Publication???

Because I write poetry with little expectation of an audience, it is always a thrill to find that it resonates with someone else - especially if that someone else is an editor. And in the pile of mail on my desk when I returned from holidays was not just one but three collections of poetry containing my work.
The first was Eucalypt, an Australian tanka journal that comes out quarterly with contemporary tanka on a rainbow of topics. After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan many in this issue touched on the ensuing  shock and recovery. Others treated illness, love, family, gardens and travel, all were multi-layered and demanding several re-readings. I wrote the tanka that appears in this issue after marvelling at a group of tourists so obsessed with their own health that they wore plastic overshoes on their bare feet into a temple in Phnom Penn, completely missing the cool of the floor and the stillness of the place they crackled through.

the soles of my feet
on cool temple stone
in touch
with the earth
and the eternal


I was thrilled to find that I was a finalist in the jack stamm haiku  award and so appeared in moonrise and bare hills, the paper wasp haiku anthology 2010. Haiku is a favourite form of mine. I love the puzzle of packing so much into so little, of seeing analogies and of evoking the same 'aha' in a reader/hearer as I experienced when I was in the inspiring moment. These contemporary Australian haiku are not of the 5/7/5 variety or even necessarily in 3 lines. This anthology encapsulates the variety of haiku being produced in Australia and is available in hardcopy through the paper wasp site but unfortunately not online.

through the leaves
a shiver of rain
distant bells peal


The final collection Grevillea and Wonga Vine: Australian Tanka of Place was the most exciting for me. After 25 Australian poets were featured in the online journal Atlas Poetica: A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka, Beverley George, editor of Eucalypt decided to publish a hardcopy publication. She invited other poets to contribute additional work and produced a sumptuous, well-laid out tanka feast. Purchase is through:
Beverley George, 
    PO Box 37 Pearl Beach NSW 2256     Australia