welcome to #71 of hedgerow. thanks everyone for making this a beautiful place. the art in this issue was brought to you by Anita Virgil (please find her bio at the end of this issue). enjoy!

with love & kindness,

caroline skanne
founding editor

 

 

 

 

 

 

a heated debate
each calls the other
the other

Ian Willey is a sociolinguist and English teacher from Ohio now living in rural Japan with his wife and three children. He believes that senryu have great potential not only as an art form but also for political and cultural satire, and hopes to see their popularity spread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

haiku:   anita virgil
photo:  chad gurchinoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my train of thought
interrupted by the news –
two ideologies
coming down the track
in opposite directions

.

seeking shelter
in a cold, bare room
he curls up
on the wooden floor –
blue moon in the window

.

he wants to know
what’s on my bucket list –
suddenly
this desire to eat an apple
from the inside out

Susan Constable lives on the west coast of Canada, where she’s been writing mainly haiku and tanka for the past ten years. She is currently the tanka editor for the online journal, A Hundred Gourds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

haiku & art: anita virgil
haiku first published in roadrunner  issue V3

 

 

 

 

 

 

her tiger lilies
blooming
in the back garden …
she shifts a card
in her game of solitaire

Anne Curran is a Japanese verse forms poet who lives in Hamilton with her cat Misty. She loves to write and to be happy doing creative things. She has lived many lives but thinks that to be a small time poet is her most magical pastime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

haiku: anita virgil
photo: jennifer v. gurchinoff

haiku first published in world haiku review;
reprinted as a haiga for haigaonline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rumours of War

Down the back of my throat trickle sorrows.
They are not mine: martyr-dust –
pollen in the arms of the wind.

In sleep I burn on sun like a golden plate;
men have dead-branch arms; minds burst
showering red confetti.

Anchor-like, axe blade reflects the waves;
orange beacons and grey waves,
– the blood of the sea.

Ruth Asch is a poet by night, mother of four and sometimes teacher by day. She published a book of poems Reflections in 2009 (St Austin Press, available at amazon). She loves to translate foreign language poems into real poetry in English and hopes to bring out another book of her own in the not-too-distant future. Originally from London (UK) she is now living and working in Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tanka first appeared in MET v2n1, 2007.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tobacco stained
and scarred —
why would you let
these calloused hands
caress you

.

as if I wasn’t
here at all
the cold
spring wind
cuts through me

.

moaning the blues —
in time
each blossom must fall

Paul Smith is a poet from Worcester in the UK. Alongside poetry Paul enjoys Japanese style ink painting, building cigar box guitars and playing old time blues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ekphrastic poem: anita virgil
photo: chad gurchinoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the art in this issue was brought to you by Anita Virgil —

Anita Virgil, USA, was introduced to haiku by William J. Higginson in 1969 and was a member of the original three-person Committee on Definitions for H.S.A. with Harold G. Henderson. President H.S.A.1973. Several collections have been published since 1974. Two new ones appeared in October 2015 and the latest, in February 2016. Essays, haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun, haiga, many podcasts for Haiku Chronicles and interviews of her are online.