 Presence 12 Grovehall Avenue, Leeds, LS11 7EX, UK ISSN 1366-5367 £3.50 ($7) Subscriptions: 3 issues £9 ($18) [airmail ex-Europe £10 ($20)] sterling cheques payable to "Haiku Presence" dollar subs in US bills. email Haiku Presence visit Haiku Presence Website read reviews of later issues Before commenting on this review please read the FAQ page Home page Notes for publishers Want to be a reviewer? Anthologies. Books. Audio. Magazines. Software. Video. Artefacts. Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 3rd June 2004. |
Presence #9 | |
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This is a magazine devoted to forms such as haiku, tanka and renga. As well as publishing poems in these forms it also welcomes articles about them. There is much to enjoy in this issue. I especially liked BENEATH THE HEDGEROW by Ferris Gill and Matt Morden. This is a spring nijun renku — a form new to me — in which each stanza refers to a different bird species: the great tit perches on a plastic dinosaur — a silent roarAlso very good were the haibun, which mix prose and poetry. I enjoyed Ken Jones' THE BATTLE OF PILLETH best: Above the death pits of Celtic warriors grove of cedarsSuper artwork which complements the words perfectly adds an extra dimension to this well-produced little magazine. | ||
| reviewer: John Francis Haines. | ||
| Presence #12 | ||
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A well-laid out magazine in which work has room to breathe. The first two pages contain eight tanka, all of which are in the modern style with fewer English syllables than the traditonal Japanese count. After a page of haiku, including a one-liner by Helen Robinson, there is news of two competitions and the best-of-issue awards for #11 There are five haibun in this issue, some conventionally-written like Ken Jones' account of a Hebridean journey or Fred Schofield's, set in the modern context of Elland Road, the home of Leeds United; whilst Frank Dallaghan's verges on the avant-garde. 15 pages, out of 48, are taken up with quite thorough reviews of a number of haiku books and anthologies. There's also a couple of essays, a few letters and a surrenga. With many delightful haiku included on all the other pages, this magazine is excellent value. | ||
| reviewer: Martin Grampound. | ||
| Presence #13 | ||
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As always PRESENCE is good value for the money, especially for anyone interested in haiku, tanka, haibun, and related forms. They all appear here, with no wasted space. There are a lot of contributors, from all over, with different styles, and different things to say, from the more mundane to the quite profound. Even the former, however, are always well-written. This is also the Haiku Presence Award 2000 issue, won this year by American writer Joann Klontz: death day of my son one thin cow apart from the herdSix other highly placed haiku are also printed here. The adjudicator was Brian Tasker, a man hard to please. In fact, my favourite item in this issue is Tasker's longish review of THE ACORN BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY HAIKU, edited by Lucien Stryk and Kevin Bailey. Tasker is to the point: Although Lucien Stryk is credited as an editor of this anthology, I wonder how much input he actually had. Much of the content has previously appeared in the pages of HQ, magazine ...which is edited by Bailey; HQ's greatest hits.The award winners are followed by more winners — the best-of-issue awards, both the editor's choice (two this time) and ballotted readers' choices. For the first time, the overall readers' choice winner was a tanka which has delighted editor Lucas. All this is then followed by individual poems, articles, announcements, reviews, the ubiquitous "A FAVOURITE HAIKU" by H.F. Noyes, and a short editorial which informs that Fred Schofield will be co-editor for #14. There is nothing in here which I personally did not like except perhaps, the longer haibun, those of the travel piece variety which I will forever find boring. Still, they are written well. | ||
| reviewer: Giovanni Malito. |