About:
Alan Summers
editor in chief, The Haiku Reader
https://thehaikureader.blogspot.com
Alan Summers has been involved in haikai literature (haiku; senryu; haibun; renku/renga; haiga and shahai), and tanka, since 1993.
He is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet for both haiku and haibun, as well as Best Small Fictions nominated for haibun. He is also a multiple Touchstone Award nominated poet, and winner.
Alan is a former President of the United Haiku & Tanka Society (2017 to 2021), and previously General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000).
He's an Editor Emeritus for the multi-award-winning Red Moon Anthologies (Red Moon Press, USA) for best haikai literature (2000-2005).
Alan has been a former roving Embassy of Japan ‘Japan-UK 150’ poet-in-residence, published/supported by the BBC Poetry Season website at that time celebrating 150 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and the United Kingdom (2008-2009)
He is the winner of the first ever Modern Kigo Project Competition:
https://weirdlaburnum.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/the-modern-kigo-competition-results%EF%BF%BC/
FORTHCOMING:
Alan, along with Karen Hoy, and two other British Haiku Society members (Stewart Wall, organiser, and Robert Herringshaw), are involved with the Royal Photographic Society for this free zoom event in March 2022:
Photography and Haiku Poetry with
Alan Summers
and Karen Hoy
I do love that photograph as Karen Hoy both takes me seriously and not so seriously!
Alan is a double Japan Times award-winning writer, with a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University (U.K. 2007-2008), plus a Diploma for Creative Writing from the University of Bristol (U.K. 2000-2001)
He has been an essayist, article writer, critic, book reviewer, international competition judge, co-founder and founder of various haikai journals, as well as co-editor of a number of haiku and short verse anthologies.
Alan is the founder of Call of the Page (www.callofthepage.org) that supports writers worldwide:
Filmed by NHK Television (Japan) for
“Europe meets Japan - Alan's Haiku Journey”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VS36AGVI6s
His time as a TEDx speaker for Amazement of the ordinary- life through a haiku lens can be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxLTiR7AKDE&t=64s
Transcript:
https://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/transcript-from-tedx-video-amazement-of.html
He is the founder of haikai journals:
Blo͞o Outlier haikai journal
MahMight haiku journal
Babylon Sidedoor platform for haibun, Flash and CNF
Previously he has been a co-founder of ground-breaking journals such as:
Haijinx - haiku with humor
and
Bones journal for contemporary haiku
currently renamed as Bones - a journal for the short poem.
Alongside journals he’s founded or co-founded, he’s previously been the Linked Verses Editor (renku etc…) for Notes from the Gean; Special Feature Editor (haiku and tanka) of Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts (Runner up, Saboteur Awards 2013 for Best Magazine category including his essay on Gendai haiku); and haibun editor for the British Haiku Society’s Blithe Spirit journal.
He has been co-editor of a number of haiku-based anthologies, and art gallery catalogues including:
Parade of Life: Poems inspired by Japanese Prints
ed. Paul Conneally & Alan Summers
(Poetry Can/Bristol Museum and Art Gallery/Japan21/Embassy of Japan 2002)
" 'Parade of Life' is very impressive."
Hiroaki Sano,
Japanese Embassy (London)
The Poetic Image - Haiku and Photography
(Birmingham Words/National Academy of Writing Pamphlet 2006)
Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku (Press Here 2010 USA)
with US poet Michael Dylan Welch
Four Virtual Haiku Poets (YTBN Press 2012)
with Brendan Slater
Through a glass darkly (Quest Art Gallery 2012, UK)
c.2.2. an anthology of short-verse poetry and haiku
with Brendan Slater (YTBN Press 2013)
His collections include:
Sundog Haiku Journal: an Australian Year
(Sunfast Press 1997 second print 1998)
Does Fish-God Know
(YTBN Press 2012)
https://tinyurl.com/DoesFish-GodKnow
https://area17.blogspot.com/2012/10/does-fish-god-know-haiku-collection-by.html
https://area17.blogspot.com/2013/02/new-book-review-of-does-fish-god-know.html
Pamphlets:
Moonlighting (British Haiku Society Intimations Pamphlet Series,1996)
The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)
The Comfort of Crows
(Alan Summers & Hifsa Ashraf)
Velvet Dusk Publishing (2019)
Forbidden Syllables
(Bones Library 2020)
Glint
(Proletaria 2020)
Link for downloads:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2020/06/recent-haiku-poetry-collections-by-alan.html
He has two forthcoming collections in 2022.
Alan has been anthologised hundreds of times, too many to include all of them, but here are a few:
ANTHOLOGIES
Alan has appeared in many milestone haiku anthologies.
