NZPS Contest Update

The 2018 NZPS anthology is not only out – it has sold out! But there may be a reprint of The Unnecessary Invention of Punctuation, read more here. So I can now share the haiku that was placed First and won the Jeanette Stace Memorial Award:

cloud lichen …
too late now
to learn the tango

Sandra Simpson

This was written well before I began a six-week course of ballroom dance lessons … turns out it might also be too late to learn how to foxtrot!

roadside blackberries –
the book I wore out reading
to my brother

Sandra Simpson, Commended

by the time he says kingfisher –

Sandra Simpson, Highly Commended

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League of Nations

Presence 62 is the final edition for the year and, as usual, is a thoroughly good read featuring voices from around the world. Read more about the journal (including how to subscribe).

an inchworm’s stretch
                  I pull the next leaf
           towards it

Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy (UK)

setting sun –
in the ashtray the butt
still glowing

Minh-Triet Pham (France)

clouding over
the conversation turns
to cancer

Andre Surridge (NZ)

shotgun blast –
so strangely green
these winter fields

David Bingham (UK)

half-open window
the splatter of raindrops
on a child’s palm

Indra Neil Makala (India)

country village
on each house roof a crow
crowing

Anna Maris (Sweden)

heat in the city
a swallow’s repeated dives
to the riverbank

Polona Oblak (Slovenia)

dust storm
the desert bloodwood
holds its ground

Gregory Piko (Australia)

heroine’s grave –
the screech of seabirds
never-ending

Sandra Simpson (New Zealand)