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| harrowed soil . . .
sunlight silvers the rooks’ wings |
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| nothing to separate
the hill from its mist . . . oystercatcher calls |
| teasels
the reed bunting’s feather tips have worn away |
| morning haze . . .
the shades of twigs added to the magpies’ nest |
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| a spring day
with no need to exorcize the ghosts . . . still the way in which the river lets the cormorant go |
| dripping waterweed . . .
the great crested grebes breast to breast |
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| nightfall . . .
a heron’s silhouette lifts from the reeds |
| storm break—
all of the angles in the martin’s flight |
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| depths of the wood
the bullfinch’s breast empties of song |
| country milestone
corn buntings jangle the breeze |
| a whitethroat
flits through the thicket . . . late summer wind |
| the passage of ripple light
on the distant bank a drummed-out snipe |
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| wheat stubble
quails kick up the evening’s dust |
| the hummingbird’s colours
blurred into one . . . autumn dusk |
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| midge clouds
in and out of sunlight the bittern’s neck |
| all these questions
posed by your death . . . sanderlings probe the wave-washed zone, scurry back from the edge |
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| winter morning
the slow flaps of a crow against a cloudless sky |
| starlings
twist through starlings . . . distant rain |
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| salt marsh . . .
the movement of godwits in early dusk |
| somewhere
way beyond the grey . . . the caw’s crow |
| oyster shells
the ragged flight of an osprey into evening |
| “harrowed soil”: Snapshots 6
“nothing to separate”: Acorn 19 “teasels”: Simply Haiku 5:2 “morning haze”: Shamrock 2 “a spring day”: Tanka Splendor Award 2007 “dripping waterweed”: Presence 32 “crackle of cones”: Presence 32 “nightfall”: Waiting for the Seventh Wave (Snapshot Press, 2006) “storm break”: Commended, Haiku Presence Award 2006 “she asks me”: American Tanka 16 “country milestone”: Simply Haiku 5:2 |
| “a whitethroat”: Simply Haiku 5:2
“wheat stubble”: Frogpond XXXI:1 “the hummingbird’s colours”: Simply Haiku 5:4 “all these questions”: Tanka Splendor Award 2007 “winter morning”: Modern Haiku 38.1 “starlings”: Presence 28 “salt marsh”: Presence 32 “oyster shells”: a maple leaf: the paper wasp jack stamm haiku anthology 2006 (paper wasp, 2007) “rust-tipped reeds”: Acorn 18 All other poems are previously unpublished. |
| Publication credits: |
| through the river’s rocks the notes of a dipper |
| crackle of cones
a treecreeper spirals around the pine |
| she asks me
about my beliefs . . . a black crow shakes the rain from leaf to leaf |
| the late flaming
of rosebay willowherb . . . glide of a jay |
| the pale undersides
of purple sandpipers . . . waxing moon |
| the light there is there in the leafless greenfinch tree |
| rust-tipped reeds
an owl fades over the loch |
| The Bittern’s Neck
A 3LIGHTS Gallery Exhibition Poet: John Barlow Photographer: Sean Gray Curator: Liam Wilkinson Poems copyright © John Barlow 1998–2007 Photographs copyright © Sean Gray 2005–2007 All rights reserved All haiku and tanka were written in England, Scotland and Wales from 1998–2007 with the following exceptions: “winter morning” (North Carolina, USA; 2005); “oyster shells” (The Gambia; 2007); and “the hummingbird’s colours” and “wheat stubble” (California, USA; 2007). |
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| Click to read an Interview with John Barlow |
| WING BEATS Several haiku in this exhibition feature in Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku, published by Snapshot Press in June 2008. Written and compiled by John Barlow and Matthew Paul, illustrated by Sean Gray, and with a foreword by Stephen Moss, Wing Beats features 323 experiential haiku and 131 species of British birds. 'This volume of haiku about birds and what it means to encounter birds in the landscape achieves the near impossible. It captures the deepest feelings and the most minute observations in the fewest words possible—a triumph of seeing, expression and poetic control.’ Mark Cocker, author and naturalist ‘In Wing Beats, the brief, Japanese-style haiku becomes an absolutely first-rate medium for capturing those fleeting moments all bird-lovers prize. The birds in these poems glide, poke, and zip across the many different landscapes of Britain, punctuating the wind and the sounds of human activity. Substantial appendices discuss how experience and tradition combine to freshen our understanding of the seasons in haiku. I find Wing Beats full of acute observations, artistically moving, and intellectually stimulating—a very important book.’ William J. Higginson, author The Haiku Handbook, The Haiku Seasons, Haiku World, etc. ‘A generous project, offering non-birders the insight that every bird, and every sighting, is a unique combination of the habitat, the moment and the species’ ‘inborn attitude’.’ Philip Gross, poet www.wingbeats.co.uk www.snapshotpress.co.uk |
| JOHN BARLOW John Barlow has been described as one ‘of the best haiku poets writing in English’ (Haiku North America). His haiku and tanka have been translated into several languages and published extensively worldwide, receiving awards in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. His collections include Waiting for the Seventh Wave (haiku; 2006), Snow About To Fall (tanka; 2006), and Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (2008), written and compiled with Matthew Paul. He edited the haiku magazine Snapshots from 1998–2006, and Tangled Hair, the first journal dedicated solely to English-language tanka to be published outside the US, from 1999–2006. He is also the editor of The Haiku Calendar, which has appeared annually since 2000, and co-editor, with Martin Lucas, of The New Haiku (2002). He was also an editorial advisor for The Tanka Anthology (2003), and since 2007 he has been on the editorial staff of The Red Moon Anthology. Growing up surrounded by fields and woodland (in the heart of Arnold Boyd country), his passion for natural history, and birds in particular, had developed by the age of 7. He still has various well-worn field guides from this time inscribed with his name, address and age in half years. Along with his long-saved-for first pair of binoculars: 8x30, made in the USSR, and the weight of a small tank. He lives in the North West of England, a short walk from the sea. www.snapshotpress.co.uk |
| SEAN GRAY Sean Gray grew up watching birds in the Norfolk fens and now lives in Halifax, West Yorkshire. He is a wild bird photographer and ringer. www.grayimages.co.uk |
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