Dear Loyal Readers and Followers:
Today, Monday, May 28 through Sunday, June 3, you will enjoy a week’s worth of Alan Summers’ haiku. Alan lives in the UK, and his work often appears on this blog.
His websites listed below are very interesting and useful, and they are well worth checking out:
http://www.callofthepage.org
http://area17.blogspot.com
Enjoy these seven selections (one for each day and re-read them). Learn from them, as this is what The Daily Haiku is all about–learning and improving your skills.
leafdrop a shrew journeys its path
Yanty’s Butterfly: Haiku Nook Anthology
, 2016
breaking windows
the childhood gang
of mostly one
Haiku Windows, The Haiku Foundation, February 2018
dead sparrow
how light the evening
comes to a close
Haiku Canada Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2017
empirical owls . . .
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
“Gwdihŵ” Wales Haiku Journal, Issue One, Spring 2018
river-moss the mallards feeding the day slowly
Wales Haiku Journal, Issue One, March 2018
a drone’s hum
the Hunter’s moon
clears cloud
otata, #11, November 2016
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
“Gwdihŵ” Wales Haiku Journal, Issue One, Spring 2018
About Charlotte Digregorio
I publish books. I have marketed and/or published 55 titles. These books are sold in 46 countries to bookstores, libraries, universities, professional organizations, government agencies, and book clubs. In 2018, I was honored by the Governor of Illinois for my thirty-eight years of accomplishments in the literary arts, and my work to promote and advance the field by educating adults and students alike. I am the author of seven books including: Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All; Everything You Need to Know About Nursing Homes; You Can Be A Columnist; Beginners' Guide to Writing & Selling Quality Features; Your Original Personal Ad; and my latest, Ripples of Air: Poems of Healing.
The first four books have been adopted as supplemental texts at universities throughout the U.S., Canada, India, Pakistan, and Catalonia. They are sold in 43 countries, and are displayed in major metropolitan cultural centers. These books have been reviewed, recommended, and praised by hundreds of critics, librarians, and professors worldwide.
I am also the author of a poetry collection: "Shadows of Seasons: Selected Haiku and Senryu by Charlotte Digregorio." Two of my books have been Featured Selections of Writer's Digest Book Club. I am regularly interviewed by major print, radio, and television organizations throughout the U.S. I regularly sign books at libraries, chain bookstores, and university bookstores, and do poetry readings at art centers, cafes, tea houses, and galleries.
I was recently nominated for two Pushcart Prizes in poetry. I have won fifty-nine poetry awards, writing fourteen poetic forms. My poetry has been translated into eight languages. I do illustrated solo poetry exhibits 365 days a year in libraries, galleries, corporate buildings, hospitals, convention centers, and other venues. My individual poems have been displayed at supermarkets, apparel and wine shops, banks, botanic gardens, restaurants, and on public transit.
I have been nominated and listed in "The International Authors and Writers Who's Who" in Cambridge, England and in the "Who's Who In Writers, Editors & Poets U.S./Canada." I hosted my own radio program, "Poetry Beat," on public broadcasting. My poetry has been featured on several library web sites including those of Shreve Memorial Library in Louisiana and Cornell University's Mann Library.
My background includes positions as a feature editor and columnist at daily newspapers and as a magazine editor. I have been a public relations director for a non-profit organization. I am self-employed as a public relations/marketing consultant, having served a total of 118 clients in 23 states for the past several decades .
In other professional areas, I have been on university faculties, teaching French, Italian, and Writing.
I regularly give lectures and workshops on publishing, journalism, publicity, poetry, and creativity to business and professional groups, and at writer's conferences, universities, literary festivals, non-profit organizations, and libraries. I have been a writer-in-residence at universities.
There have been about 400 articles written about me in the media. I have served on the Boards of writers and publishers organizations. My positions have included Board Secretary of the Northwest Association of Book Publishers. I served for five years as Midwest Regional Coordinator of The Haiku Society of America, and for two years as its Second Vice President.
Charlotte Digregorio's Writer's Blog 
Dear Charlotte,
Looking forward to a great week of haiku! Read and Learn!
😉
Thanks, Susan.
Thanks Susan! 🙂
What a treat! Looking forward.
Thank you! 🙂
Reblogged this on Haikutec’s Weblog and commented:
Honoured to be featured for a whole week at Charlotte Digregrio’s highly respected Daily Haiku blog site.
As a grouping of poems they have an underlying theme of journey in all its different aspects.
leafdrop a shrew journeys its path
breaking windows
the childhood gang
of mostly one
dead sparrow
how light the evening
comes to a close
empirical owls . . .
