Australian SAIJIKI

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.................... AUSTRALIA SAIJIKI
A
ustralia Saijiki
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This saijiki is under construction.

Dear Haiku poets from the region,
please help with your positive support, info and contributions!

It is difficult to re-plant the Japanese kigo concept in areas that have different seasonal aspects and no kigo culture.

A standard or rather many standards for seasons in Australia to be used for regional kigo colletions is still under construction. It depends on the Australian haiku poets and what they choose to write their poetry about.
Please contribute your aspects of existing kigo or new kigo you suggest for your area to help deepen the worldwide understanding of haiku poets for regional diversity.

It is a difficult undertaking, taking into consideration the various climate zones of the continent.

Apart from trying to find regional kigo, we also suggest to collect and specify topics (keywords) for the areas where haiku poets have started writing Japanese-style short poetry.

Your input is most necessary and greatly appreciated!

Gabi Greve

WKD: Details about the many seasons of Australia
Study the basics here!


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The Southern Cross
Click on the photo to see more haiku information from the area.

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Adjustments for Northern and Southern Hemisphere

If there is not specifical mention, a calendar reference kigo in the World Kigo Database refers to the Northern Hemisphere as its place of origin.
For the Southern Hemisphere, add six months.
December and short night are kigo for summer in the Southern Hemisphere, for example.
SEE
Adjustments for the Southern Hemisphere


For a calendar reference kigo originating in the Southern Hemisphere, add six months to get to its Northern counterpart.
These adjustments will not be mentioned specifically for each kigo in the database.

Calendar reference kigo
are for example the names of each month and then the many festivals of a specific date and the memorial days.
Japanese haiku poets up from the North of Hokkaido down to the South of Okinawa have no problem when using DECEMBER as a kigo, for example, since kigo are conventions for writing poetry.
Haiku poets from Australia are especially invited to contribute their aspects of moods and poetic allusions for each month in their area. What is your december like? Please let us know!


The East coast of Australia, near the Queensland / New South Wales border has the following seasons:

Spring -- September, October, November
Summer -- December, January, February
Autumn (Fall) -- March, April, May
Winter -- June, July, August

Contributed by John Bird : An Australian Seasoning

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© www.graphicmaps.com


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If this rate of cultural cross-pollination keeps up, the haiku may replace the bush ballad as Australia's preferred mode of poetic expression.

By Jaya Savige
October 03, 2007

OF the broader developments in recent Australian poetry, one of the more prominent has been an increasing engagement with the cultures and poetic traditions of Asia. Open a contemporary collection at random and you're likely to find a haiku or a pantoum sitting alongside a sonnet or a set of quatrains. In terms of content, Bombay buses and Cambodian cyclos jostle with scooters in St Kilda and roo bars in the Pilbara.

In Martial Arts, the compact movements of the martial artist are conceived as "deadly haikus/an art as convincing as any classic". The term classic here connotes both Eastern and Western traditions, and suggests the extent to which the poet is working at the nexus of the two.

The versatile haiku form has been employed by many contemporary Australian poets, from Janice Bostok to Ross Clarke and Bronwyn Lea, but there has not been a more perfect marriage of Australian content and Japanese form than the first of Sydney poet Jane Gibian's Summer Sequence, taken from her new collection, Ardent:

stepping carefully
between pointed gumnut caps --
your bare feet

Eschewing all poetic trickery, the basic aim of the haiku is to capture a precise (seasonal) moment with pristine lucidity; the dynamism is provided by the kireji, or turn, which functions much like the volta in a conventional sonnet.

Read more HERE
©　www.theaustralian.news.com.au


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Season Words (kigo) for Australia


Spring:

Bogon Moth
burning cane
dragon lizards
Melbourne Cup, Horse race
picnic
sandflies
shearing
Water dragon Physignathus lesueurii

ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo

Summer:

Australia Day (26th January)

BeachWorldwide. Surfing.

Bees, bumble bees

Blackboy seeds (Xanthorrhoeaceae plants) Grasstree

Boxing Day Australia, New Zealand, UK

Bushfire, wildfire

Christmas in Australia
Santa Claus

cyclone

December, January, February in Australia

flood

drought
A Sunburnt Country : a haiku sequence by John Bird

Frangipani, Plumeria
haze [not spring]
lightning [not autumn]
Long days (hinaga), long nights (nagaki yo)

mirage
Peppermint tree (Agonis flexuosa)
Pelican

sunbathing
surfing
swimming

water clears, clear water
windmill[not spring]
Withered plants (by the heat)


......................... The New Year
is a season of its own in Japan, because we celebrate for almost two weeks with many special ceremonies and customs, according to the Asian lunar calendar.
In Australia, related kigo could simply be classified for the summertime.

