Haiku in Canada:
History, Poetry, Memoir
Terry Ann Carter
For my haiku family in Canada and around the world
When all is said and done,
we’re really just walking each other home…
Ram Dass (1931-2019)
Chapter 4: The Haiku Society of Canada
Appendix A: Haiku Canada
Haiku by Margaret Saunders (1926-2005), from the Canadian Haiku Anthologies (Three Trees Press,1979)
After
our quarrel,
a full moon
喧嘩果つ空に満月煌々と
kenka hatsu sora ni mangetsu kōkō to
Haiku by Edna Purviance, from her reading at “The Festival of Falling Leaves” held by The Haiku Society of Canada, in Combermere, Ontario, on October 5, 1979
picking wild strawberries
I look up
and into a doe’s calm eyes
苺摘み顔を上げるや牝鹿の目
ichigo tsumi kao wo ageru ya mejika no me
Haiku by Rod Willmot, from The Ribs of Dragonfly with Black Moss Press in 1984
cave mouth
out of the heat
hands dampening fossils
洞窟の入り口涼し化石かな
dōkutsu no iriguchi suzushi kaseki kana
pumping the Coleman lamp –
white moths
alight on my arms
白き蛾を腕に誘うランプの灯
shiroki ga wo ude ni izanau rampu no hi
wading in darkness
toward the smeltfishers’
bonfire
闇歩くワカサギ漁の漁火へ
yami aruku wakasagi ryō no isari-bi he
Haiku by Denis Coney, from one of the summer events for the Haiku Society of Canada held on Toronto Island as a haiku picnic
Autumn breeze
the butterflies
wave and wave
そよ風に波打つごとき秋の蝶
soyokaze ni namiutsu gotoki aki no chō
Haiku by Keith Southward, from one of the summer events for the Haiku Society of Canada held on Toronto Island as a haiku picnic
Monarch butterflies;
soaring with embers
of our fire
残り火とオオカバマダラ舞い上がる
nokoribi to ōkabamadara maiagaru
Haiku by Anna Vakar, who began writing haiku in Canada in 1977
the parsnip seeds:
I was about to plant them
when the wind blew
風見舞うパースニップ植えしとき
kaze mimau pāsunippu ueshi toki
Haiku by Winona Baker in 1989
moss-hung trees
a deer moves into
the hunter’s silence
苔吊りの静寂の鹿と猟師かな
koke-zuri no shijima no shika to ryōshi kana
Note: The Haiku above
This haiku won the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Grand Prize (International Section) in the World Haiku Contest held in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan (1989) to honour the 300th anniversary of Bahō’s most famous work, Oku-no-Hosomichi – the journal he kept in 1689. Winona celebrated this poem by using the first line as the title for her collection, Moss-Hung Trees: Haiku of the West Coast (Reflections Press, 1992).
Winona traveled to Yamagata to receive her award.
Haiku by Winona Baker, from her last book, Nature Here is Half Japanese (Trafford Publishing, 2010)
office party
all the happy faces
on the balloons
風船のオフィスパーティー顔浮かぶ
fūsen no ofuisu-pātei kao ukabu
Note: An Introduction of the Last Book
Michael Dylan Welch wrote an introduction of Nature Here is Half Japanese,pointing out her “steady voice in English-language haiku for many years. This new book shows once again why her voice is worth a close listen.”
－Interpreted into Japanese by Hidenori Hiruta
秋田国際俳句ネットワーク
蛭田 秀法
Hidenori Hiruta
Akita International Haiku Network
Akita International Haiku Network 