• RAKUSHISHA

    • April 25, 2021
    • Stella Pierides

    Rakushisha (落柿舎, “Hut” or “Hermitage of Fallen Persimmons”) is a 17th-century cultural monument in the historical district of Saga-Arashiyama northwest of Kyōto. Rakushisha consists of a simple house with clay walls and thatched roof bordering a rice field along one side. The current hut is supposed to be a near replica of the original. A small garden contains stones inscribed with haiku, including some by Matsuo Bashō, and beyond is a small cemetery where Kyorai is buried. Nearby, a well thought to have been owned by 15th-century renga master Iio Sōgi is marked with a simple stone. A few museum-type exhibits adorn the inside walls of Rakushisha.

  • BETTY DREVNIOK AWARD

    • Stella Pierides

    The annual Betty Drevniok Award was established in 1998, in memory of Betty Drevniok, who served as secretary of the society from 1977 to 1979 and president from 1979 to 1982.

  • Lorin Ford

    • November 22, 2020
    • Stella Pierides

    Lorin Ford (born May 17, 1947, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia). Recipient of 1st Place, the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards (2009) for A Wattle Seedpod. Ford served on The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Book Awards Panel, as editor for Notes from the Gean (2009–2011), and as publisher and editor of A Hundred Gourds (2011–2016).

  • HAIKU IN ALBANIA

    • October 25, 2020
    • Stella Pierides

    Albanian speakers first learned of haiku in the 1960s from English and French translations, Japanese haiku were translated into Albanian beginning in the 1970s, and substantial collections of translations of Japanese poetry and haiku appeared in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The first book of original haiku in Albanian appeared in 1999, and two years later the KlubHaiku Shqiptar (Albanian Haiku Club) was founded in the city of Elbasan.

  • Teresa Wennberg

    • October 11, 2020
    • Stella Pierides

    Teresa Wennberg (born December 30, 1944, Stockholm, Sweden), painter, multimedia artist, writer, and poet. Cofounder of the Swedish Haiku Society in 1999. Wennberg’s haiku collection Reflections of a Gardener / En trädgårdsmästares tankar (52 Haiku) was published (in Swedish and English) in 2019. A Catalan edition of this collection, Confessions d’un jardiner, appeared in 2020. She resides in Stockholm, Sweden, and in the Pyrenées Orientales, France.

  • Kerstin Park

    • Stella Pierides

    Kerstin Park (born June 4, 1946, Sandviken, Sweden), speech therapist, writer, and haiku poet. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics, phonetics, and psychology. Her haiku (in English and Swedish) have been published in journals such as Acorn , Blåeld , Chrysanthemum , Failed Haiku, Frogpond , hedgerow, Prune Juice, and included in anthologies: Genom lövverket (2017; Through the Foliage) , En fjäril lyfter från sin skugga (2019; A Butterfly Lifts from Its Shadow), and All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku (2019). Park was ginkō leader at the 2019 Fringe International Arts Festival, Tranås, Sweden. Her haiku collection Längs vägen, världen— 72 haiku (Along the Road, the World: 72 Haiku) was published in 2020. She resides in Äsperöd, Sweden.

  • Stjepan Rožić

    • October 4, 2020
    • Stella Pierides

    Stjepan Rožić (born November 19, 1946, Ivanić-Grad, Croatia [Yugoslavia]), Croatian haiku poet. A retired electrician, he worked at the Zagreb-based oil and natural gas company INA Naftaplin. He was a founder of the annual Kloštar Ivanić International Haiku Meetings (2003–2013) and the Three Rivers Haiku Association in Ivanić-Grad (2006) and has served as the president of the latter since 2015. He has published three haiku collections and coauthored three others, and his work has been chosen for several anthologies. Rožić is in demand as a judge for haiku and senryu in standard Croatian and the Kajkavian dialect. In 2011, he was elected to the Ludbreg Column of Haiku Poets and was designated one of the European Top 100 most creative authors. Lives in Ivanić-Grad, Croatia.

  • Boris Nazansky

    • Stella Pierides

    Boris Nazansky (born July 16, 1953, Rijeka, Croatia [SFR Yugoslavia]), Croatian haiku poet. Graduate engineer in chemistry, entrepreneur, and chief editor of the puzzle magazine Kvizorama. He publishes poetry, short stories, and picture books and serves as coeditor of the annual Ludbreg Haiku Miscellany and chief editor of the annual Haiku Calendar/Rokovnik (2001–2008). Nazansky was on the editorial staff of Haiku magazine in 2003–2004, of Iris since 2008, and of both volumes of the anthology Nepokošeno nebo / An Unmown Sky (2011 and 2018). He has authored two independent haiku collections, coauthored three others, and received 96 awards. With Mirko Varga, he compiled the anthology Grana koja se njiše (A Swaying Bough). Nazansky lives in Zagreb, Croatia.

  • Marinko Kovačević

    • Stella Pierides

    Marinko Kovačević (born April 21, 1940, Poličnik, Croatia [Yugoslavia]), Croatian schoolteacher and haiku poet, graduated from the Pedagogical Academy in Rijeka and studied Croatian language, literature, and philosophy at the Faculty of Arts in Zadar. Now retired, he worked at the I. G. Kovačić Grammar School in Severin na Kupi, Croatia. He has published three haiku collections. The Miner’s Lamp, a section of his Predan putu / Committed to the Road, was translated into French by Patrick Blanche and published as Lampe de mineur by the Association Française de Haïku. Otsuka Masahiko translated a large part of this book into Japanese and published it as The Miner’s Lamp in the magazine Ginyu. Kovačević lives in Praputnjak, Croatia.

  • Duško Matas

    • Stella Pierides

    Duško Matas (born March 8, 1933, Kaštel Stari, near Split, Croatia [Yugoslavia]), Croatian haiku poet. Now retired as a psychiatrist and court expert, he worked at the Policlinic for Traffic Medicine in Zagreb. An award-winning and anthologized author, he has published three collections of his own haiku and coauthored several others. Matas served on the editorial staff of the Association of Croatian Haiku Poets, of Haiku Magazine in 2003–2004, and of the anthology Nepokošeno nebo / An Unmown Sky in 2011. He has judged competitions for haiku in standard Croatian and the Chakavian dialect. In 2009, he was honored by election to the Ludbreg Column of Haiku Poets. He lives in Zagreb.

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