Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

COCONUTS AS BIG AS YER 'EAD Frustration! David Cobb reports that the Arts Council turned down the bid for a grant intended to raise the standard of Blithe Spirit even higher and increase the readership, on the grounds that we have not yet raised the standard or increased the readership. So it goes.

Maurice Tasnier was almost alone in disputing my contention in BS 11/1 that Reviews Don't Sell Books (felt quite smug that The Observer Review section recently carried a large headline saying exactly that!) Maurice points out that reviews serve the function of enabling the poet to take account of varying opinions; that we all benefit from considering judgments passed on the work of our contemporaries; that we are able to gain a fuller picture of the current haiku scene in general; that reviews are useful to the 'newcomer'. Maurice is determined to counter my point of view: 'Where else would you hope and expect to find the most comprehensive range of haiku and haiku-related reviews (honest and high quality, of course) other than in the Journal of The British Haiku Society? - Sustained applause and cries of "Hear! Hear!"....)' The writer of The Observer article argued roughly that reviews are works of art in themselves contributing to a continuing dialogue about literature.

Ken Jones' Review on page 59 reiterates his position on the writing of haibun and takes the debate further. It is worth repeating that In BS 10/3 Ken suggested four 'propositions' about the creation of haibun: haibun should (1) have something to say-be something more than just a simple account of a perambulation, for example; (2) glow and vibrate with imagery in its prose; (3) be a 'literary creation', perhaps for its richness soaring up and down what Haruo Shirane calls the 'vertical axis' of myth, literature and history (as opposed to the horizontal axis of time passing); (4) exploit ambiguity, openness and lightness of touch. Dick Pettit, in Presence 14, appears to be arguing for a much more open approach to haibun, the non-existence of 'haiku-prose' ('clipped concision'?) and the need to avoid self censorship of topics; for Dick, it appears, anything seems to go. I wonder where this leaves the editor who presumably has to make judgments

Members might like to comment on Frank Williams' suggestion of an alternative to Kate Hall's admittedly anthropomorphic haiku in BS11/1 page 24:-

Atlantic dawn-
smiling broadly as the sun
cracks the horizon