NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

A remarkable publication. Organ of the Croatian Haiku Society the entire contents are translated to or from Croatian to English (or sometimes French).

"For some, haiku is a kind of poetry, to be treated as an artistic creation, mouldable; for others, it has become an aspect of Zen practice, to be treated in a manner consonant with other types of meditation"

There are other articles, over 100pp of haiku from Croatia, 10pp of Bashô, 4pp of Shiki and 70pp of haiku from writers all over the world. Illustrations and photos add to the overall quality of the production.

Truly THE foremost international haiku publication around today.

This annual publication of the Croatian Haiku Association is some 260 pages crammed with haiku and articles.

A photograph album includes photos of Werner & Jane Reichhold, James W Hackett, Yagi Kametaro and Yogi Nandan Vaish.

The editorial and the included articles all stress the association of haiku with Zen.

Haibun, tanka and renga are also found including a renga between myself and Neca Stoller printed (like all the work here) both in English and Croatian.

One interesting article HAIJIN AND ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS by Yagi Kametaro concerns the use of terms such as haikuist and haiku poet. Such terms he argues are problematic in Japan where haiku is not considered to be a form of poetry.

The magazine lists what it considers the best haiku books in the world published 1993-1998:

1. Koko Kato & David Burleigh: A Hidden Pond
2. William J Higginson: Haiku World
3. Toshiharu Oseko: Basho's Haiku
4. James Kirkup: A Certain State of Mind
5. Leza Lowitz, Miyuki Aoyama & Akemi Tomioka: A Long Rainy Season
6. Ion Codrescu: Round the Pond

It seems that in Croatia today, haiku is not just a literary activity, but a way of life. Long may it so continue.

Haiku, and related forms appear to be very popular in the former Yugoslavia, and SPARROW is the journal of the Croatian Haiku Association, of which Cekolj is also both the founder and president.

Issues of SPARROW take a long time to come out because they are big, and always at least bilingual. Everything written in Croatian is translated into English, everything written in English is translated into Croatian, and then anything written in some other source language is normally translated into both Croatian and English. And everything is translated — that is, SPARROW is teeming with poetry (haiku, tanka, renga) but also contains original essays, letters, book reviews, and news from around the "haiku" world. There are sketches and photographs dispersed throughout, and overall, this is one journal well worth the wait and the price.

Much of the content, as to be expected, originates from within Croatia, including haiku from school students and healthy excerpts from recently published books.

The international section is truly international with contributions from the extremely well-known to the lesser so. Each writer (in any poetry section) is well- represented with at least three haiku, and the poetry pages average about nine haiku or eight tanka per page. To select samples for presentation here would be too difficult, not to mention unfair. But, it can be said that all haiku and tanka have been written in three and five lines respectively. There are no "experiments" in form, and content-wise, poems are not separated into haiku and senryu.

In spite of some weak translations into English, the overall quality for all the work contained herein is of, at least, middle to high standard.

Vabrac Sparrow is an international haiku magazine edited by Marijan Cekolj. Ever since I discovered this magazine I have been a dedicated reader and contributor. There is something about this unassuming poetry magazine that I find thoroughly enjoyable. Maybe it is because it is unpretentious and unassuming. It is packed tight with the results of haiku contests, schoolchildren's haiku, haiku, tanka, haibun, waka, essays on related poetry issues, photographs, and art work. Much of the work is be well-known Croatian and Yugoslavian poets. But this is the kind of magazine that will introduce you to poets you might previously have not read and will turn them into friends, and many names among the international poets will be familiar.

In his editorial, Marijan Cekolj has this to say about the value of haiku in our war-torn age,

Once there are more haiku poets in different countries — the better for the world. Then there would be no wars because the heart full of love for haiku poetry does not know war.

This issue contains haibun by Broban, Cekolj, Cevanic, Skotak, Vucetic and more: musings that precede and give rise to the haiku, which in turn encapsulates the thoughts. The waka record impressions from various authors in a variety of tones and skills. A number of essays by Cekolj cover topics such as "MEDITATIONS OF LOVE" and "MATCHLESS GIFT OF KRISHNA".

The haiku range in theme and type: from the spare, imagist poems of Bruce Ross (USA),

	Sunday . . . 
	pieces of broken glass shine
	on the sidewalk

	sickroom —
	on the warm window
	an autumn fly

	I pick the flower from the garden,
	put it in the vase,
	vase is in the house,
	house is in the garden
	and flower is in the garden again.

	winter coming on —
	a man hitchhiking south
	in his wheelchair

an almost ascetic habit of putting down everything that others see only when the haiku poet has forever frozen it with his pen.

The art works in Vrabac Sparrow are brilliantly positioned: photographs appropriately express the essence of the poems alongside which they are placed; there are illustrations for books, calligraphy and photographs of panels of haiku judges.

If you haven't read Vrabac Sparrow, you must get hold of this issue, and discover its readability. It is more approachable, more involved in the day-to-day, involves the reader in a wide discussion of topics and presents to the reader's palate a taste of a variety of innovative writing. If my experience with this issue is anything to go by, reading Vrabac Sparrow will continue to be both a pleasure and a challenge.