Here are a few from 1996 onwards...
Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac
ed. William Higginson (Kodansha International, Japan,1996)
Mainichi Shimbun 125th Anniversary Anthology (Japan 1997)
The Redmoon Anthology
(Red Moon Press 1997)
International Kusamakura Haiku Anthology (Japan, 1998)
Iron Book of British Haiku
ed. David Cobb and Martin Lucas (Iron Press 1998, Third print 2000)
snow on the water, The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 1998
First Australian Haiku Online Anthology (1999)
Azami Haiku in English Commemorative Issue (ed. Ikkoku Santo, Osaka, Japan, 2000)
Haiga: Illustrated Haiku Poems (1st Edition)
ed. Yukki Yaura (Suekichi Book, Japan 2000)
First Australian Anthology (Paper Wasp 2000)
The Basho Museum Memorial Anthology (Japan 2001)
The New Haiku
ed. John Barlow & Martin Lucas (Snapshot Press, 2001)
Wild Flowers, New Leaves (Ami-Net International Press (World Haiku Club 2002)
Haiku Friends vol. 1 ed. Masaharu Hirata (Osaka, Japan, 2003)
Raku Teapot: Haiku Book and CD
pub. Raku Teapot Press/White Owl Publishing (2003)
First Australian Haiku Anthology, Paper Wasp (2003)
Haiku Pathway Katikati anthology Katikati Open-Air Art Inc. (2003)
City: Bristol Today in Poems and Pictures
Paralaia (2004)
haiku dreaming australia
Best haiku & senryu relevant in and to australia
(John Bird, Australia 2006)
D'un ciel a l'autre Anthologie de haiku de l'Union Europeenne
(Edition de l'Association francaise de haiku 2006)
Stepping Stones: a way into haiku
ed. Martin Lucas (British Haiku Society, 2007)
Haiku Friends Vol. 2 ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan 2007)
Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku
ed. John Barlow & Matthew Paul (Snapshot Press 2008)
Spasms of Light (Wonder Haiku Worlds online anthology, 2008)
Haiku Friends Vol. 3 ed. Masaharu Hirata (Japan 2009)
Haiku Enlightenment
ed. Gabriel Rosenstock
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2009)
“water"
haiga eBook series, ed. Kuniharu Shimizu (Tokyo, Japan, 2010)
Haiku Pathway Katikati,
Katikati Open-Air Art Inc.
(10th Anniversary Edition Anthology 2010)
The Strand Book Of International Poets 2010
ed. Imran Hanif and Jane Lee ISBN: 9781907340062
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Vol. 3 (MET Press 2010)
Compiled by M. Kei and team
a little help from my friends (Red Dragonfly ePamphlet 2011) ed. Melissa Allen
Spasms of Light (Wonder Haiku Worlds print anthology 2011)
A Blackbird Sings, a small stone anthology ISBN 978-0-9571584-2-9
ed. Fiona Robyn & Kaspalita Thompson (Woodsmoke Press 2012)
fox dreams ed. Aubrie Cox (April 2012)
The Temple Bell Stops:
Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change
ed. Robert Epstein (Modern English Tanka Press 2012)
The Humours of Haiku
ed. David Cobb (Iron Press 2012)
With Cherries on Top
ed. Michael Dylan Welch (2012)
The Disjunctive Dragonfly
a New Approach to English-Language Haiku
ed. Richard Gilbert
(Red Moon Press 2012)
We Are All Japan
ed. Robert D. Wilson & Sasa Vazic (Karakia Press 2012)
Evening Breeze
The Janice M Bostok Haiku Prize 2012 Anthology
Haiku in English:
The First Hundred Years
ed. Jim Kacian, Allan Burns & Philip Rowland
Introduction by Billy Collins (W. W. Norton 2013)
Inking Bitterns
(Gert Macky Books December, 2013)
edited/illustrated by Dru Marland
in fear of dancing:
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2013
Haiku 2014
ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga (Modern Haiku Press)
big data
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014
The Sacred In Contemporary Haiku
ed. Robert Epstein (December 2014)
a splash of water
(Haiku Society of America Members Anthology 2015 ed. Catherine J. S. Lee)
Faces and Place
ed. Don Baird (The Little Buddha Press 2015)
Spent Blossoms, 2015 Tanka Society of America Members’ Anthology
ed. Claire Everett
Full of Moonlight
Haiku Society of America Member Anthology 2016
ed. David Grayson
Behind the Tree Line ed. Gabriel Sawicki (2015)
The Light Singing ed. Olimpia Iacob & Jim Kacian (2015)
Haiku 2015
ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga
(Modern Haiku Press)
A Vast Sky
An Anthology of Contemporary World Haiku
ed. by Bruce Ross; Koko Kato; Dietmar Tauchner;
and Patricia Prime (Tancho Press 2015)
Journeys 2015 - An Anthology of International Haibun
ed. Dr Angelee Deodhar
Renku Reckoner
ed. John Carley (DarlingtonRichards 2015)
Haiku 2016
ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga (Modern Haiku Press)
Heart Breaths: Book of Contemporary Haiku ed. Jean LeBlanc (Cyberwit 2016)
dust devils:
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2016
ed. Jim Kacian & the Red Moon Editorial Staff
Yanty’s Butterfly Haiku Nook: An Anthology
eds. Jacob Salzer & The Nook Editorial Staff (2016)
https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/yantysbutterfly
British Haiku Society 2016 Members’ Anthology Beginnings
Ripples in the Sand
2016 Tanka Society of America Members’ Anthology
ed. Susan Constable and Jenny Ward Angyal
Poetry & Place ed. Ashley Capes & Brooke Linford (Close-Up Books, 2016)
naad anunaad:
an anthology of contemporary international haiku
ed. Shloka Shankar, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Kala Ramesh (India, 2016)
Earth in Sunrise:
A Course for English-Language Haiku Study
(Kumamoto University, Japan, textbook for teaching university-level English-language education) ed. Professor Richard Gilbert and David Ostman
(Red Moon Press 2017)
The Right Touch of Sun
2017 Tanka Society of America Members’ Anthology
ed. Margaret Dornaus and David Terelinck
old song:
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2017
ed. Jim Kacian/Red Moon Press Editorial Staff
Dwarf Stars 2018
The Best Very Short Speculative Poems in 2017
ed. Deborah P Kolodji
Samobor Haiku Meeting 25th anniversary anthology (2017)
is/let —2017—
https://isletpoetry.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/is_let-2017.pdf
Ekphrasis:
The British Haiku Society Members' Anthology 2017
ed. Iliyana Stoyanova
The Wonder Code
ed. Scott Mason (2017)
Pegasus: The Haiku Anthology
ed. Santosh Kumar (2017)
The New English Verse: An International Anthology of Poetry
ed. Suzie Palmer (Cyberwit 2017)
Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Selected Haiku Collection (Japan 2017)
pins on a map: 3rd haiku anthology (Inhaiku Mumbai anthology)
Inhaiku Mumbai ed. Rohini Gupta (November 2nd 2018)
2018 Haiku Canada Members' Anthology / L’anthologie 2018 des membres de Haïku Canada ed. Marco Fraticelli and Philomene Kocher
Poetry as Consciousness
Haiku Forests, Space of Mind, and an Ethics of Freedom
Author: Richard Gilbert Illustrator: Sabine Miller
pub. Keibunsha (2018, Japan)
a hole in the light:
The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018
Four Hundred and Two Snails:
The Haiku Society of America Members' Anthology 2018
ed. Nicholas M. Sola.
Of Love and War and the Life in Between
2018 Tanka Society of America Members’ Anthology
ed. Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy
Half A Rainbow
Haiku Nook: An Anthology ed. Jacob Salzer & The Nook Editorial Staff (2020)
Dedicated to Rachel Sutcliffe (1977-2019) & Haiku Nook G+
https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/halfarainbowhaiku
Nick Virgilio Writers House Poetry:
Volume 1: haiku, senryu, and tanka
ed. Henry Brann (upright remington press 2019)
Red River Book of Haibun
ed. Paresh Tiwari and Steve Hodge (November 2019)
Amaravati Poetic Prism 2019 - International Multilingual Poetry Anthology
ed. Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy ISBN: 9789353917920
Publisher: Cultural Centre of Vijayawada & Amaravati (CCVA), Vijayawada
British Haiku Society Conference Anthology
where silence becomes song
ed. Iliyana Stoyanova & David Bingham (pub. British Haiku Society 2019)
All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku
ed. Robert Epstein
Middle Island Press (Oct. 2019)
Another Trip Around the Sun:
365 Days of Haiku for Children Young and Old
ed. Jessica Latham (Brooks Books 2019)
Corona Social Distancing: Poets for Humanity
ed. hülya n. yılmaz, Ph.D.
