NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

The 28 pages in this Newsletter contains regional reports from several districts of Canada including British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, indicating the widespread and increasing popularity of haiku in the country.

Several haibun are published, these are mostly quite short, ending with a single haiku, a structure which perhaps suits this difficult genre better than more lengthy and wordy pieces.

An unusual 3 page commentary is also included entitled HAIKU AND THE ART OF THE HANDMADE BOOK by Claire Dufresne. This discusses the differences between the Handmade Book and the Artist's Book and describes the author's own Artist's Book SPINNING WHEEL, prepared in collaboration with Angela Leuck and Terry Ann Carter. The book was inspired by the Tibetan Wheel of Prayers and takes the form of a scroll 6 metres in length.

There are also a couple of CONTEST pages listing various haiku awards, a letters page and a BOOK BOX listing some 30 publications from many parts of the world.

There are about 60 haiku published in this issue, many of a quality that makes me wish there were more. These are generally in the modern free style, with few in what I'd term traditional 5.7.5. However the first haiku I was drawn to, in memory of Robin Lovell, had, in fact, this traditional structure: It is gentle, evocative and reflective:

	leaves from my silent
	neighbour's tree fall quietly
	on both our gardens

	from its pram
	a baby watches
	shifting sunlight

	Patricia Prime

		The candle flickering
		however I sit
		I flicker, too	

		Martin Lucas

	quiet afternoon
	only the silent growth
	of clouds

	Grant Savage

	Gently he removes
	the night from her black hair
	antique silver brush

A neat little 24 page, A5 booklet. It is well-edited, has a friendly tone and is a pleasure to read. There is a short editorial and at the back, there is a REGIONAL REPORTS section. Other informative sections deal with letters, books, contests, and membership.

Haiku is a versatile form, and even in such a small booklet, there is a very pleasing mixture. This versatility provides one of the many pleasures of reading it.

There is an interesting untitled haibun by Barbara Bloom. In this, Bloom has used an economy of wording in the prose, which gives it great power:

This trip, the colors of the high desert surprise me. Fall rains have made the wild grasses thick, creating shades of pale green and flashes of subtle yellow that have never existed before. Tiny specks of orange and pink flash among the green. I imagine mixing the colors on a pallet, applying them on paper, first trying watercolor. Is that too delicate?

	as
		soul love
		the rasta man
		and his drum			

	as
		first-time father too,
		has a new face			

	ib
		quietly
		the long-distance train
		starts to move

	autumn's end —
	the worn edge
	of her wedding ring

This one by Tim Jamieson has a lovely light (fresh) tone and a worthy immediacy:

	fresh snow
	fresher
	ski track

This is a well presented small magazine; to call it a mere newsletter is, perhaps, to do it something of a disservice. Yes, it does contain a fund of information for the haikuist but it also features at least six pages of haiku — and not only by Canadian writers. This issue has an appreciation of the late Giovanni Malito and a whole page dedicated to his beautiful poems:

	my weariness
	falling from the corners
	of her smile

	such a cold night —
	the moon is turning gray
	around my feet

	November —
	the eyes of the pumpkin
	sag closer

	deep blue sky
	faster than my mind
	winter clouds

I've been in charge-a road signs. They're very important, ya know. Why, when t'here wanna slow the traffic on down, we don't fool around wit th'state of th'county...

	a sparrow flies off
	from the rock
	resting by the sea

Entertaining and informative, this is a magazine that serves the haikuist well.

Another generous offering from the former Haiku Society of Canada. The news and reviews alone should keep you busy for months, leading the way towards an astonishing number of books, journals, websites and competitions.

Good poetry too. The NEWSLETTER seems to specialise in a particular brand of concise, punchy haibun, and there are some fine examples here. Angela Leuck's WINTER MORNING, for instance, complements Marje A. Dyck's summertime MEADOW; both evoke a stillness, a moment out of time in different seasons, wrapped, as Ms Leuck puts it, "in a cocoon with no need to move, go anywhere". Several pages of members' haiku and a splendid FISH SHAPED RENGA complete the generally gratifying poetic picture.

Haiku gives us the chance to be enriched by the ordinary things around us.