect children. He agrees with Roland Barthes, who said "Haiku has this rather fantasmagorical property: that we always suppose we ourselves can write such things easily."

ROBERT EPSTEIN Robert Epstein is a licensed psychotherapist (Ph.D.) who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also a published haiku poet, whose work appears regularly in Acorn, The Heron's Nest, bottle rockets, Frogpond, Lilliput Review, South by Southeast, and Modern Haiku. He recently edited an anthology entitled, THE BREATH OF SURRENDER: A COLLECTION OF RECOVERY-ORIENTED HAIKU, the first book of its kind to address the subject of addiction from a haiku perspective. He is currently editing an anthology of death awareness poems whose working title is: DREAMS WANDER ON: A COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY DEATH AWARENESS POEMS as well as a book of his own death awareness poems, CHECKOUT TIME IS NOON. LORIN FORD Lorin Ford lives and writes from Melbourne, Australia. Her haiku book, ‘a wattle seedpod’ (PostPressed, Teneriffe, Qld. 2008) was awarded first place in the AHS Mildred Kanterman Awards, 2009. She is haiku editor for the on-line haikai journal, ‘Notes From the Gean’. MARGARET HEHMAN-SMITH Margaret is a member of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. She's been published in Modern Haiku, Bottle Rockets, Simply Haiku Frogpond, Heron's Nest, Yuki Teikei Haiku Society Anthologies and others. She writes a column about the SCHSG for HSA newsletter. She's written a novella titled Mystories of the Savannah about baboon families in Africa. (Available on Amazon). SANFORD GOLDSTEIN Sanford Goldstein has been writing tanka for more than forty years. He has translated several Japanese tanka poets in co-authorship with Professor Seishi Shinoda. Goldstein lives in Shibata, Japan. JOYCE S. GREENE Joyce lives with her husband in upstate New York and began writing poetry in early 2008. Working as an accountant/bookkeeper by day, she writes at night. Her tanka have been published in 3Lights, Ribbons, red lights, Simply Haiku and two on-line poetry forums. A senryu is pending publication in Prune Juice. JÖRGEN JOHANSSON

Jörgen Johansson was born in 1956 and raised in Lidköping, located in the South-West Of Sweden He has been writing haiku since early 2001 and has been published in The Heron´s Nest, Ginyu Haiku, Mainichi Daily News and Simply Haiku.

PEYCHO KANEV

Peycho Kanev's work has been published in Welter, The Catalonian Review, Off Beat Pulp, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Tonopah Review, Mad Swirl, Southern Ocean Review, The Houston Literary Review and many others. He is nominated for Pushcart Award and lives in Chicago. His new collaborative collection "r", containing poetry by him and Felino Soriano, as well as photography from Duane Locke and Edward Wells II is now available at Amazon.com.

CLAIRE KNIGHT I am a Reflexologist and Teacher, have a son and daughter and two delightful young grandchildren. Living on the south coast of Kent I draw much inspiration from the sea, as well as the beautiful countryside nearby. Haiku has become a rewarding passion, contributing to various publications in the UK and overseas. I have been placed in several major competitions, and find great satisfaction in being part of the global haiku family. KATE KING Kate King is a haiku and tanka poet from Canberra, ACT, Australia. She revels in poetry, books and music as still points in her busy day as a veterinarian. In 2009 she won 2nd prize for a tanka sequence in the Friendly Street Poets' Japanese poetry competition and 2nd prize in the City of Perth 2009 haiku competition. RICHARD KRAWIEC I've published haiku in all the usual places - Modern Haiku, heron's nest, Simply Haiku, Frogpond, bottle rockets, Hermitage, etc. My first book of freeverse poems, Breakdown, was a finalist for the 2009 Indy Awards in Poetry. I've also published 2 novels, a collection of stories, 4 plays, and numerous feature articles and reviews. DOUG KUTNEY Doug Kutney is a commuter from New Jersey. His poems have been spotted in Ambrosia, The Heron's Nest, moonset, Prune Juice, Roadrunner, Stylus, White Lotus, and beyond. Visit Doug Kutney's Den of Poetry at sites.google.com/site/dougkutney.

NATALIA KUZNETSOVA

Natalia Kuznetsova(Moscow,Russia), is a university assistant professor of English and a freelance conference interpreter. She mostly writes poetry in Russian and has a book of lyrical poems published, having participated in several poetry projects. She recently "discovered" the world of Japanese poetry and started to write tanka, haiku and senryu in English. Natalia has contributed to several international competitions and won a third prize at the 12th Kusamakura haiku competition aswell as gaining an "Honourable Mention" at the Vancouver 2008 Haiku Invitational competition. She also won a prize at the 2008 "Genkissau! Spirits up! Hekinan Haiku Contest". Natalia has participated in several 3LIGHTS haiku exhibitions.

