LYNX XX:2 June, 2005

. . . I send you four sedoka. I remember, after you published my essay in the old, "paper" LYNX, a few American writers had a go at the form. No one this side of the big pond has had a go, or at least, that I have seen. I am still, for all intents and purposes, wheelchair bound, can walk some with a walker, have got my handwriting back, well, so, so, back anyway. But I am still writing. The main problem is all the pills I have to take. Some of them affect memory and concentration. Let us blame the pills, and not my dotage. Another "problem" is city life. I miss the country, miss the wild tundra of west Jutland. For a long time after moving to Odense my haiku was in denial. I had a "city" haiku block. I have yet to publish any "city" haiku, though one has been accepted. One of the sedoka I send is a "city" attempt. (Summer rain splatters) But, in spite of my complaining, I am doing O.K. Things could be worse. Don Ammons, Denmark

Gracious good greetings and wonderful to hear from you and know spring heart is there too! We had a rough winter and the warmer nicer weather could never come soon enough... Berta being a southern Californian enduring way too many upstate N.Y. winters has become more tenuous each year! But we have made it and yesterday it was in the 60's and simply beautiful... we do get such gifts here and there but it is true there is alot of less desirable weather in between... How was your winter? I think of your area as being a region that seems kind of ideal but I may not really Recognize the breadth of the weather you experience. I understand that Karma Tenzing Wangchuk ( Dennis Dutton) is now in Laytonville and that you may see each other at the ukiaHaiku Festival... it is so interesting that Ukiah is haiku spelled backwards! Life here is very busy... we have a new puppy that Berta got for Emma (10)... a sheltie named Ollie. He is a nice dog but of course comes with a full doggy profile of needs for training and attentions! Casey is learning to drive but the clutch on our car burned out so the car is out until we can save enough to get a new clutch. Berta has chickens and recently something got in the shed and killed one... The next night I set a havahart trap out in the shed and we brought the chickens inside. In the morning we found something in the trap but whatever it was had totally enclosed itself in straw which it had pulled into the trap from the shed floor... It had the trap truly jam packed with straw and "it" was hidden in the tightly woven straw nest... I gently worked with a stick to open up to see what... a black nose came sniffing in the opening I made and there was a tell tale white stripe running up the face from the nose!!! yes, a skunk!!! I managed to drive it to a remote place and get it out of the trap without getting sprayed and probably have the tight pack of straw to thank!! – Tom Clausen

. . . the biography of new contributor Marie Summers: Marie Summers resides in Excelsior Springs, MO where she is the Chief Editor of the SP Quill Quarterly Magazine and webmistress of ShadowPoetry.com. She has been published in magazines such as: The Aurorean, Frogpond, Full Moon Magazine, Nisqually Delta Review, Skyline, and Write On!, and looks forward to her future appearances in Acorn, bottle rockets, Moonset, Presence, Poetic Hours, Simply Haiku, and The Storyteller.

. . . and here are a couple of things "Here" and "This is How You Change" written in "lucky" form - "lucky" form is a 13 syllable stanza of 3 lines, 5 and 5 and 3 syllables, if you vary the syllabic counts of the lines it is ok but then it is called "unlucky" - but these two are written in lucky form as i said. very best regards - anna rugis
ps i am enjoying the feb Lynx – thank you all.

. . . Just got an e-mail message from Angela Leuck saying her jazz haiku anthology plans are on hold. She's no longer working for Shoreline Press in Montreal, and the new press she's with wants to see how her last haiku anthology fares before they countenance the prospect of a jazz ku anthology, so I have these two linked sequences I thought you may want first dibs at. :-) (I'm open to editing suggestions, of course.) I wanted to engage directly with jazz, and play around with Jack Kerouac's conception of American 'ku -- and his term for the hybrid forms he came up with, so I took the season and jazz standard "Autumn Leaves: Jazz Pops for Jack" as a title and started improvising to a little Coltrane and the seasonal round in my back yard. I've come up with what appear to be two separate strands, so I've called them string one and string two. They're looser than rengay or renku, or other trad. parlour game sequences, and may contain redundant elements or recurrent motifs, like jazz, and, like jazz, may be edited in the studio, so to speak. :-) The first I wrote outside; the second, while listening to Coltrane at my laptop inside. The strings also contain a few tanka and senryu; don't know if they'll slide, but I thought you should have the chance to take the best, assuming anything passes muster here. Let me know what you think anyway. Richard Stevenson lives and teaches in southern Alberta. He has published 17 books and one CD of original jazz and poetry with jazz/poetry troupe Naked Ear. His most recent collections are Parrot With Tourette's (Black Moss Press, Palm Poets Series, 2004) and A Charm Of Finches: Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka (Ekstasis Editions, 2004). - Richard Stevenson

