Dear friends,
Francine Porad passed away in the company of her family at Evergreen Hospice in Kirkland on Thursday evening, surrounded by love. Service and graveside burial will be held at the Butterworth-Arthur Wright Chapel, 520 West Raye Street, Seattle, at 11:00 AM on Friday, September 29, 2006. You are also welcome at 6:00 PM services Friday, September 29, at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, 1511 East Pike Street, Seattle. Condolences may be sent to the family in care of: Laurie Porad, 14616 NE 44^th Street, #M-2, Bellevue, WA 98007.  Remembering Francine with gratitude and joy, - Connie Hutchison

. . . Thank you for the note on Francine's passing. She was a dear friend and spent a week at our home back in 1994 of my wife and me. We first met her in Alymer, Canada at a Haiku Canada weekend in 1992. She will be missed by the many who knew her and who were published in Brussels Sprout. She was an inspiration to young haiku poets many of whom she printed before they were known in the Haiku World. My contact with her was back in 1988 when we did a renga together along with Patricia Neubauer and Fred Gasser with the theme of painters and painting.
The first two links were:

beside blue flowers
Blue horses--
old woman sips absinthe       RdG

   occupational hazard
    paint on her nightgown       FP

Raffael de Gruttola

Although I wrote this many years ago it came to mind earlier today when I got news of Francine's death.

moonless night –
in the harvested wheat field
i, too, am empty  

. . . Here is the website address for the renga "Snapping Field Peas" that I wrote with Francine Porad several years ago: The renga "Snapping Field Peas" was published in LYNX, XIII: 1, 1998. Best wishes, - Lenard D. Moore

. . .I went to the funeral service for Francine today, in Seattle. Connie Hutchison spoke at the service, reading a short selection of Francine's haiku. One of the poems she included was "occupational hazard / paint on her nightgown." Other haiku poets present were Christopher Herold, Doris Thurston, Tenzing Wangchuk, Ruth Yarrow, Bob Major, Marilyn Sandall, Kathleen Decker, William Scott Galasso, and perhaps a few others I may not have seen. The sky was stunningly blue, and if you know Francine's poetry, or her painting, you'll know she had a special fondness for blue. Francine Porad, a former president of the Haiku Society of America, founder of the Haiku Northwest group, longtime editor of the haiku journal Brussels Sprout, painter, poet, and friend, was a major force in haiku poetry in the northwest region of the United States, and beyond. I will miss her buoyant, encouraging, and nurturing spirit. – Michael Dylan Welch

 . . . Happy new year to you and Jane. Robert and I hope the two of you are doing great. We were happy to see 2006 hit the road and pray that the world can know more peace in 2007.

New Year's Eve -
a candle shot
through a rifle.

Alexis Rotella

. . . [report on ]DO ZEN 1: material in for 7 of the 13 pages.. and overflowing into issue 2, and 3 AND DIG MY horrorscope for today (below: For Thursday, August 24 -A dense fog of people, places and dates will be something you'll need to clear up today -- so think about the details.

This task will also require you to take advantage of your excellent communication skills; diplomacy isn't something that intimidates you, so you will get the job done with a smile. As you play middleman, you should also encourage folks to get together on their own. Connecting polar opposite personalities could be considered your specialty.

) been advised to just go with what is when here..

sure is 'great' not being a lit gang critic mavin..

first issue will probably have some lean towards Cid..

however.. PLAY is the plinth ..

and, instead of "us" making Cid "rich and famous" and read, he will make "us" "rich and famous", and red (sic)

now, as soon as Micah and Evie get home FROM WORK ! I will figure out how to get things printed as, as all of a sudden it ain't working.. and how can I "edit" without paper pieces to cut and paste an shyffle..