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
river-moss the mallards feeding the day slowly
a drone’s hum
the Hunter’s moon
clears cloud
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
Alan Summers
Thanks, Alan.
leafdrop a shrew journeys its path
Alan Summers
Award Credit: Runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2016
Publication Credit: The Haiku Calendar 2017 (Snapshot Press, 2016)
Anthology Credit: Yanty’s Butterfly: Haiku Nook Anthology ed. Jacob Salzer and Nook Editorial Staff (March 2016)
Do check out this anthology, which gives donations to charity too!
Yanty’s Butterfly: Haiku Nook Anthology , 2016
https://jsalzer.wixsite.com/yantysbutterfly
What one can do with just a few words!
Thanks Charlotte!
There is something about six word pieces, be it haiku, or from a small ad, such as the one Hemingway used.
A great selection – looking forward to reading the rest.
marion
Hi Marion!
Thanks! This week’s haiku are all there if you scroll down.
Plus more here: https://charlottedigregorio.wordpress.com/category/alan-summers/
as well as on my Area 17 blog.
Thanks for liking the selection!
warm regards,
Alan
Yes, great work, Alan. I spent quite a while reading articles on your blog this morning. It’s vert easy to get lost in there – lots of interesting stuff to read! 🙂
marion
Thank you Marion! 🙂
Much appreciated. I certainly have my work cut out as I want to have some aspect of the articles in my forthcoming book.
I’m spending the next five days treating the house as a writing retreat, while Karen is away in Texas.
warmest regards,
Alan
Unique verses from a talented poet. I see your verses have been published in a variety of journals and such, Alan. You’ve inspired me to try submitting some of my verses. 🙂
Hi Christine,
I am delighted that you will take the plunge!
After years of submitting work, I finally see rejections as an opportunity either to fine-tune a poem, or re-submit as it is.
My dead sparrow haiku was rejected several times, despite Nicholas Klacsanzky wanting to publish a commentary on it months before it got accepted first!
It was an extra delight to have it accepted, along with another couple of rejected poems, by the legendary LeRoy Gorman, and in this last stint as editor of Haiku Canada Review.
Editors can be wonderfully helpful if they support you, and I’ve been fortunate to have a few help, and been in a position as an editor, to help others.
Here’s the commentary that Nick waited patiently for several months to post:
warm regards,
Alan
Thanks again for the encouragement. I was just going to try ONCE, but I hear what you’re saying: if my verses get rejected by one editor I’ll try another. Will check out the article.
Yes, Alan, I, too, look at rejections as a way of improving and getting my best work out there.
It’s taken me a few years, but now I see a rejection as an opportunity. It’s a second chance. Also it’s a good way of reducing disappointment if it goes out again, and quickly, thus maintaining the excitement and anticipation of success, or another chance to re-submit.
But always double-check for any errors before doing that. 🙂
Write haiku and publish, Christine!
Alan,
This one deeply resonates with me.
.
empirical owls . . .
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
“Gwdihŵ” Wales Haiku Journal, Issue One, Spring 2018
.
Also, I’m happy to see yet another British Journal enter the market.
Jan Benson
Texas
Thanks for commenting, Jan.
Thank you Jan!
Yes, a lot of new British journals now!
warm regards,
Alan
Returning to my screen after a few days away, great to find this selection of Alan’s work. Yes, from his journeying shrew to his empirical owls, work to savour, study and squirrel-away to enjoy again for their freshness, originality and oneness with nature. A favourite of mine is the one about the poor dead sparrow.
(By the way, Alan, I know Hemingway’s six-worder about the baby shoes too. How closely senryu and micro-stories rub shoulders!)
My very best,
Paul
Thanks Paul,
Yes, I don’t know if I consciously realised there was a kind of journey theme going on. I even found those sheep in a boyhood photo, on my regular Welsh farm visiting my aunt and her family.
There seemed to be proof that Hemingway lifted the story straight off a small ad in a magazine, but whichever is the case, it’s a pack-filled six word story with poignancy.
I’m so glad you have enjoyed the selection and the one about the sparrow. That was our first fatality after moving into a new home, which housed sparrows. Third year running and we haven’t seen any other casualties. Karen did spot one youngster who hit the ground, but the parents were around, and he eventually airlifted himself.
Alan
re:
breaking windows
the childhood gang
of mostly one
Alan Summers
Haiku Windows, The Haiku Foundation, February 2018
I do remember going through a phase of this kind of thing when I was 7 or 8 years old. And that I struggled to be interested in being affiliated to any one gang except my own.