. . . For publication details of 'Snapshots', 'Tangled Hair', and forthcoming books please see latest news. I have recently resigned from my job and, despite being in the process of setting up a new business, anticipate being able to spend considerably more time on the press than has been possible in recent years. I'm also delighted that Matt is still enthusiastically on board as Associate Editor of 'Snapshots' magazine. It will take a couple of months to get the rusting wheels back in motion, so please bear with us a little longer! – John Barlow

. . .They just had a really interesting radio show here in Japan NHK Radio the other day. It's called "On a Night Like This, Cell Phone Tanka." OK, the name sounds horrible in English. The Japanese is, "Konna Yoru Ketai Tanka." It was hosted by Amano Kei, a young Tanka author. Her first book, Akogare/Longing was published when she was 18 years old. The theme for show was "otona/Adult". The show took entries for about a month and chose from 1800 tanka entries. The program started off with two original tanka Amano Kei wrote for the show. I've tried my best to translate one of them here as an example of her work. The line breaks are a bit hard to figure out...anyway, here's my best shot :

if set down
in a pool of sunshine
it crackles then blooms
that's the kind of letter
I want to receive

a friend of mine, Ono, had two selected for inclusion on the show and she has given me permission to translate them. Here is one of them:

every time
I come to know
a new kind of sadness
I listen to a ballad
and grow up just a bit

the me
that has to spend
an entire life with myself
realizes on some level
that I need to grow up

when I can say,
"that's how it is"
like the sigh of a wave
then like my father
I will also be an adult

its strange but I had two more selected, but they seem really insubstantial in English. It makes me wonder just what happens to them as them migrate from Japanese to English. Here is one of them:

grow up slowly
like the trees
who show no interest
in the number of rings
they may hold

Anyway, I really enjoy the format of the contest and the show. Having a theme to work from really helps facilitate writing and of course a deadline and a contest are also great motivators. I hope I didn't bore anyone with the details. for anyone who is interested, the HP for the radio show/contest is here. - Kevin
[I have lost the name of the person who sent this, and have tried to find them, but so far I have had no luck. If you are that person, let me know who you are so I can give you credit for the letter and the translations, please. jr]

. . . I'm not sure which article you're referring to, but I just saw the following article about the same subject (though it may not be too helpful to solve your problem) at this web site. Michael D. Welch
[This does not solve my search for the author of the above letter, but it is a very interesting article! Thanks for pointing it out! jr]

. . . I'll be at Crown Pointe Care Center, 1850 Crown Park Court, Columbus OH 43235 recovering from a hip replacement for several weeks after the surgery on May 4^th. – Yvonne Hardenbrook

. . . Well, mortality is always a bit of a shock, eh? But seriously, 30 years is a nice long run, and I've GOT to get some other projects done. Onword,
John Bennett
PS: there's an interview about LAFT [Lost and Found Times].

[John Bennett just sent out the last issue of Lost and Found Times, the excellent literary and artistic magazine he published for an astounding 30 years. If you have failed to check this out, do contact John about back issues. jr]

. . .Great! to hear from you!!! WHOOPPEEE!! How's Werner? How are you? I just got "wired" in January, so all this is new to me. I don't have any fancy gadgets that let me post art or anything. I WILL BE ON YOUR SITE THOUGH!!! Yep. I am still writing haiku. My professor (from U Creative Writing) & I are working on a collaboration - her chinese brush & my haiku. We've been "working" on it (on & off) for 4 years ... she's teaching Chaucer right now at the U of Vic, so we don't get much time "together" to make decisions! She's thinking about having it published in China. Do you guys have any suggestions about printing/publishing? It will be in colour. ANY & ALL suggestions welcome. She is currently having a small book published there - it is a memorial to Carle Hessay (artist; wilderness man; prophet; etc.) Wants me to distribute it! HELP! I've been on a medical disability for the past 7 years, so I have devoted myself to art/poetry/haiku. After moving here from Vancouver in October, I volunteered at the local alternate school doing art workshops. The kids (age 16+) are great. I am also involved in Artist Trading Cards (come on Werner, lets do a trade?!). And I am a Guardian Angel Artist as well. So I keep busy. My kids are grown & on their own now; boyfriend lives in his artist loft in Vancouver ... Can't tell you how hapy I am to have connected with you again! Lets keep in touch! Cheers - Gail Whitter