inner child press international 1st Edition: May 2020
behind the mask: haiku in the time of Covid-19
Singing Moon Press Pandemic Anthology ed. Margaret Dornaus (2020)
Poetry in the Plague Year
Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak 2020
(Poetry Kit publishing)
Last Train Home
an anthology of haiku, tanka and rengay
ed. Jacquie Pearce (2020)
tanka 2020: poems from today’s world
Red Moon Press (2020)
ed. Alexis Rotella editor-in-chief
introduction by Michael McClintock
Nick Virgilio Writers House Poetry
A Year in Poems Haiku in Action vol 2 2020
Grandmother’s Pearls:
An Anthology of Dream Poems
ed. Alexis Rotella (Jade Mountain Press, 2021)
“Stories Under Every Rock”
The British Haiku Society 30th Anniversary Members’ Haibun Anthology (2021)
ed. David Bingham
Window Seats:
A Contemporary Anthology of Cat Haiku & Senryu
ed. Stanford Forrester
(Bottle Rockets Press 2021)
Haiku 2021
ed. Lee Gurga & Scott Metz
(Modern Haiku Press)
100 notable haiku selected by the editors of the award-winning Haiku 21.
Introductory essay by Philip Rowland, editor of NOON: Journal of the Short Poem (Tokyo).
"Haiku 2021 unfolds as a series of flashes of insight and facets of language, a remarkable range of minimalist poetic possibilities."
~Philip Rowland, from the introduction
https://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Haiku2021.html
Japanese newspapers that have printed his haiku include:
Yomiuri Shimbun; Mainichi Shimbun; Japan Times; and The Mie Times.
"astonishingly moving haiku"
YOMIURI SHIMBUN January 2005
"widely known haiku poet...as dry as vintage champagne"
YOMIURI SHIMBUN September 2002
(Japan's largest national newspaper with over 14 million readers.)
16th September 2002 (planned for publication on my birthday)
"...humanises the city."
Takashi Nonin, MAINICHI DAILY NEWS, Japan
"...you are one of the poets I have been most interested in. When I began composing haiku, I studied about English language haiku through your descriptive literature in the website. I love your haiku style.”
KEIKO IZAWA, musician & haiku poet, Yokohama, Japan
Forthcoming weblink
Haiku North America 2021
Forthcoming Video release
https://area17.blogspot.com/2016/12/travelling-single-line-of-haiku-one.html
how a house passes along the train of haiku
https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-definite-and-indefinite-article-how.html
http://livinghaikuanthology.com/poets-on-haiku/defining-haiku/2901-haiku-the-art-of-implication-over-explication-by-alan-summers.html
https://area17.blogspot.com/2014/04/more-than-one-fold-in-paper-kire-kigo.html
https://www.underthebasho.com/2013-issue/features/84-more-than-one-fold-in-the-paper.html
Slip-Realism - haiku about lives and incidents on the 'peripheral'
new ways of perceiving the real
(after Néoréalisme & Nouveau realisme)
575 haiku
https://area17.blogspot.com/2016/03/575haiku-traditional-haiku-as-three.html
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/2016/10/reader-second-verse/
http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/2016/10/black-dogs-afternoon-rain/
https://area17.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-g-force-of-blue-touching-base-with.html
The Golden Carousel of Life: Senryu,
An Application to be a) human
Failed Haiku, A Journal of English Senryu
https://failedhaiku.com/2016/09/20/the-golden-carousel-of-life-senryu/
https://www.haikuhut.com/Senryū-An-Application-to-be-a-human-by-Alan-Summers.pdf
A look at senryu, the sibling of haiku, senryu contest results and commentary,
and a very funny checklist!
https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/being-human-ordinary-intensity-look-at.html
Commentary and results of two senryu competitions - the sibling genre of haiku
https://area17.blogspot.com/2018/07/what-is-senryu-again-commentary-and.html
CONFERENCE APPEARANCES
Haiku North America Conference (October 2021)
Presentation: Schrödinger’s MA and the segue axis
Video forthcoming
What Kind of 21st Century Does Everyone Want for Haiku?
Panel Discussion led by Alan Summers
Video forthcoming
Japan Writers Conference 2021:
Presentation: The Pull of the Lonely Single Line of Haiku
Zoom Special Guest
Sunday 31 January 2021
seashores
an international journal to share the spirit of haiku
https://www.haikuspirit.org/seashoresevents.html
British Haiku Society
discussion with Kala Ramesh (August 2021)
Previous British Haiku Society conferences/residential weekend presentations included a film by Karen Hoy (with Alan Summers) of the official opening of the
Katikati Haiku Pathway when they were invited by the Mayor of the Bay of Plenty (New Zealand); and various other talks, ginko, presentations including one about Jack Kerouac over the years.
