Grace Galton

Grace Galton (born December 15, 1936, London, England, U.K.; died November 30, 2022, Somerset, England), haikai poet specializing in haiku, senryu, and especially photo haiga.

Grace Galton was born in London, England, on December 15, 1936. She left school at age fifteen owing to family circumstances and joined the Women‘s Royal Army Corps at eighteen, served as a sergeant physical training instructor, and was posted to Singapore. There, she met her future husband. She had four sons.

Galton discovered haiku about 2007. In that year she placed the following haiku in Tinywords on the Internet :

winter moonset;
on the edge of the forest
a ghost-owl glides¹

She published others of her early haiku in print and online journals including Acorn, Frogpond, and A Hundred Gourds. In the mid-2010s Galton took the “Buson Challenge” to compose ten haiku a day for a hundred days. She also joined in Michael Dylan Welch’sNational Haiku Writing Month, an exercise to write haiku to regularly provided promps, and had five haiku accepted for the NaHaiWriMo anthology, Jumble Box: (2017), including these two:

another year …
only one of us
on our favourite walk²


first flakes
how gently you settle
on my mind ³

“Another year” was written in response to the prompt “half,” “first flakes” to the prompt “falling.”

She won two runner-up awards in the 2016 Golden Haiku Contest, Washington, D.C.:, this one,

March perigee …
the hare and I
moonstruck⁴

and “first cuckoo,” the first of the photo haiga displayed below.

The following haiku took Second Place in the 2022 Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards at The Heron’s Nest:

temple dancers
from their anklets
the sound of starlight⁵

Contest judge Scott Mason wrote in part: “Up to and including the wonderfully synesthetic third line we’re treated to some fine sound play in this poem—from its opening assonance (dancers/anklets) to its pervasive sibilance—so that the haiku not only expands but resonates. A bravura performance!”

Here is a handful more of Galton‘s haiku and senryu from print and online publications:

winter twilight
he takes the bridle
from the old mare⁶


darkness …
the reassurance
of a nightingale⁷


roundabout rage—
two motorists
locking horns⁸


blossom time …
a different song
from the apple tree⁹


grandpa
losing the race
with his shadow¹⁰


twilight cue the cricket chorus³


moving in …
a child’s growth in inches
under old wallpaper¹¹


gone …
the space between us
filling with wind¹²

In addition to inclusion in online and print publications, Galton‘s work appeared regularly on the NHK World TV’s Haiku Masters series. A collection of her senryu has been archived on theLiving Senryū Anthology. The poet particularly enjoyed matching her haiku with photographs, her own or taken by others, and in fact she was internationally renowned for her photo haiga. Five of these, all selected from Serge Tomé‘s TempsLibres—Free Times website, follow.

*Published on* Facebook, April 23, 2021. Photo credit: Morguefile

*Posted on the* TempsLibres website November 2, 2020

*Posted on the* TempsLibres website June 2, 2021. Photo credit: Jon Tyson

Sources / Further Reading

Anthologies and biographical sketches

“Grace Galton: NaHaiWriMo daily writing prompter for September 2017.” NaHaiWriMo website: https://www.nahaiwrimo.com/meet-the-prompters/grace-galton. Interview and 3 haiku.
Living Senryū Anthology, September 2016: https://senryu.life/index-of-poets/17-index-g/51-galton,-grace.html. 21 senryu.
tempslibres—free times haiku database: https://www.tempslibres.org/tl/tlphp/dbhk01.php?auteur=galt-g. 48 photo haiga and 4 haiku.
Under the Bashō, April 6, 2022: https://www.underthebasho.com/the-journal/under-the-basho-2022/haiga-and-visual-haiku/grace-galton.html?highlight=WyJnYWx0b24iXQ==. 8 photo haiga.
Under the Bashō, September 15, 2022: https://www.underthebasho.com/the-journal/under-the-basho-2022/haiku/grace-galton.html?highlight=WyJnYWx0b24iXQ==. 2 haiku.
Welch, Michael Dylan, ed. Jumble Box: Haiku and Senryu from National Haiku Writing Month. Sammamish, Wash.: Press Here, 2017. 4 haiku by Galton.

Periodicals publishing Galton’s work

Acorn
Colorado Blvd.
Frogpond
Frozen Butterfly
A Hundred Gourds
Per Diem (The Haiku Foundation)
Prune Juice
Mainichi Daily News Haiku in English
Tinywords
Under the Bashō
Shamrock Haiku Journal

Activities

Member, British Haiku Society.
Participant, National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), 2017–2021.
Contributor, Living Senryū Anthology, 2016.

Awards & Contests

Golden Haiku Contest (Washington, D.C.), 2016. 2 Runners-up.
7th Setouchi Matsuyama International Photo-Haiku Contest, 2017, Award (1 of 24).
10th Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards, 2022, Second Place.

Compiled by the Haikupedia Editors

Tinywords, February 8, 2007. [↩]
Michael Dylan Welch, ed., Jumble Box: Haiku and Senryu from National Haiku Writing Month (2017). [↩]
Welch, ed., Jumble Box (2017). [↩] [↩]
Golden Haiku Contest (Golden Triangle BID, Washington, D.C.), 2016, Runner-up. [↩]
10th Annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards, 2022, Second Place. [↩]
A Hundred Gourds 1:2 (March 2012). [↩]
Frogpond 35:1 (Winter 2012). [↩]
Prune Juice 7 (Winter 2012). [↩]
Shamrock Haiku Journal 32 (2015). [↩]
Frozen Butterfly [YouTube video] 3 (October 25, 2015). [↩]
Photo haiga, Facebook, March 29, 2020. [↩]
Photo haiga, Facebook, April 28, 2020. [↩]

Updated on March 26, 2023