Happy NZ Poetry Day!

August 23 is National Poetry Day in New Zealand. Thanks to the indefatigable Ruth Arnison of Dunedin patients in the city’s Mercy Hospital will today receive a PoARTry card on the tray with their lunch.

Ruth has co-ordinated 10 local artists to create works in response to 10 poems/haiku and she’s had photos of the artworks made up as postcards with the poems on the reverse side. The original artworks will be on display and for sale at Mercy Hospital for a two-week period.

“Mercy Hospital is sponsoring the Poems in the Waiting Room poetry cards for four editions so this is my way of saying thanks to them,” Ruth tells me.

Laura Gregory has taken up one of my haiku and created a lively Market Lady (painting on MDF board).

‘Market Lady’ by Laura Gregory. Photo: Ruth Arnison

end of harvest
we pull out the leaves
on the dining table

– Sandra Simpson

This is the same haiku that last year inspired a mosaic by Greta Doo. Read more here.

Advertisement

Haiku, a visitor & an explanation!

I am very excited to have my haiku featuring on the Mann Library Daily Haiku website, one a day for the month of August. Click on the link to read the current one, and then ‘previous’ or ‘next’.

For more than 10 years Tom Clausen, the instigator of the Mann Library Daily Haiku series, posted a daily haiku in the elevator of the old Mann building at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York state). Since his retirement, he posts them online. Featured poets are by invitation only, so it’s an honour to be included.

Tom’s essay, A Haiku Way on Life, featured on Haiku NewZ in 2007. Click on the title to read it.

Presence 64 has arrived from the other side of the world (UK) and includes three of my poems.

winter palace –
a light rain falls
on the bridal party

– Sandra Simpson

As you might guess this one was written after visiting St Petersburg last year and was pretty much a scene from Palace Square. The melancholy of Russian history – and what a history it is – seemed to filter quickly into my consciousness.

Canadian poet Michael Dudley is visiting New Zealand and was in Katikati last week where a few of us joined him for a walk round the Haiku Pathway. It was a delight to have him share his insights into the poems we met – his acuity and sensitivity to the words and surroundings enriched our outing considerably. Read about Michael and his extensive recent travels in this piece from an English-language Montenegro newspaper (February 12, 2019).

Visiting the Haiku Pathway in Katikati are, from left, Bob Edwards, Margaret Beverland and Michael Dudley. Photo: Sandra Simpson

Michael asked me why my boulder poem

wading birds
mark low tide with
chinese characters

used lower case for the word ‘chinese’ (and it’s not unknown for editors to inquire as to why I use lower case on proper nouns). So … I believe we humans and our activities should be viewed on a par with ants and trees and birds. We should not think we stand any higher and, in fact, our propensity to see ourselves as ‘rulers’ of the Earth has caused, is causing and will cause immeasurable damage and problems for all the inhabitants of this beautiful blue planet.

US poet Scott Mason this week sent a link to this great interview (43 minutes) he did for public television in America and, I was delighted to hear, he thinks much the same way about our place in the world (though I don’t know where stands on capital letters!). If you don’t yet have a copy of Scott’s great book on haiku, The Wonder Code, immediately purchase one!