B.J. LEE B.J. Lee, formerly a librarian at The Boston Conservatory, now spends her free time writing poetry both for children and adults as well as picture books. She has many poems either published or forthcoming as well as a picture book forthcoming in 2010, and recently won an award for one of her poems. She lives in Florida with her husband and poodles. www.childrensauthorbjlee.com CATHERINE J.S. LEE Catherine J.S. Lee lives, writes, teaches, and gardens on an island on the coast of Maine, USA, near Canada. Her haiku and senryu appear in a variety of print and online journals. All That Remains, her haiku collection, was recently named the winner in the Turtle Light Press 2010 Haiku Chapbook Competition and will be published in autumn, 2010. ANGELA LEUCK An award-winning Montreal haiku and tanka poet, Angela Leuck has been published in journals and anthologies around the world. She is the author of Garden Meditations and A Cicada in the Cosmos (forthcoming from inkling press), haiku white and haiku noir (carve, 2007) and Flower Heart (Blue Ginkgo Press, 2006). She also edited Rose Haiku for Flower Lovers and Gardeners (Price-Patterson, 2005), Tulip Haiku (Shoreline, 2004), and, with Maxianne Berger, Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today (Shoreline, 2003). She is the Vice President of Haiku Canada. RAMONA LINKE

Ramona Linke was born in 1960 and lives with her family in Beesenstedt ( Germany ). She has written lyrics for many years and haiku since 2003. Also she writes tan-renga, renku and rengay, takes photos and paintings (mainly sumi-e and aquarelle). Her haiku and haiga have been published in anthologies and in such magazines, for example: Chrysanthemum, Der Sperling, Mainichi Daily News, Asahi-Shimbun, WHC-German, Lynx, WHA-Haiga-Contest and elsewhere. She is a member of the German Haiku Society and of the World Haiku Association, and is also the editor of the internet-forum ‘wortART’ (since 2006) , contemporary lyrics like haiku and haiga are the subjects she focus on. Her websites: http://www.haiku-art.de/ & http://haiku-wortart-forum.de/

BOB LUCKY Bob Lucky currently lives and works in Hangzhou, China, but will be moving in August with his wife to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His work has appeared in various international journals.

JACEK MARGOLAK Jacek Margolak was born in Rzeszów, in 1964. He lives in Kielce (Poland) with his wife and two sons. He works as a print technologist. He has been interested in haiku and haiga since 2000 and now he is a member of two poetic groups writing haiku - "Haiku po polsku" and "Orient", and his poems have been published on the internet at The Heron's Nest, Mainichi Daily News, Haiku Harvest, Asahi Haikuist Network, Tinywords, Frogpond, Wisteria and anthologies (Big sky: The 2006 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, Dust of summers: The 2007 Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, Crickets and Chrysanthemums) and haiga at World Haiku Association, Simply Haiku, Modern Haiga and Haigaonline. MARK MILLER Mark Miller's haiku have been published widely on-line and in journals and newspapers, including Acorn, Chrysanthemum, Frogpond, Notes From the Gean, paper wasp, Shamrock and The Mainichi Daily News. He currently lives on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.

DANA-MARIA ONICA

Dana-Maria Onica – an eye doctor from Romania - is "an ant that climbs up the edge of the book". (Joe Salerno) CHEN-OU LIU Chen-ou Liu is a freelance writer. He lives in a suburb of Toronto, where he has been struggling with a life in transition and translation. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: 3LIGHTS, Ribbons, Modern English Tanka, Gusts, American Tanka, Magnapoets, Simply Haiku, The Heron's Nest, Frogpond, LYNX, and Prune Juice. MICHELE PIZARRO HARMAN I am the assistant editor of a new online children's magazine, Berry Blue Haiku. For the past seven years, I have taught special needs students in elementary and middle schools. Having earned my BA in Literature and Creative Writing from UCLA, and my MA in Literature and Creative Writing, Poetry, from the University of Florida, Gainesville, I have poems published in such literary journals as Quarterly West, The Antioch Review, Mississippi Mud, Sycamore Review, The Jacaranda Review, Shepherd's Check, and Puerto del Sol. I am a current member of the SCBWI and the Academy of American Poets. PATRICIA PRIME Patricia is co-editor of the New Zealand haiku journal Kokako, assistant editor of Haibun Today, reviews editor of Takahe and Stylus and she is on the panel of editors for the Take Five Anthologies, 2009-2010. Her poetry, reviews, articles and interviews have been published worldwide.

