Alan Summers

Posted byJacob S.Posted inHaiku Poet InterviewsTags:, , , , , ,

Personal Website/Blog(s):

Alan Summers (St Ives Cornwall)

Professional website: https://www.callofthepage.org

Country of Residence: England UK

Current Occupation: Co-founder (with Karen Hoy) and full-time Lead Tutor for Call of the Page

Past Occupations: Too many to mention, but all have become incredibly useful as a culmination of skillsets to feed into haiku!

Haiku-Related Volunteer Positions/Affiliations:  

Currently:

Previously:

Interests/Hobbies: Poetry/photography. Very little time left for other things, except for occasional walks.

Book Projects:

Working on a big print book project at present, as well as two collections.

Previous print collections:

  • Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012) 
  • Sundog Haiku Journal: An Australian Year (Sunfast Press 1997)
  • The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)
  • Moonlighting (British Haiku Society Intimations Pamphlet Series, 1996)

eBook Publications

  • Glint (Proletaria: politics philosophy phenomena, ed. Elancharan Gunasekaran (2020)
  • Forbidden Syllables (Bones Library, 2020)

Editor of books/anthologies:

Co-Editor of a number of haiku-based anthologies, and art gallery catalogues including:

Editor of journals:

current:

historic:

Collaboration:  

The Comfort of Crows (note: published to read free of charge online) (A collaborative/joint haiku collection with Hifsa Ashraf) (Velvet Dusk Publishing, 2019)

Anthology appearances

I lost count over ten years ago, possibly 500 anthology appearances, maybe more. Some of the many ones I am proud to be in are below:

Last Train Home, an anthology of haiku, tanka and rengay (ed. Jacquie Pearce) (Pondhawk Press, 2021)

Half A Rainbow: Haiku Nook: An Anthology (ed. Jacob Salzer & The Nook Editorial Staff (2020) Dedicated to Rachel Sutcliffe (1977-2019) & Haiku Nook G+ (Lulu, 2020)

Yanty’s Butterfly Haiku Nook: An Anthology (ed. Jacob Salzer & The Nook Editorial Staff) Dedicated to Yanty Tjiam (1981–2015) (Lulu, 2016)

behind the mask: haiku in the time of Covid-19 (Singing Moon Press Pandemic Anthology) (ed. Margaret Dornaus) (Singing Moon Press, 2020)

Corona Social Distancing: Poets for Humanity (International 1st Edition) (ed. hülya n. yılmaz, Ph.D.) (inner child press, May 2020)

Poetry in the Plague Year (Poems written during the Coronavirus Outbreak) (Poetrykit, 2020)

Amaravati Poetic Prism 2019 – International Multilingual Poetry Anthology (ed. Padmaja Iyengar) (Cultural Centre of Vijayawada & Amaravati (CCVA), Vijayawada, 2019)

Nick Virgilio Writers House Poetry: Volume 1: haiku, senryu, and tanka (ed. Henry Brann) (upright remington press, 2019)

where silence becomes song: BHS Conference Anthology (ed. Iliyana Stoyanova & David Bingham) (British Haiku Society, 2019)

All the Way Home: Aging in Haiku (ed. Robert Epstein) (Middle Island Press, 2019)

The Wonder Code (ed. Scott Mason) (Girasole Press, 2017)

Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (ed. Jim Kacian, Allan Burns & Philip Rowland  Introduction Billy Collins (W. W. Norton, 2013)

Haiku 2014; Haiku 2015; and Haiku 2016 (ed. Scott Metz & Lee Gurga (Modern Haiku Press, 2014, 2015, 2016)

Journal Publications:

Several journals, too many to mention over nearly 30 years.

Video Publications:

Alan’s Haiku Journey: Alan Summers of the United Kingdom is featured in this exploration of haiku outside Japan by NHK (National Japanese Television) (2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VS36AGVI6s

Amazement of the ordinary- life through a haiku lens: Alan Summers at TEDxBradfordonAvon (TED Talk) (2012)

https://youtu.be/LxLTiR7AKDE

Selected Awards:

When & how were you introduced to haiku & Japanese-related poetry?

Queensland, Australia, and a combination of both the Queensland State Library, and the Metro Arts Centre!

What do you enjoy the most about haiku?

How it makes my brain spin as if I’m doing a gym workout! And supporting other poets, and those who are just starting off as poets regardless of age or other aspects.

What do you enjoy the most about tanka?

How two storylines/timelines can converge in such a short poem!

What do you enjoy the most about haibun?

Exploration of prose and how it bounces off and around haiku, and how two universes combine and pop a little from time to time.

Who are your top 5 favorite poets?

Impossible to say really, as it’s poems rather than poets.

What haiku/writing projects are you currently working on?

The Babylon Sidedoor project, and my big print book!

Please share 3 of your recent haiku and/or tanka (with publication credits if they are in a book, journal or anthology):

slivered moon
the affinity of rain
across birdsong
you decide dna ends
at your nail varnish

Alan Summers
Publication credit: Blithe Spirit vol 30 no. 4 (November 2020) ed. Caroline Skanne

***


thunder
I slide a kigo
into the gun

Publication credit: tinywords 20.2 (November 2020)

***

Cowboy
 
I was born three centuries ago. At least it feels like that, going through my parents’ photographs, from when they were children, and then right through to military service in the global conflict of World War II, and later as struggling parents.
 
wild west and nazis
the shrapnel, sand & smoke
tripping over our scars
 
As a child there were mainly two options for us to play. I even remember buying a landmine as a toy.
 
covid street
a mask changes
its chameleon


Alan Summers
Publication credit: Blithe Spirit vol 30 no. 4 (November 2020) ed. Caroline Skanne

10 thoughts on “Alan Summers”

  3. I like the ‘wild west and nazis,’ very evocative of my childhood, too. Except we had a third alternative, in rural Northern Ireland, in the late 1950s—RUC and IRA.

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    1. Dear Guy,

      Sadly everywhere has its enemies both from inside, and from outside.

      I wrote a long haibun about checking out suspect explosive devices called “Living in a Second”, and what it involved as a civilian doing this, using humour. It’s in my Facebook profile page. There will be the Wild West and Nazis for a long time but I hope that other alternatives will also fade in time.

      warm regards,
      Alan

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