Southern California Haiku Study Group Travelling along the single line of haiku presentation/workshop & exercises by Alan Summers (May 2020).
SELECTED RESIDENCIES
In 2004 he was the first poet and “Haiku Poet-in-Residence” for Bristol Festival of Nature 2004 which was the U.K.'s largest ever natural history festival. Alan was sponsored by BFN2004 & Norwich Union to undertake haiku workshops during October & November 2004 throughout Bristol and S.W. England schools). Poetry Can, the S.W. England poetry development agency, also sponsored Alan at BFN2004 to take adult and family workshops at Bristol Zoo, and a ginko (haiku writing walk) and workshop with The Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project.
As another Haiku Poet-in-Residence, Alan created Britain’s only haiku café, as mentioned in the Lonely Planet's Guide to Great Britain (Spring 2006 – Autumn 2006) which also involved a ginko for deaf poets, and haiku, tanka, and renga workshops and theatre performances with the Deaf Community. The photograph is in the Bristol city centre café, just by the Haiku Pillar, with Deafpoets waiting for their Bento Ginko lunches: https://area17.blogspot.com/2006/07/british-sign-language-haiku-festival_22.html
He ran mixed music, poetry, and haiku performances, and a haiku competition, as well as the Haiku Postbox feature. As well as interviewed by Seven magazine:
https://area17.blogspot.com/2006/05/seven-magazine-literature-feature.html
Other live events have included Antony Gormley’s One & Other, Fourth Plinth event in conjunction with SkyArts in Trafalgar Square, London, (July 2009):
ART EXHIBITIONS
He has often been involved in public art from hanging thousands of haiku on trees and bushes, and along streets, to having verses cut into linocuts:
Floating World Japanese Festival
Joint exhibition with linocut artist Trevor Haddrell (Bristol Floating Harbour, September 2003)
East meets West
The Art Gym - Hengrove Community Arts College
linocuts with Trevor Haddrell (November 2003)
or laser cut onto DuPont™ Corian®
for The Haiku Experience - Alan Summers & Karen Hoy
Totterdown Art Trail (Bristol, November 2003 also partly filmed by BBC TV of the U.K.)
StudioManchester's Japan Art Auction
Alan Summers was also renku poet-in-residence, and attraction host & organiser at the Royal Festival Hall, in London’s Southbank, with Japan-UK 150, in September 2008, as part of the Giant Japanese Jamboree at the Mayor’s Thames Festival - which attracts around half a million visitors - in September 2008, running multiple one-to-one workshops while launching the Haiku Journal notebooks.
As the Embassy of Japan’s roving Haiku & Renga poet-in-residence for Japan-UK 150 throughout 2009 he also ran various related activities from train stations to other public spaces. This included improvisational renga for The Fragmented Orchestra at the Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, with the passing public outside on the street (February 2009) and running two senku (1000 verse renga events) in two different cities from the South to the North of England:
In partnership with Bath Libraries (South West England, U.K.) for The 1000 Verse Renga Project (September to November 2009) becoming part of the BBC Poetry Season; followed by a triple senku renga In partnership with Hull Libraries U.K. along with The James Reckitt Library Trust and Larkin25 Festival.
In other years he has been Poet-in-Residence in various places such as at Bath Spa University (Autumn 2006 – Summer 2007) where he was involved with a number of haiku & renga workshops hired by ambidextrous, a new organisation being developed as part of a BA program for freshers. Other activities were The 24 hour haiku answerphone and The POW Festival with haiku walls, along with another student society called Play on Words Productions, with videos made by Ambidextrous and Soft C, to encourage current and future Bath Spa University students.
https://area17.blogspot.com/2007/07/swot-arts-literary-magazine-haiku.html
https://area17.blogspot.com/2007/06/bath-spa-university-student-magazine.html
https://area17.blogspot.com/2007/07/haiku-balloons-at-pow-festival-bath-spa.html
Bristol Ladyfest 2003
Alan was involved with the LadyfestBristol Spoken Word Committee with poetry plus musical acts from Canada, USA, as well as local musicians, and poets aboard a floating nightclub. He also personally performed in various fundraising LadyfestBristol benefit gigs, as well as running haiku workshops.
Alan Summers, with Rachel Carvosso of Tokyo Art Beat & Japan Editor for Bristol's The Love of It in Partnership with:
Bath Libraries; Nikki Bennett & Uni-Verse; Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights; Writing Events Bath; Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (fondly known as BRLSI); Embassy of Japan in the UK; Akita International University (Japan); and International Haiku Spring Festival 2010 (Akita, Northern Honshu, Japan).
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery,
part of
Bristol Museums