KALA RAMESH Kala, an exponent of North Indian Classical music, took a sudden liking to haiku in 2005. Her work, consisting of haiku, tanka, senryu, haibun and renku, has appeared in leading e-zines and anthologies. Kala comes from an artistic and culturally rich South Indian family. She believes, as her father is fond of saying, that “the soil needs to be fertile for the plant to bloom” and feels that she owes this poetic streak to her mother. A proud mother of two young adults, Kala lives with her husband in Pune, India. JAMES RODERICK BURNS James Roderick Burns' collections Greetings from Luna Park and The Salesman's Shoes are published by Modern English Tanka Press. He has served as co-editor of Other Poetry in Newcastle upon Tyne since early 2000, and edited the anthologies Miracle & Clockwork and Still Standen under the Other Poetry Editions imprint. He lives and works in Edinburgh. GUY SHAKED Guy Shaked is a PhD student of Musicology at Bar Ilan university, Israel where he writes his dissertation on the subject of) 19th century Christian composers for Roman synagogues. His haikus have been recently published in World Haiku Review, Haiku News and Frogpond. Guy's essays have been visited online more than 700,000 times and his essay on Plato's Phaedrus has won the approval of the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

KEITH A. SIMMONDS

Keith A. Simmonds was born in Barbados where he received his early education before migrating to Trinidad & Tobago where he worked and studied. He gained a B.A., in French and Spanish at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine , Trinidad, then won a French scholarship that took him to France where he earned his Doctorate in French literature. Since he retired, he spends half of the year in France and the other half in Trinidad & Tobago where he teaches French privately. When he is not working in his garden or travelling, he spends time writing which he considers to be a very integral part of his life. He is the author of several French texts for Secondary schools in the English-speaking Caribbean and has won many awards for poetry and other writings. He acquired a passion for haiku in 2004 and some of his haiku have appeared in various journals, magazines and reviews: Ambrosia Journal of Fine Haiku, Association pour la Promotion du Haïku, Concise Delight Magazine, Free Expression Magazine, Gean Tree Press, Mainichi Daily Haiku, Simply Haiku, Taj Mahal Review, Tanka Splendour Award, The Poetry Sanctuary, Time Haiku, World Haiku Review; first prize winner 23ème Concours de haïku – Sénégal ( 2008/2009 ) ; first prize winner (ex-aequo) Concours de poésie – La Roche-sur-yon ( 2009 ) ; prize winner Genkissu ! Spirits up ! (2009) ; prize winner Ito-En Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest ( 2009 ).

CRAIG W. STEELE Craig W. Steele is a professor of biology at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Craig’s poetry has appeared in Amelia and Stories for Children Magazine. He also has two poems in a forthcoming anthology from Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books titled, An Eyeball in My Garden — And Other Spine-Tingling Poems (July 2010), and a poem forthcoming soon in Crow Toes Quarterly. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Calliope, The Hiss Quarterly, Stories for Children Magazine, The Storyteller and at StoriesThatLift.com CARMEN STERBA Carmen Sterba is a Czech-American who was born in Seattle, and has lived in Japan for half of her life. She is a college instructor with three sons. She has one degree in Far East Asian Studies and another degree in Comparative Literature. Her interests are prayer, haiku, sijo, haibun and ice skating. ANDRÉ SURRIDGE André has won several awards for haiku and tanka and his work has been widely published including Magnapoets; Atlas Poetica; Modern English Tanka; Presence; Eucalypt; Bravado; Kokako; The Heron’s Nest; paper wasp & Sketchbook. BARBARA A. TAYLOR Barbara lives in northern NSW, Australia. Her poems appear in journals and anthologies including Landfall, Atlas Poetica, Ginyu, Haiku Scotland, Lynx, Presence, Red Lights, Sketchbook , Ribbons, Frogpond, Wisteria, 3lightsgallery, Shamrock, Tiny Words, Simply Haiku, Kokako, Moonset, Magnapoets, Eucalypt, and elsewhere. Poetry with audio is at http://batsword.tripod.com DJURDJA VUKELIĆ ROŽIĆ Djurdja Vukelić Rožić, was born in 1956, lives in Ivanic Grad, Croatia. She publishes poetry, humorous sketches and haiku, editor-in-chief of bilingual haiku magazine IRIS, founder of The International Haiku Meeting in Klostar Ivanic, Croatia. So far she published four books; three collections of humorous sketches and a collection of haiku, edited The Anthology of Croatian Haiku 1996-2007 in Croatian and English, to be published. For her humorus sketches, haiku and poems she received a number of awards in Croatia and abroad. From time to time she puts her poems to music. LIAM WILKINSON Liam Wilkinson’s poetry has appeared widely online and in print. He is the editor of 3LIGHTS and Prune Juice. His 2007 collection of tanka, The Darkening Tide is now available free online at Scribd.com. Liam is currently working on a collection of senryu and kyoka as well as a collection of longer poems. His website can be found at http://sites.google.com/site/liamwilkinsononline/

ROBERT D. WILSON

Robert D. Wilson is the author of Jack Fruit Moon, Vietnam Ruminations and owner, Editor and Chief of Simply Haiku. He moderates two poetry forums, and is an volunteer educational consultant in the Philippines where he lives somewhere with his wife and son. More of Robert’s work can be found at http://thewonderlandamusementpark.blogspot.com/