TIRED OF SEEING SO MANY ON_LINE?ZINE ZENES all look alike..

not like tel let's site.. or Bare Bones BONZE feel like chucking this whole fucking computer.. it's too slow. not nearly as "cool" as my old underewood 1930-ish upright

am including John Phillips.. but, since I never hear'd from him, so I deleted his e-male address can find it noh where in particular

Aries March 21 - April 19

going "nuts" here..mostly raw, unsalted pee-nuts I cannot find your broadside.. it is still in the envelope..

maybe I accidentally dropped it in the mail-box yesterday ?

it wld be neat to "piggy-back" it in DOZEN.. give it a free ride?

about 6 of the 13 pages of issue DOZEN 1 now set..

not yet hardened.. but the 'crete is set when I get enough good stuff will go with it with whoever gets to here with..and the sooner the better..don't like dragging things out.. as there is no future..as, when you get there..there is yet a future-future..act/play is in The Moment.. and requires no fear..and dropping perfections, wants (desires)...etc now thinking of "featuring" a single artist/person/poet .. give them an entire 13 page issue?..

going to do that in DOZEN 2 as a learning 'thing'

would really like to see SG produced.. but, 500 + pages!?.. just stick the ms (5 vols) in my trunk.. with the other mss..

nor meat
nor beer
now
for
six weeks
more energy

and
always eating
yet
never
hungry
most my age (65) 'retire' into their new career: ILLNESS. later, Kokkie-san aka Ed Baker

Please find attached the issue #6 of our newsletter. Feel free to send any haiku, essays, articles or information (web sites, competitions, publications, events...) relating to haiku for the next issue - haiku ireland - official site. All the best in haiku spirits, Gilles Fabre

Tanka Poets Announce New Publishing Venture
Poets M. Kei, Michael McClintock, and Denis M. Garrison today announced the formation of ~Seamark~, a publishing venture ‘For Poets, by Poets.’ McClintock, well-known in the English-speaking world as one of the foremost tanka poets of the day, is also a co-editor of The Tanka Anthology and President of the Tanka Society of America. Garrison, a poet and the well-known editor of Haiku Harvest and several other poetry journals, recently established a new journal, the 3 x 5 Poetry Review. M. Kei is a young tanka poet and editor who is the Moderator for Kyoka Mad Poems. The new anthology from Seamark is his brainchild. All three poets will continue their established associations and responsibilities as well as taking on the duties of running the new publishing house. Seamark’s first project is Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of Love and Passion. A call for submissions will be made later this summer. Poets should not submit until the call is made as the editors are very busy finalizing plans for the new anthology. Submissions made before the opening date will not be read. For more information, visit the web site at: www.seamark-house.org

July's FireWeed is complete and ready for your inspection: Poetry, interview, Houdini, Scotland, experimental, War, Peace and Everything in between supplemental, and feature - Jon Hayes. Terrie Relf, editor, invites you to come on overand enjoy. And also go to blogspot.com/. The blog owner's (Michelle Buchanan) goal is to post a memorial poem to each of the military killed during the Iraq war - 2615 as of the end of June. Please add yours. – Gary Blankenship Gary's book, A River Transformed.

 

Poets and friends:
After some hesitation, I've decided to suspend The Ghazal Page until the first of the year or shortly after. I have some good poems on hand and fully intend to publish them. However, I'm over my head with work and need some time to catch up on correspondence and to do my own writing. My own work has suffered this year, and I want to make up for that. Please email me with any concerns you have. If I have any poems of yours on hand, you should here from me sometime in the latter part of December. If you want to withdraw a submission, let me know--but I'd much rather you didn't. Thank you, Gino Peregrini Ghazal Page.

My new chapbook, Mud on the Wall is out and selling well...go to the webpage and order your copy...only 100 numbered copies made. All the best, Jörgen Johansson 

The following poems are selections from my new chapbook Old Soldiers Fading Away (ISBN 1-58998-409-9), just published by Pudding House of Columbus, Ohio, USA.   It is an anthology of previously-published haiku, senryu, haibun and sequences dealing with veterans, especially Vietnam veterans.

war crimes trial
the defendant tries to suppress
another yawn

- Frogpond XXV:1; reprinted in pegging the wind: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2002