. . . Please visit Roadrunner Haiku Journal online. Your comments, suggestions and contributions would be appreciated. Thank you, Jason Sanford Brown

. . . Thanks for your help. What am I writing now? Technical articles. I haven't written poetry for years, and my recent attempts proved just how rusty I am. That lead me to this current effort. When I was part of a thriving online community, I was forced to improve and keep alert. I love reading through your site, but it lacks the immediacy of a forum. In fact, you're welcome to use my site as YOUR forum. We can create an "AHA Poetry" discussion group, linking your site to mine. Just an idea. You can get a feel for what I'd like to do by visiting me. I posted a discussion article on "Form and Field", comparing the concept of negative space in visual arts, to haiku. I want people to debate that, respond to it, and try to write poetry with the concept.. . . The format, I suppose, would be like any other online forum. That's a site I'm using to play with ideas. The name comes from an unpublished senryu of mine:

What I want to be different is the quality of content. So many poetry sites are completely self-indulgent, mutual love fests, with little or no focus on technique, style, or quality. That's what we had on CompuServe. I know for example, that Jeanne Cassler, Zane Parks, Rosa Clement, and myself, to name just a few, really honed our skills in LitForum. The focus was on critiques, unabashed critical dissections of form. Do you keep in touch, by the way, with any of the folks I just mentioned? I'd like to bring them in as well. [Up-date] The site is coming along fairly well. Not a lot of activity, but word-of-mouth takes awhile to build. The forum is coming along. I've got an experimental site as well, that allows me to play with the haibun form and combine it with my programming skills: Bye for now! Tom Greer

. . . here are my haiku web pages as well as other haiku pages. Best regards, Kadir Aydemir, Haiku Poet / Turkey

. . .Also, I really liked your haiku in Cor Van Den Heuvel's Haiku Anthology and the excerpts in the latest Modern Haiku. It would be great if you could send some haiku for my journal Skidrow Penthouse. It isn't a haiku mag, but i'd love to include some to shake things up a bit. Send as many as you like to me at 68 East Third Street, #16 New York, NY 10003. Thanks again and i hope you are well. Rob Cook

. . . I am feeling so sad about Hatsue tonight. Our dear, dear sister in art. I wish we could hug and cry a little together about this. She has been so magnificent in her work and life so far. You must be even sadder than I about this. I thank you for all the joy you have given me with tanka. Love, Marianne Bluger

. . . This is to announce the beginning of a new discussion group focusing on the haiku poetry of the Buddhist nun, Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), and the art and haiku world of 18th century Japan. The publication of Chiyo-Ni: Woman Haiku Master, by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, makes a group like this truly accessible to the general public. It also seems that there are too few discussion groups on a single haiku school or master. Although the subject has a narrow focus in one master, it can expand into the entire art community of Chiyo's world. We need members to get the group started, and would greatly appreciate any announcements you can make to your groups or on your websites, to join please click on this link to visit: Haikuworld of Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) Sarah L. Whitworth

18th Annual Penumbra 2005 Poetry & Haiku Contest sponsored by Tallahassee Writers' Association. Details, contest email and book orders at Tallahassee Writers' Association. Submission deadline: Midnight June 30, 2005. First prize $200 poetry; $100 haiku; winners and finalists get free copy of contest anthology. Mail entries and fees of $5/poem and/or $3/haiku to: TWA Penumbra, PO Box 15995,Tallahassee, FL 32317-5995 - Carole Timin, Contest Director

2005 San Francisco International Competition Haiku, Senryu, Tanka and Rengay Sponsored by Haiku Poets of Northern California
Deadlines
Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka: In hand, October 31, 2005
Rengay: In hand, November 30, 2005
Details
All entries must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. There is no limit to the number of submissions to the Haiku, Senryu and Tanka contests; there is a 3-poem submission limit per person to the Rengay contest. A first prize of $100 will be awarded in each of the four categories. For the Haiku contest only, second and third prizes of $50 and $25 will be awarded. Contest results will be announced at the first HPNC meeting in January and in the HPNC Newsletter. Winning poems will be published in the Spring/Summer issue of Mariposa, the membership journal of the HPNC. All rights revert to authors after the contest results are announced. This contest is open to all except the HPNC president and, for their respective categories, the contest coordinators and the judges (who will remain anonymous until after the competition).

Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka Submission Guidelines
Type or print each entry on two 3 x 5 cards. In the upper left corner of each card identify its category as Haiku, Senryu, or Tanka. On the back of one card only , print your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address (optional). The entry fee is $1.00 per poem. Send haiku, senryu and tanka submissions, along with entry fee, to HPNC, c/o Lane Parker, 578 3rd Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118.

Rengay Submission Guidelines
All rengay must be titled. For two people (Poet A and Poet B) follow this linked format: 3 lines/Poet A, 2 lines/Poet B, 3/A, 3/B, 2/A, 3/B. For three poets (A, B, and C) the format is: 3 lines/A, 2 lines/B, 3 lines/C, 2/A, 3/B, 2/C. Type or print each rengay on three letter-size sheets . Include full authorship information, stanza by stanza, as well as all poets' names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses (optional) on one copy only. On the other two copies, mark stanzas with letters only (poet A, poet B, poet C) to indicate the sequence of authorship. There is no entry fee for this year's rengay contest ; however, please remember that there is a limit of 3 entries per person. Send rengay submissions to HPNC, c/o Fay Aoyagi, 930 Pine Street, #105, San Francisco CA 94108. Entry Fees: Make checks or money orders payable in U.S. dollars to "Haiku Poets of Northern California (HPNC)." Cash (in U.S. currency) is OK. Enclose a business-size SASE (U.S. first class postage or an IRC) for notification of contest winners. No entries will be returned, with the exception that late submissions, or those received without payment, will be returned using your SASE; without an SASE these entries will be discarded.

Eligibility: Open to all except editors of Winfred Press, Clinging Vine Press, contest coordinator and judges. Regulations: Any number of tanka may be entered. Tanka may be free-form or follow the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 arrangement. Although winning tanka will be published in a calendar form, seasonal words or themes are not required (but may be used). Entries must be original, in English, unpublished, and not submitted for publication or to any other contest, either in print or online.

Entry fees: $5.00 for two tanka OR $12.00 for six tanka, which entitles entrant to one copy of the calendar (postpaid). Checks drawn on US banks only should be made payable to Clinging Vine Press or Linda J. Ward. Foreign entrants may send cash in US funds at their own risk.

Submissions: Submit each tanka on three separate 3"x5" cards, two with the tanka only (for anonymous judging), the third with the tanka and the author's name and address in the upper left-hand corner. Only submissions submitted on 3"x5" cards typed or printed legibly will be considered.

a 12-month arrangement. Awards: In addition to publication in the calendar, three top prizes will be awarded from among the 12 primary winners. First Prize: $80; Second prize: $40; Third prize: $20. All awards will be in US$. Each of the 12 primary winners will receive a copy of Full Moon Tide:

The Best of Tanka Splendor 1990-1999. Adjudication: The name(s) of the judge(s) will be announced after the contest. Rights: All rights revert to the authors after publication in The Tanka Calendar. The editors and

judges of The Tanka Calendar do not assume responsibility for entrants who infringe upon copyrights or fail to acknowledge previous or simultaneous

publications. Questions concerning originality of a tanka published in The Tanka Calendar should be sent directly to the author involved.

Correspondence: Entries cannot be returned. Please send a business size, SASE for a list of winning entries. For foreign entries, SAE and one IRC.

If you wish confirmation of receipt of your submission, please include a self-addressed stamped postcard.


