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Yellow Moon is a competition based magazine. The magazine publishes the winning and commended entries from ten or so contests, mostly based on particular forms of writing. Only the haiku contest is open to writers from outside Australia [or possibly Australasia, as I noticed a few writers from New Zealand in the other sections] and competition entries must be accompanied by the entry form you can obtain by buying a copy of the previous issue, sending an sase or, from outside Australia, an sae + IRC.

The first section is for haibun. It is good to see the form being promoted. There are two equal-first pieces — Dorothy Thompson Carine's WHERE THE FLAME STILL LINGERS and an untitled haibun by Caitlin Louise Thomas. The first is very true to the form, with an excellent balance between the prose and the haiku. The judge comments on Thomas' haibun that it was

chosen for its original and creatively expressed images

Janice Bostok judged the haiku contest and has sensible things to say in her report. Among my own favourites were John Bird's highly commended:

	dawn shadows
	a crow rides the windmill
	back to the trough

	alone in the garden
	smelling my neighbour's
	dinner

Pat Kelsall, judge of the tanka contest, points out in her general comments that tanka aren't just extended haiku. I was surprised, therefore, that all the entries are printed with a break between the third and fourth lines, as though they were two links in a renga, rather than complete poems.

An article by Janice Bostok, LINKED VERSE (RENGA) is a good introduction to the genre. Readers are invited to write and submit renga for the next contest. It is suggested that members of writing groups would be at a great advantage when it comes to writing renga.

Sandy Sansom contributes an article on the basics of writing limericks. Some of the limerick-writers in the contest judged by Anne Howard need to take note, but most of them are good fun and quite witty.

Other contests feature Nature poetry, Sonnets, Cinquains of a particular strict format which makes many entries seem more like intellectual word-games, than incisive pieces of poetry, Idylls, Epigrams & Clerihews and Tetractys, the form created by Ray Stebbing.

The final section is Humorous Poetry which has some excellent and amusing pieces. Beth Stanger really deserves first place with her parody of Rudyard Kipling's IF. It begins

	If you can walk, untempted, past the windows
	  Where luscious cakes and pastries are displayed,
	Or breakfast on a glass of barley water,
	  Instead of buttered toast and marmalade,

For me, Yellow Moon turned a dreary train journey into a pleasant reading experience. Australian writers are well served by it.

The poetic contents of YELLOW MOON consists entirely of competition winners, runners-up and highly commends — mostly of Japanese forms such as haiku, tanka, haibun and renga; but also cinquain, limerick, tetractys and ode. Prose is provided in the form of the judges' reports on the competitions they have presided over and articles about tanka and poetic form.

The general standard is high — they are winners and runners-up, after all — but they do suffer from "competition poem" syndrome: there was little to stir me either positively or negatively. As a reader, I did not feel challenged because good as the poems were the tendency was to play safe and write for the competition rather than for the poem itself. Only in the humorous section did I feel that the poets were forgetting that they were writing for a competition and simply enjoying themselves just writing. I particularly liked Dermot Morgan's THE CLOCKWORK COMPUTER:

	It doesn't have circuits or cables
	And it doesn't need silicon chips.
	Just cog-wheels and things and a few metal springs
	That I made out of bicycle clips.

Titles are important — succinct ones are preferred. Thank goodness nobody who entered the Odes — or any other category came up with one as long as Keats' ODE ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES.

If you like writing in strict form and fancy trying your hand at competition — read the rules first — then this could well be the place to start.

Yellow Moon is a literary magazine for poetry written in traditional forms. Poems are drawn from poetry competitions and guidelines for entry may be obtained from their website.

When I received this issue of the magazine I turned first to the tanka section as that is a form I've become interested in writing myself. The first place went to the accomplished USA poet, Pamela A. Babusci. Her prize-winning tanka being:

	fastening
	an antique barrette
	into my newly washed hair
	i miss his hands that used
	to centre it perfectly

This tanka is very well crafted. For example, in the use of contrast: an antique barrette and newly washed hair.

The verses linked, dovetailing in most cases back and forth, forming tanka verses.

 
	knitter's work-worn hands
	spotted with age
	still creating
 
	shearer slowly stretches —
	fingers in small of aching back

The haiku section was judged by poet, Jacqui Murray, who also edits the Australian haiku magazine paper wasp. Ron Moss (TAS) was the deserved winner with his poem:

	fallen snow
	bringing the headstones
	. . . together

Ken Tolhurst was the judge of "COUNTRY TOWNS". His report describes what it is he is looking for in these rhythmical pieces:

The selection of features characteristic or symbolic of country towns and their lively, fresh presentation were important criteria in judging this competition.

 
	A primary school, a Shire hall
	Post Office, — local store,
	An old grey bank — nineteen twelve
	Engraved above the door.

It's almost like writing your first novel, only it doesn't take as long, well, not usually.

Aldridge also judged the sonnet and gave equal first place to three poems: "BRISBANE AT NIGHTFALL", Kathleen Earsman (QLD), "EBB TIDE", Ian Thomas (NSW) and "LULLABY TO AN UNBORN CHILD", Amanda Nairn (NSW). My favourite was the highly commended "AFTERMATH" by Bernard Holibar (NZ). Perhaps I'm being parochial, but for me, this poem contains the spirit of the sonnet form: a poem of fourteen lines, rhymed, written in iambic pentameter; a song usurped by ideas. The poem includes a description of a memorable scene and concludes with a fine coda:

	Tis Nature's wont to use this senseless ploy —
	To build a perfect scene and then destroy.

The cinquain section (judged by Ken Tolhurst) comprises poems that are written in a five-line stanza. Various rhyme schemes are possible and the power of this terse form lies in its ability to "make poetry from commonplace things."

The idyll was judged by Ruth Strachan, who also provides an article in this issue on writing an idyll. The idyll is a short poem depicting rural life or a country scene, slightly artificial in tone, but providing a challenge for writers. There were two equal second prize winners in this issue, with no first place awarded.

The limerick, a light verse form, often bawdy, consists of a five-line stanza rhymed aabba. It is important in a poem of this type that the metre is correct and some of these entries (according to the judge, Dr Anne Howard)

were often let down by the metre in the last line not being quite correct.

	At the weekend we went to the zoo
	Where we saw an orangutan who
	With insouciant air
	And remarkable flair
	Did some things we'd been taught were taboo.

	The robber
	slobbers
	His DNA
	puts him away

. . . it is for you, the poets who experiment with the forms, to find the best way of writing this deceptively simple poem.

The language of poetry is rich and complex — from abstract language to voice, with all the enjambment and sprung rhythm in between. Yellow Moon, with its poems, articles and judge's reports illuminates, illustrates and unravels it all with clear, working examples. This is a bumper issue with plenty to interest and intrigue readers and writers and perhaps send them on the road towards writing in a form they've not tried before.