Vietnam Memorial Wall
an ex-Marine recruiter
salutes three names

- Modern Haiku XXVIII:1

VA hospital
a tree in the courtyard
scarred by lightning

- Acorn, issue 13

                                                       Battlefield Memento
    I recently learned of a Vietnam veteran whose battalion was overrun during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley. His company suffered a casualty rate of over 90 per cent during a 24-hour period of hand-to-hand fighting. In the early 1990s this man and a few other Ia Drang veterans returned to Vietnam and walked that long-ago battlefield.   He wanted to find some memento of that conflict, such as shrapnel or a shell casing, to leave beside that panel of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - "The Wall" - that contains the names of his comrades killed during that battle. But he found no war relics.   Over the years nature had effaced all traces of that horrendous engagement. Beautiful flowers now bloomed where men had once died. Still, this veteran wanted some memento to put at The Wall panel listing his fallen comrades.

                                                       next to names of war dead
                                                        pressed flowers
                                                        from their last battlefield

- published in Modern Haiku XXXI:3; received Favorite Haibun of Issue Award

for ordering information, drop me an e-mail. John J. Dunphy

Dear Tanka Poets,
Yellow Moon Seed Pearls 2006 results are now up. Click on competitions, then results, then Seed Pearls. 220 tanka were entered in this competition, judged by Janice Bostok. (All were numbered for anonymous selection.) 1st prize for tanka: Kirsty Karkow Waldoboro Maine USA 2nd prize for tanka: Linda Jeannette Ward Coinjock New Jersey USA. Yellow Moon congratulates these two fine poets and everybody who participated. Beverley George , PO Box 37, Pearl Beach NSW 2256, AUSTRALIA.

Just letting you know the haiku section of Aha! Poetry is listed on the links page of Liquid Haiku, a newly launched section of my website, Illumination Gallery. - Peter Schmideg

Greetings haiku  Friends Worldwide: Editors Jim Kacian, Bruce Ross and Ken Jones are pleased to announce the December issue of Contemporary Haibun Online under it's new domain name. December Contributors are: Hortensia Anderson, Colin Barber, Marjorie Buettner, Yvonne Cabalona, Garry Eaton, Jim Fowler, C.W. Hawes, Roger Jones, Frances Ruhlen McConnel, Dustin Neal, Zane Parks, Ray Rasmussen, Lynne Rees, Natalia L. Rudychev, John Stone, Richard Straw, Julie Thorndyke, J. Marcus Weekley, Jane Whittle, -Ken Jones, Jim Kacian, Bruce Ross.

I am the publisher of the new print journal, Wisteria devoted to publishing haiku, senryu and tanka. Thanks for your time and devotion to these often neglected forms of poetry. Best, Tony A. Thompson 

I am a tanka-poet, Mariko Kitakubo, living in Tokyo Japan. I want to introduce my tanka-web site. While composing poems is the primary thing to do, I want to continue expressive activities by means of reading performances in and out of the country. I feel it meaningful to vibrate Japanese traditional rhythm sounds, consisting of units of 5 and 7 syllables, in front of Tanka lovers whose native language is not Japanese. Also, I am willing to actively collaborate with activities of other media, such as paintings, music, photographs and video images. -Mariko Kitakubo

Dear Werner, Thank you for the acceptance. I'll give Carol a call this morning and let her know. I hope to send you more of the kind of thing that Sheila Windsor and I were doing last year. We're talking about doing more. Not the same, but along those lines. To have a place to showcase this kind of work is wonderful. I don't know where else we could. I'm learning how to use the Lulu print-on-demand site online. Challenging, but it is a way of putting out professional looking books that are affordable and don't leave one with a lot of books in boxes around the house. I'm hoping this might work out for future Winfred Press projects and also as a way to keep some of my collections in print. We'll see what happens. Take care, Larry Kimmel

THE HAIKU CALENDAR COMPETITION 2007 by Snapshot Press deadline for submissions arrival is April 30, 2007. John Barlow does beautiful calendars with fantastic color photos. He is offering, in addition to being included, up to $600 in total prize money. Check out all the rules and information on the website.