TABLE OF CONTENTS XX:2 June, 2005		LYNX A Journal for Linking Poets



	LETTERS FROM: Don Ammons, Denmark *Tom Clausen* *anna rugis* *Richard Stevenson* *John Barlow, England* *Yvonne Hardenbrook* *John Bennett* *Gail Whitter* *Jason Sanford Brown* *Tom Greer* *Kadir Aydemir, Turkey* *Rob Cook* *Marianne Bluger, Canada* *Sarah L. Whitworth* Contest News from: Tallahassee Writers' Association Haiku Poets of Northern California 2006 TANKA CALENDAR COMPETITION	LETTERS TO LYNX . . . I send you four sedoka. I remember, after you published my essay in the old, "paper" LYNX, a few American writers had a go at the form. No one this side of the big pond has had a go, or at least, that I have seen. I am still, for all intents and purposes, wheelchair bound, can walk some with a walker, have got my handwriting back, well, so, so, back anyway. But I am still writing. The main problem is all the pills I have to take. Some of them affect memory and concentration. Let us blame the pills, and not my dotage. Another "problem" is city life. I miss the country, miss the wild tundra of west Jutland. For a long time after moving to Odense my haiku was in denial. I had a "city" haiku block. I have yet to publish any "city" haiku, though one has been accepted. One of the sedoka I send is a "city" attempt. (Summer rain splatters) But, in spite of my complaining, I am doing O.K. Things could be worse. Don Ammons, Denmark Gracious good greetings and wonderful to hear from you and know spring heart is there too! We had a rough winter and the warmer nicer weather could never come soon enough... Berta being a southern Californian enduring way too many upstate N.Y. winters has become more tenuous each year! But we have made it and yesterday it was in the 60's and simply beautiful... we do get such gifts here and there but it is true there is alot of less desirable weather in between... How was your winter? I think of your area as being a region that seems kind of ideal but I may not really Recognize the breadth of the weather you experience. I understand that Karma Tenzing Wangchuk ( Dennis Dutton) is now in Laytonville and that you may see each other at the ukiaHaiku Festival... it is so interesting that Ukiah is haiku spelled backwards! Life here is very busy... we have a new puppy that Berta got for Emma (10)... a sheltie named Ollie. He is a nice dog but of course comes with a full doggy profile of needs for training and attentions! Casey is learning to drive but the clutch on our car burned out so the car is out until we can save enough to get a new clutch. Berta has chickens and recently something got in the shed and killed one... The next night I set a havahart trap out in the shed and we brought the chickens inside. In the morning we found something in the trap but whatever it was had totally enclosed itself in straw which it had pulled into the trap from the shed floor... It had the trap truly jam packed with straw and "it" was hidden in the tightly woven straw nest... I gently worked with a stick to open up to see what... a black nose came sniffing in the opening I made and there was a tell tale white stripe running up the face from the nose!!! yes, a skunk!!! I managed to drive it to a remote place and get it out of the trap without getting sprayed and probably have the tight pack of straw to thank!! – *Tom Clausen* . . . the biography of new contributor Marie Summers: Marie Summers resides in Excelsior Springs, MO where she is the Chief Editor of the SP Quill Quarterly Magazine and webmistress of ShadowPoetry.com. She has been published in magazines such as: The Aurorean, Frogpond, Full Moon Magazine, Nisqually Delta Review, Skyline, and Write On!, and looks forward to her future appearances in Acorn, bottle rockets, Moonset, Presence, Poetic Hours, Simply Haiku, and The Storyteller. . . . and here are a couple of things "Here" and "This is How You Change" written in "lucky" form - "lucky" form is a 13 syllable stanza of 3 lines, 5 and 5 and 3 syllables, if you vary the syllabic counts of the lines it is ok but then it is called "unlucky" - but these two are written in lucky form as i said. very best regards - *anna rugis* ps i am enjoying the feb Lynx – thank you all. . . . Just got an e-mail message from Angela Leuck saying her jazz haiku anthology plans are on hold. She's no longer working for Shoreline Press in Montreal, and the new press she's with wants to see how her last haiku anthology fares before they countenance the prospect of a jazz ku anthology, so I have these two linked sequences I thought you may want first dibs at. :-) (I'm open to editing suggestions, of course.) I wanted to engage directly with jazz, and play around with Jack Kerouac's conception of American 'ku -- and his term for the hybrid forms he came up with, so I took the season and jazz standard "Autumn Leaves: Jazz Pops for Jack" as a title and started improvising to a little Coltrane and the seasonal round in my back yard. I've come up with what appear to be two separate strands, so I've called them string one and string two. They're looser than rengay or renku, or other trad. parlour game sequences, and may contain redundant elements or recurrent motifs, like jazz, and, like jazz, may be edited in the studio, so to speak. :-) The first I wrote outside; the second, while listening to Coltrane