This comes from the great Haiku Foundation themed feature of all sorts of windows each week. There’ll be another set of themed haiku tomorrow, and announcing the following week’s window theme. Do join in!
Haiku Windows
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/tag/haiku-windows/
Reblogged this on Frank J. Tassone and commented:
#Haiku Happenings #2: Charlotte Digregorio’s Daily Haiku features Alan Summers all this week!
Thank you Frank!
Deeply appreciated.
warm regards,
Alan
dead sparrow
how light the evening
comes to a close
Alan Summers
Haiku Canada Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2017
This was LeRoy Gorman’s last issue as its editor, so i am very proud he choose a few of my haiku including this one.
For an interesting commentary see:
Oddly, this haiku struggled to find a home, and Nick’s support, as he wanted to post the commentary very early on, spurred me to submit this haiku to one more place.
Thank you Nick, thank you LeRoy!
empirical owls . . .
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
Alan Summers
Gwdihŵ (haiku sequence)
Wales Haiku Journal issue one Spring 2018
Note: Gwdihŵ means: Owl
How you say it: Good-ee-hoo
I have always been fascinated in the two empires, that of day, and that of night. As a boy, spending Summer on my aunt’s farm in St Bridges Major near Bridgend, Glamorgan, Wales, mucking out, or getting ready to enter night sleep, we can’t help but briefly touch those empires that don’t belong to us.
Owls are a very strong symbol of the night’s empire, they are the Truth, and lo and behold anything caught unawares. At my time, in later years, in Bradford on Avon (England) when Karen would be away, I’d be up deep into the early hours. It’s the sounds between the owl hoots we have to be wary of. Not everything escapes the empire of owls that control this time.
Another strong sight and smell of being near farms and vast rough fields in Wales, is the sheep. If you scroll down this article, you’ll find a few sheep of my childhood, gathering bones now in a different way:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2018/04/haiku-art-of-implication-over.html
warm regards,
Alan
Living in the South West of England it’s always about the river, the River Avon, in fact.
I’ve been fortunate enough to live in two small towns that are dominated by the river: Bradford on Avon, and now Chippenham.
I am only minutes away from one part of the river or another, and ducks in particular.
So this poem is partly written by those ducks:
river-moss the mallards feeding the day slowly
Alan Summers
Wales Haiku Journal, Issue One, March 2018
It’s as if the ducks are feeding the day, keeping the daylight going, and slowing down time. I’ve written a lot about ducks from Bristol to Brisbane to Bradford on Avon and Chippenham.
This was my first Chippenham haiku on ducks, a challenge set by Zee Zahava to only write about something seen on a particular day:
those who stop —
ducks taking colour
from the river
Alan Summers
brass bell: a haiku journal curated by Zee Zahava (January 2017)
For those who can, I hope you will be able to stop for ducks, and let them slow the day down for you: http://area17.blogspot.com/2017/06/stopping-for-ducks-and-week-of-haiku-by.html
warm regards,
Alan
a drone’s hum
the Hunter’s moon
clears cloud
Alan Summers
otata, #11, November 2016
This partly came about due to the advance of drones as military devices, and that Barack Obama said still haunts him, that he authorised their use.
More and more drones are also used in peacetime, to add intriguing angles to still photography, and also add shots for a documentary not necessarily possible by other means.
The Hunter’s moon is both a seasonal reference, but also how the moon, when full, or even when it’s not, is made use of for war. But it’s also a neutral comment on the power of the moon, its moonlight, and pull of the oceans.
warm regards,
Alan
Congratulations Alan, I love your poems, expecially this one:
breaking windows
the childhood gang
of mostly one
*
Best regards,
Eufemia
Thank you! 🙂
Thank you, Alan, for a wonderful week’s-worth of haiku.
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
Alan Summers
Originally published as a standalone haiku at:
Bones – journal for contemporary haiku no. 14 (November 15th 2017)
Published again as part of a sequence:
Gwdihŵ
late deadline…
keeping owl hours
with the mice
an owl’s empire
the flecks of light
in snow
unnamed night
the aviator’s goggles
shaking feathers
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
five owls
the time it takes
to snow, slow
empirical owls…
the sheep gather quietly
into their own bones
Note: Gwdihŵ means: Owl
How you say it: Good-ee-hoo
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/34-welsh-words-phrases-just-9545321
haiku details:
five owls (after Wales’ five owls): unpublished
empirical owls: unpublished
Published:
late deadline: haijinx volume IV, issue 1 (2011)
an owl’s empire: Presence issue #59 (November 2017)
unnamed night (after “Untitled (Dark Owl)”2013 by Peter Doig): Ekphrasis: The British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology 2017 ed. Iliyana Stoyanova ISBN-13: 978-1906333089
night train: Bones – journal for contemporary haiku no. 14 November 15th 20
Wales Haiku Journal – Gwdihŵ haiku sequence Spring 2018
So how did I come to write this slightly unusual haiku?