First Sun, First Sunrise, year's first dawn of the New Year


ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo

Autumn:

Anzac Day (25th April)
Anzac, a haiku sequence by John Bird

blues festival (Byron Bay)
cassia (yellow flowering shrub)
clear sky
tailor (saltwater fish)


ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo

Winter:

bottlebrush, Aesculus parviflora

Long days (hinaga), long nights (nagaki yo)

wattle [late winter] Tumbleweed


ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo


Non-seasonal Haiku Topics:
we might find a season for them as we go :


Aborigines

Airlie Beach, Great Barrier Reef

Ant, Bulldog ant (Myrmecia)

Boomerang

Cane Toad

Great Barrier Reef

Emu

Eucalyptus trees

Fat Tailed Dunnart

Flannel Flower

Goanna / Monitor Lizard

Hakea plant

Ibis

Iguana

Kakadu (National Park)

Kingfisher

Koala

Kanguru (Kangoroo)

Leadbeater's Possum

Platypus , duck-mole of Australia
With webbed feet, a tail like a beaver's, and a horny beak resembling the bill of a duck.

Snakes, Red-bellied Black Snake

Sturt's Desert Pea
with lovely red flowers

Tasmanian wilderness

Waratah flower

Whipbird (Psophodes olivaceus)



Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)
This special pine belongs to the Araucariaceae family and has been around for 200 million years !


Wombat


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External LINKs, general information

Animals of Australia with photos

Animals of Australia, Marsupials and others


Australia PhotosAnimals, Plants and more


Australian Slang
G'day, mate! Koala Net


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FIRST AUSTRALIAN HAIKU ANTHOLOGY Book Review

Wollumbin Haiku Workshop, John Bird　

Wollumbin Haiku Workshop, John Bird, 2006　


Haiku Dreaming Australia
seeks to enlist wide recognition that southern hemisphere kigo is not always understood or given its true value, even by those of us who live here. This, to date, has been inevitable.
After all, haiku originated from northern hemisphere Japan – and with the exception of a few southern hemisphere visionaries such as Janice Bostok in the 1970s– it found its most empathetic following in countries which experienced similar seasonal experiences and their related flora and fauna.
Haiku Dreaming Australia
Editor : John Bird


There will never be a 'collection of Australian kigo', an Australian saijiki to which Australian poets adhere. Even a collection of agreed season words is unlikely.

... Not kigo. I suggest national-symbolic keywords.

But these keywords can not be prescribed; their usage can not be enforced; only future generations can decide if their effectiveness persists. They must be allowed to evolve from the work of many poets over a long period. And they will, they will, if we write and share haiku about Australia.

Read the full article here:
Coming Clean on Kigo
John Bird, July 2007



(I do not share this view of John Bird, but it is an imortant aspect of the Australian search for its own haiku and kigo culture.
Gabi Greve)

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(under the Southern Cross)
by Gábor Terebess: Haiku in the Luggage


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The Australian Haiku Society

In December, 2000, Australian haiku enthusiasts banded together to form HaikuOz

* to promote enjoyment of haiku within Australia,
* to bring Australian writers to the world haiku community.

The Australian Haiku Society would not have come into being without the tireless and thorough efforts of its founder and first contact officer and inaugural web manager, John Bird. Haiku Oz gratefully acknowledges its debt to his vision, passion and expertise in drawing Australian haijin together to create the online haiku community that it is today.

Patron: Janice M. Bostok
President: Beverley George
Vice-President: Lyn Reeves

http://www.haikuoz.org/about_haikuoz/

First Australian Haiku Anthology


　Spinifex: haiku
by Beverley George
ISBN 0 957843609 0
published by Pardalote Press


ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo


Eucalypt:
An Australian tanka journal appearing in May and in November each year.

ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo


Australian Haiku Poets and Authors
A growing LIST.

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where children play
the words of Mao
whitewashed

Read more here :
WATCHING PILGRIMS, WATCHING ME
An interview with Jodie Hawthorne


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Hot Cross Haiku

Hot Cross Haiku serves tasty and thoughtful haiku by !an and authors from around the world. Baked daily in Melbourne, Australia, these haiku are best served warm and buttered.

http://hotcrosshaiku.blogspot.com/


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New Zealand and Tasmania

New Zealand Kigo - to use or not to use?
By Vanessa Proctor


New Zealand Haiku Magazines

Bravado:
published three times a year and may include haiku, along with poetry, short stories and articles.
Submit: Poetry Editor Tim Upperton

Kiwihaiku:
Is published bi-monthly in the NZ Poetry Society newsletter. Haiku submitted should have a distinct New Zealand flavour.
Submit: Editor Barbara Strang

Kokako:
published twice a year, and includes haiku, senryu, tanka, renga and related forms.
Editors: Owen Bullock, Patricia Prime


Valley MicroPress:
published 10 times a year.
Submit: Editor Tony Chad

New Zealand Poetry Society.
More is here.

... ... ...

Welcome to the showcase of haiku by some of the best writers in New Zealand.

wedding day
the pear tree
sheds petals

- Barbara Strang


admires the new handbag
on the window sill
then Rangitoto's Fuji

- Bernard Gadd

. © HAIKU NZ SHOWCASE

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Jeanette Stace (1917 – 2006)

low tide
I walk to you
across the sky

On 2nd October Jeanette Stace died peacefully. She was one of New Zealand's leading haiku poets and made a contribution to English language haiku, not only through her own poetry, but also by encouraging others to write and enjoy haiku.

She received many awards for her work, but was always modest about her achievements. Jeanette was an invaluable member of the New Zealand Poetry Society committee for many years.


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BACK TO ..... World Kigo Database
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/

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