at my laptop inside. The strings also contain a few tanka and senryu; don't know if they'll slide, but I thought you should have the chance to take the best, assuming anything passes muster here. Let me know what you think anyway. Richard Stevenson lives and teaches in southern Alberta. He has published 17 books and one CD of original jazz and poetry with jazz/poetry troupe Naked Ear. His most recent collections are Parrot With Tourette's (Black Moss Press, Palm Poets Series, 2004) and A Charm Of Finches: Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka (Ekstasis Editions, 2004). - *Richard Stevenson* . . . For publication details of 'Snapshots', 'Tangled Hair', and forthcoming books please see latest news. I have recently resigned from my job and, despite being in the process of setting up a new business, anticipate being able to spend considerably more time on the press than has been possible in recent years. I'm also delighted that Matt is still enthusiastically on board as Associate Editor of 'Snapshots' magazine. It will take a couple of months to get the rusting wheels back in motion, so please bear with us a little longer! – *John Barlow* . . .They just had a really interesting radio show here in Japan NHK Radio the other day. It's called "On a Night Like This, Cell Phone Tanka." OK, the name sounds horrible in English. The Japanese is, "Konna Yoru Ketai Tanka." It was hosted by Amano Kei, a young Tanka author. Her first book, Akogare/Longing was published when she was 18 years old. The theme for show was "otona/Adult". The show took entries for about a month and chose from 1800 tanka entries. The program started off with two original tanka Amano Kei wrote for the show. I've tried my best to translate one of them here as an example of her work. The line breaks are a bit hard to figure out...anyway, here's my best shot : if set down in a pool of sunshine it crackles then blooms that's the kind of letter I want to receive (hidamari ni okeba tachimachi oto tatete hanasaka you na tegami ga hoshii) a friend of mine, Ono, had two selected for inclusion on the show and she has given me permission to translate them. Here is one of them: every time I come to know a new kind of sadness I listen to a ballad and grow up just a bit (samishisa no shurui ga fuete iku tabi ni otona ni natte bara-do wo kiku) I had a few chosen as well for inclusion: the me that has to spend an entire life with myself realizes on some level that I need to grow up (kono boku ha jibun jishin ga isshou wo wakachiau node koujou shinakya) when I can say, "that's how it is" like the sigh of a wave then like my father I will also be an adult ("shikata nai" namioto mitai ni ieru nara tousan no you watashi mo otona) its strange but I had two more selected, but they seem really insubstantial in English. It makes me wonder just what happens to them as them migrate from Japanese to English. Here is one of them: grow up slowly like the trees who show no interest in the number of rings they may hold Anyway, I really enjoy the format of the contest and the show. Having a theme to work from really helps facilitate writing and of course a deadline and a contest are also great motivators. I hope I didn't bore anyone with the details. for anyone who is interested, the HP for the radio show/contest is here. *- Kevin* [I have lost the name of the person who sent this, and have tried to find them, but so far I have had no luck. If you are that person, let me know who you are so I can give you credit for the letter and the translations, please. jr] . . . I'm not sure which article you're referring to, but I just saw the following article about the same subject (though it may not be too helpful to solve your problem) at this web site. *Michael D. Welch* [This does not solve my search for the author of the above letter, but it is a very interesting article! Thanks for pointing it out! jr] . . . I'll be at Crown Pointe Care Center, 1850 Crown Park Court, Columbus OH 43235 recovering from a hip replacement for several weeks after the surgery on May 4^th. – *Yvonne Hardenbrook* . . . Well, mortality is always a bit of a shock, eh? But seriously, 30 years is a nice long run, and I've GOT to get some other projects done. Onword, John Bennett PS: there's an interview about LAFT [Lost and Found Times]. [John Bennett just sent out the last issue of Lost and Found Times, the excellent literary and artistic magazine he published for an astounding 30 years. If you have failed to check this out, do contact John about back issues. jr] . . .Great! to hear from you!!! WHOOPPEEE!! How's Werner? How are you? I just got "wired" in January, so all this is new to me. I don't have any fancy gadgets that let me post art or anything. I WILL BE ON YOUR SITE THOUGH!!! Yep. I am still writing haiku. My professor (from U Creative Writing) & I are working on a collaboration - her chinese brush & my haiku. We've been "working" on it (on & off) for 4 years ... she's teaching Chaucer right now at the U of Vic, so we don't get much time "together" to make decisions! She's thinking about having it published in China. Do you guys have any suggestions about printing/publishing? It will be in colour. ANY & ALL suggestions welcome. She is currently having a small book published there - it is a memorial to Carle Hessay (artist; wilderness