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
Night trains have their own rhythm where we are sleeping over on a train, and owls are a potent symbol of the night. I’m also inspired by art that depicted a surreal piece about a woman who is an owl. It’s purely imagistic, and para-ekphrastic as well.
When poets are in their writing zone, unusual images and symbolism occurs. We can’t always explain as it’s unconscious writing, a little like automatic writing.
warm regards,
Alan
Hi Alan,
Just want to say how much I enjoyed your recent week on Charlotte’s Daily Haiku. Brilliant work, and fascinating to read the back-story to each poem with autobiographical snippets along the way. Great to think of you as a lad, mucking out on your aunt’s farm in Wales!
My very best,
Paul
Thanks Paul!
I was inspired to write more, so I created a new post on Area 17. You can also see me as a youngster, with sheep; a box of old photos I came across while doing the house clearance for probate.
The blog post is called:
When haiku get complicated – an attempt to explain along with W H Auden’s Night Train and the Royal Mail, and an owl, of course
http://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/when-haiku-get-complicated-attempt-to.html
I hope you get spellbound! 😉
warm regards,
Alan
Thanks for commenting, Paul.
Coming back to your blog after quite a long break, Charlotte, what a delightful treat to find Alan’s week of terrific haiku!!
I’ve long admired his work and his caring for those struggling to understand haiku, but more so, those like me, who just couldn’t seem to write one. He has been very encouraging through my difficult years. Thanks again, Alan!
And more thanks for this wonderful ‘journey’… I love all but especially the owls and the sheep. Most of all, thank you for the new learning in the background you wrote for some, and your insights like the last paragraph on the ‘owl’, which speaks to me strongly. May I keep it?
“When poets are in their writing zone, unusual images and symbolism occurs. We can’t always explain as it’s unconscious writing, a little like automatic writing.”
Warm regards,
Alegria
Thanks for commenting, Alegria. Keep writing!
Thanks Alegria! 🙂
You are very kind.
I’m so glad my thoughts behind each haiku have been appreciated, and of interest.
This one is certainly unusual, perhaps, but it’s inspired by both art (paintings); and also deeply influenced by both NIGHT MAIL by W.H. Auden and this documentary:
“Night Mail is a 1936 English documentary film directed and produced by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and produced by the General Post Office (GPO) film unit. The 24-minute film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) from London to Glasgow and the staff who operate it. Narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg, the film ends with a “verse commentary” written by W. H. Auden to score by composer Benjamin Britten. The locomotive featured in the film is Royal Scot Class No. 6115 Scots Guardsman.”
“Night Mail premiered on 4 February 1936 at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in Cambridge, England in a launch programme for the venue. Its general release gained critical praise and became a classic of its own kind, much imitated by adverts and modern film shorts. Night Mail is widely considered a masterpiece of the British Documentary Film Movement.”
Night Mail Wikipedia
And I just discovered this wonderful band of musicians called Public Service Broadcasting and their various music films including this one:
PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING – NIGHT MAIL
The following music video with archive footage is also awesome, it’s called:
Public Service Broadcasting/Inform – Educate – Entertain
Both show the excitement and industry of the people who work through the “owl hours” to make sure society gets their mail, coffees in the morning for the early shift workers, construction workers, and later, on the office and various retail workers.
night train
a window screams
out of an owl
Alan Summers
I actually had to deconstruct where I got my inspiration from, but it my poetic interpretation, as I was one of those “owl workers” from time to time. One of those “invisible workers” helping to make the world tick along as it starts to stir.
“When poets are in their writing zone, unusual images and symbolism occurs. We can’t always explain as it’s unconscious writing, a little like automatic writing.”
Thank you so much Alegria, for letting me have the opportunity to further work out how or why I wrote the poem, a shorthand homage. And if my quote helps in any way, I am deeply moved, please do keep it.
warmest regards,
Alan
Inspired by everyone’s comments I created a post that features the night train, and how I might have got to write it that way, plus those sheep in the other owl haiku:
When haiku get complicated – an attempt to explain
along with W H Auden’s Night Train:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2018/06/when-haiku-get-complicated-attempt-to.html
warm regards,
Alan
Thank you, Alan.