Issue 52 – Farm Animals

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Michele’s Musings

Hello all!

Did you know that May is Tanka Month? We are so excited to announce that our next issue will highlight tanka! Tanka is a Japanese short form. It is made up of five lines , with a short/long/short pattern like a haiku, and then two more long lines. Tanka has a limit of 31 syllables and allows for more interpretation of emotion than a haiku. We encourage you to read up about tanka at the Tanka Society of America as well as on Michael Dylan Welch’s website Graceguts.

Speaking of Michael, we are so pleased that he has graciously agreed to be guest editor of your submissions. Here is a bit about Michael.

Michael Dylan Welch (born May 20, 1962, Watford, England); lived in England, Ghana, Australia, and Canada, and now resides in Washington state, U.S.A. Editor, publisher, as well as haiku poet, translator, critic, and organizer. Among his accomplishments are editing and publishing journals including Woodnotes andTundra, founding Press Here, a haiku publishing company, and National Haiku Writing Month, cofounding and directing the biennial Haiku North America conferences, founding the Tanka Society of America and the annual Seabeck Haiku retreats, and involvement in many other haiku- and poetry-related activities.

Thanks so much, Michael!

A date has been set for the first ginko walk of the season. We will be meeting on Saturday, June 7^th, at 10:30 am at the Kasugai Gardens in Kelowna, BC, Canada. If you live anywhere nearby we would love to have you join us.

Member News

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams had the following haiku mentioned
in Tony Pupello’s essay “Play and Games in Haiku”, on the web site
for tsuri-doro.

Rubik's Cube
the mind games 
you and I play

Play and Games in Haiku – tsuri-dōrō – a small journal of haiku and senryū

Thank you, Valentina, for sharing this with us!

I missed the Member News in the last issue, so there is a bit to catch up on.
Found on Charlotte Digregorio’s blog –

Year of the Snake
the twists and turns
of his tale

Jerome Berglund (USA)
Asahi Haikuist Network, Jan. 31, 2025

loon call
allowing myself
a selfish prayer

Jerome Berglund (USA)
MacQueen's Quinterly, Issue 19, Aug. 15, 2023

Thanks so much to Freya Pickard at Pure Haiku for the shout out! We really appreciate your support.

Congratulations to Julie Bloss Kelsey, whose book The Call of Wildflowers was chosen by the Haiku Foundation as their Book of the Week! Here is a link to the article.

Another wonderful place to find our members is Tiny Words. Here are a few of them.

another stranger
far from home…
lone coyote

 -Kim Klugh

wing-worn geese ...
this urge to leave home
to find home

 -Chen-ou Liu

Check out Julie Bloss Kelsey’s latest article in New to Haiku on Trout Swirl by the Haiku Foundation.

And finally, also from The Haiku Foundation, an incredible selection of modern haiku, including haiku from members Marilyn Ashbaugh, Biswajit Mithra, Tracy Davidson, Monica Kakkar, Roberta Beach Jacobson, Eavonka Ettinger, CX Turner, Lakshman Bulusu, Nancy Brady, Paul Callus, and Tony Williams. Whew! Hope I didn’t miss anybody.

Please feel free to send us your news. We can’t wait to celebrate with you!

Sally’s Notebook

We would like to offer our sincere apologies to Emil Karla. Back in issue #50, when we published the two selected collections of February prompt haiku, we mistakenly only published 9 of Emil’s haiku instead of the 10 chosen. It was corrected immediately on the web site, but I intended to publish the missing haiku in our last issue. With the passing of our friend, David, I completely forgot. So here it is, the missing haiku from Emil’s collection:

first sunny day
I push her bike
through the crowd

Not much happening on the home front. I’ve stepped back a bit, just to absorb my surroundings and make room for spontaneity. So far, the only spontaneous things have been what to have for dinner. Some weeks are like that.

I hope all of you have been getting out, enjoying the season, whatever it might be where you are. And of course, we love to hear about your surroundings in your beautiful haiku. Who knew farm animals could be so inspiring!

Places to Submit

The 2025 Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest is now open! Submissions close May 31^st.

Submissions are now open for Failed Haiku! Act quickly as they close on May 25^th.

Presence Haiku Journal out of Britain is open for submissions now through May 31^st for their July issue.

Haiku Girl Summer begins on June 1^st, so submissions will open on May 15^th and run through August 15^th.

Submissions open May 1 for the June Issue of Sense & Sensibility Haiku. Submissions close May 22^nd, at noon ET, unless they reach their quota sooner. The prompt for June is “Heat!”

The Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards for 2025 by Heron’s Nest are open now until June 1^st . There are some great cash prizes up for grabs and first place also wins the coveted miniature crystal turtle!

Send in 3 haiku, senryū, duostich or monoku to Shadow Pond Journal on the theme of love. Deadline for submission is June 10^th.

Hexapod Haiku Challenge! is open!  Along with regular hexapod haiku there is a special topic award this year for the best haiku featuring ground-dwelling arthropods. Have fun with that! March 15^th through June 15^th.

The International EJCA Spring Haiku Contest 2025 is now accepting submissions! Make sure to give your haiku a SPRING theme by using a spring season word. Deadline to enter is June 21^st.

Seashores Haiku Journal out of Ireland is accepting up to eight haiku for their November issue. Eight haiku is a lot so I’m giving you lots of time to work on it. Deadline is July 31^st.

Modern Haiku takes rolling submissions (so open all the time) of haiku, senryu, haikai, hokku, haibun, haiga, renku and tanka. Be sure to pay attention to their specific submission requirements.

Another place that accepts haiku on a rolling basis is Mainichi Haiku in English. Daily haiku selections from around the world for the English edition of the oldest daily newspaper in Japan.

Last chance for the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational, with submissions closing on June 1^st.  Haiku for this contest must be on the subject of cherry blossoms.

Save the date! Saturday, June 21^st at 2 pm PST, Michele will be doing a haiku workshop for the Central Okanagan Writers Group. We hope to make it hybrid so you can join in. Details to follow.

Hot off the press – the Wales Haiku Journal Spring Edition. Check out this excellent collection of a whopping 245 poems!

This Week’s Prompt

For this issue we are looking for one or two tanka submissions! Please make sure to check out the links in Michele’s Musings if you haven’t written a tanka before. The theme is open to allow you lots of room to explore this fun form.

Please see our submission guidelines

As always, we look forward to reading your work! Send one or two tanka to sally_quon@yahoo.com or kelownalady@hotmail.com.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

-Buddha

Michele Rule

Michele Rule is a disabled writer from Kelowna BC. She is especially interested in the topics of chronic illness, relationships and nature. Michele is published in the Asahi Shimbun Haikuist, Pine Cone Review, the Enchanted Garden, Five Minute Lit, Shadow Pond, WordCityLit, and the anthologies F*ck the Patriarchy, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and To Live Here, among others. She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and Haiku Canada. Michele has been awarded honourable mention twice for the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational and also for the Haiku Northwest Porad Award. Her first chapbook is Around the World in Fifteen Haiku. Michele lives in a beautiful garden surrounded by people who love her just the way she is.

michelerule.ca/

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Sally Quon( Writer / Poet )

Sally Quon is a disabled poet and photographer living in the Okanagan Valley of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She is an associate member of The League of Canadian Poets and a member of Haiku Canada. Her work has been published in numerous journals including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, First Frost, and Time Haiku. She is currently working on her first book of haiku, haibun, and haiga, tentatively titled, “My Valley, My Home.”

Featherstone Creative

featherstonecreative.wordpress.com/

• Ginko Walk at Munson Pond
• Maude Roxby Ginko
• Interview with Michael Dylan Welch