man; prophet; etc.) Wants me to distribute it! HELP! I've been on a medical disability for the past 7 years, so I have devoted myself to art/poetry/haiku. After moving here from Vancouver in October, I volunteered at the local alternate school doing art workshops. The kids (age 16+) are great. I am also involved in Artist Trading Cards (come on Werner, lets do a trade?!). And I am a Guardian Angel Artist as well. So I keep busy. My kids are grown & on their own now; boyfriend lives in his artist loft in Vancouver ... Can't tell you how hapy I am to have connected with you again! Lets keep in touch! Cheers - *Gail Whitter* . . . Please visit Roadrunner Haiku Journal online. Your comments, suggestions and contributions would be appreciated. Thank you, *Jason Sanford Brown* . . . Thanks for your help. What am I writing now? Technical articles. I haven't written poetry for years, and my recent attempts proved just how rusty I am. That lead me to this current effort. When I was part of a thriving online community, I was forced to improve and keep alert. I love reading through your site, but it lacks the immediacy of a forum. In fact, you're welcome to use my site as YOUR forum. We can create an "AHA Poetry" discussion group, linking your site to mine. Just an idea. You can get a feel for what I'd like to do by visiting me. I posted a discussion article on "Form and Field", comparing the concept of negative space in visual arts, to haiku. I want people to debate that, respond to it, and try to write poetry with the concept.. . . The format, I suppose, would be like any other online forum. That's a site I'm using to play with ideas. The name comes from an unpublished senryu of mine: brown fedora slowly becoming grandfather What I want to be different is the quality of content. So many poetry sites are completely self-indulgent, mutual love fests, with little or no focus on technique, style, or quality. That's what we had on CompuServe. I know for example, that Jeanne Cassler, Zane Parks, Rosa Clement, and myself, to name just a few, really honed our skills in LitForum. The focus was on critiques, unabashed critical dissections of form. Do you keep in touch, by the way, with any of the folks I just mentioned? I'd like to bring them in as well. [Up-date] The site is coming along fairly well. Not a lot of activity, but word-of-mouth takes awhile to build. The forum is coming along. I've got an experimental site as well, that allows me to play with the haibun form and combine it with my programming skills: Bye for now! *Tom Greer* . . . here are my haiku web pages as well as other haiku pages. Best regards, *Kadir Aydemir, Haiku Poet / Turkey . . .Also, I really liked your haiku in Cor Van Den Heuvel's Haiku Anthology* and the excerpts in the latest Modern Haiku. It would be great if you could send some haiku for my journal Skidrow Penthouse. It isn't a haiku mag, but i'd love to include some to shake things up a bit. Send as many as you like to me at 68 East Third Street, #16 New York, NY 10003. Thanks again and i hope you are well. *Rob Cook* . . . I am feeling so sad about Hatsue tonight. Our dear, dear sister in art. I wish we could hug and cry a little together about this. She has been so magnificent in her work and life so far. You must be even sadder than I about this. I thank you for all the joy you have given me with tanka. Love, *Marianne Bluger* . . . This is to announce the beginning of a new discussion group focusing on the haiku poetry of the Buddhist nun, Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), and the art and haiku world of 18th century Japan. The publication of Chiyo-Ni: Woman Haiku Master, by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, makes a group like this truly accessible to the general public. It also seems that there are too few discussion groups on a single haiku school or master. Although the subject has a narrow focus in one master, it can expand into the entire art community of Chiyo's world. We need members to get the group started, and would greatly appreciate any announcements you can make to your groups or on your websites, to join please click on this link to visit: Haikuworld of Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) *Sarah L. Whitworth* CONTESTS 18th Annual Penumbra 2005 Poetry & Haiku Contest sponsored by Tallahassee Writers' Association. Details, contest email and book orders at Tallahassee Writers' Association. Submission deadline: Midnight June 30, 2005. First prize $200 poetry; $100 haiku; winners and finalists get free copy of contest anthology. Mail entries and fees of $5/poem and/or $3/haiku to: TWA Penumbra, PO Box 15995,Tallahassee, FL 32317-5995 - *Carole Timin, Contest Director 2005 San Francisco International Competition Haiku, Senryu, Tanka and Rengay Sponsored by Haiku Poets of Northern California Deadlines Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka: In hand, October 31, 2005 Rengay: In hand, November 30, 2005 Details* All entries must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. There is no limit to the number of submissions to the Haiku, Senryu and Tanka contests; there is a 3-poem submission limit per person to the Rengay contest. A first prize of $100 will be awarded in each of the four categories. For the Haiku contest only, second and third prizes of $50 and $25 will be awarded. Contest results will be announced at the first HPNC meeting in January and in the HPNC Newsletter. Winning poems will be published in the Spring/Summer issue of Mariposa, the membership journal of the HPNC. All rights revert to authors after the contest results are announced. This contest is open to all except the HPNC president and, for their respective categories, the contest coordinators and the judges (who will remain anonymous until after the competition). Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka Submission Guidelines Type or print each entry on two 3 x 5 cards. In the upper left corner of each card identify its category as Haiku, Senryu, or Tanka. On the back of one card only , print your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address (optional). The entry fee is $1.00 per poem. Send haiku, senryu and tanka submissions, along with entry fee, to HPNC, c/o Lane Parker, 578 3rd Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118. Rengay Submission Guidelines All rengay must be titled. For two people (Poet A and Poet B) follow this linked format: 3 lines/Poet A, 2 lines/Poet B, 3/A, 3/B, 2/A, 3/B. For three poets (A, B, and C) the format is: 3 lines/A, 2 lines/B, 3 lines/C, 2/A, 3/B, 2/C. Type or print each rengay on three letter-size sheets . Include full authorship information, stanza by stanza, as well as all poets' names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses (optional) on one copy only. On the other two copies, mark stanzas with letters only (poet A, poet B, poet C) to indicate the sequence of authorship. There is no entry fee for this year's rengay contest ; however, please remember that there is a limit of 3 entries per person. Send rengay submissions to HPNC, c/o Fay Aoyagi, 930 Pine Street, #105, San Francisco CA 94108. Entry Fees: Make checks or money orders payable in U.S. dollars to "Haiku Poets of Northern California (HPNC)." Cash (in U.S. currency) is OK. Enclose a business-size SASE (U.S. first class postage or an IRC) for notification of contest winners. No entries will be returned, with the exception that late submissions, or those received without payment, will be returned using your SASE; without an SASE these entries will be discarded. 2006 TANKA CALENDAR COMPETITION Sponsors: Winfred Press & Clinging Vine Press Deadline: In-Hand deadline of July 1, 2005 Eligibility: Open to all except editors of Winfred Press, Clinging Vine Press, contest coordinator and judges. Regulations: Any number of tanka may be entered. Tanka may be free-form or follow the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 arrangement. Although winning tanka will be published in a calendar form, seasonal words or themes are not required (but may be used). Entries must be original, in English, unpublished, and not submitted for publication or to any other contest, either in print or online. Entry fees: $5.00 for two tanka OR $12.00 for six tanka, which entitles entrant to one copy of the calendar (postpaid). Checks drawn on US banks only should be made payable to Clinging Vine Press or Linda J. Ward. Foreign entrants may send cash in US funds at their own risk. Submissions: Submit each tanka on three separate 3"x5" cards, two with the tanka only (for anonymous judging), the third with the tanka and the author's name and address in the upper left-hand corner. Only submissions submitted on 3"x5" cards typed or printed legibly will be considered. Submit entries and fees to: Wanda D. Cook 10 Woodlawn Road Hadley, MA 01035-9604 USA Publication: There will be 12 winners and six com- mended tanka. Each of the 12 primary winning tanka will appear on one month of an illustrated wall calendar, 8½" x 11". In addition, six commended tanka will appear on a separate page which will complement a 12-month arrangement. Awards: In addition to publication in the calendar, three top prizes will be awarded from among the 12 primary winners. First Prize: $80; Second prize: $40; Third prize: $20. All awards will be in US$. Each of the 12 primary winners will receive a copy of Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor 1990-1999. Adjudication: The name(s) of the judge(s) will be announced after the contest. Rights: All rights revert to the authors after publication in The Tanka Calendar. The editors and judges of The Tanka Calendar do not assume responsibility for entrants who infringe upon copyrights or fail to acknowledge previous or simultaneous publications. Questions concerning originality of a tanka published in The Tanka Calendar should be sent directly to the author involved. Correspondence: Entries cannot be returned. Please send a business size, SASE for a list of winning entries. For foreign entries, SAE and one IRC. If you wish confirmation of receipt of your submission, please include a self-addressed stamped postcard.



	Submit your works to Lynx Who We Are Back issues of Lynx: XV:2 June, 2000 XV:3 October, 2000 XVI:1 Feb. 2001 XVI:2 June, 2001 XVI:3 October, 2001 XVII:1 February, 2002 XVII:2 June, 2002 XVII:3 October, 2002 XVIII:1 February, 2003 XVIII:2 June, 2003 XVIII:3, October, 2003 XIX:1 February, 2004 XIX:2 June, 2004 XIX:3 October, 2004 XX:1 February, 2005	*Next Lynx* is scheduled for October, 2005.** Deadline for submission of your work is September 1, 2005.