juliemellorpoet

[juliemellorpoet]

Banjo time!

Apologies for not having blogged for quite a while but after taking up the guitar five years ago, I decided I wanted a new challenge. So, I went out and bought a banjo. That was back in February and increasingly, I spend my spare time practising. Like my guitar playing, I have no great ambition, but I thought I’d post this haibun about it (first published in Presence, issue 79). Hopefully, it…

[juliemellorpoet]

breathtaking ...

This breathtaking haiku has reminded me that I need to make sure I blog a little more frequently. Things are very much in flux for me at the moment, but when I come across a haiku as quietly confident and subtly evocative as this, it pulls me back to poetry, to the haiku form and how grounding it can be to read, and to write. You can find Simon Chard’s poem in the Haiku Calendar 2024 (Snapshot…

[juliemellorpoet]

startled ...

A lovely haiku, above, by Jackie Hardy, that very much reminds me of Dave Bonta’s ‘night bird’ haiku which I commented on a few weeks ago. This one, above, is published in Wing Beats (Snapshot Press 2008).

[juliemellorpoet]

night bird

The week before last saw me rereading the 2023 issues of The Heron’s Nest, trying to finalise my top ten for the Reader’s Award. There’s an overwhelming amount of good contemporary haiku in this journal and I’m never disappointed when I read it, plus it’s free online, and I’m grateful for that. I can’t influence anyone else’s vote now, because the deadline has passed, and I suppose there should…

[juliemellorpoet]

Tinywords

Great to have this monoku appear on the Tinywords website today. I’ve just been choosing a favourite winter poem to share with the Yorks/ Lancs haiku society, who meet monthly via Zoom. So many to choose from. In the end I went for this poignant haiku by Bill Kenney who is sadly no longer with us: winter passesa few minor revisionsto my death poem (from tap dancing in my socks, Red Moon Press,…

[juliemellorpoet]

a new resonance ...

I’ve been spending some time reviewing A New Resonance 13 (Red Moon Press 2023) and came across some amazing haiku by ‘our thomas’ (the pen name of Rod T. Boyer). Many of his poems are previously unpublished so it’s well worth investing in A New Resonance 13 just for his work alone – and it does contain a selection of haiku from 17 poets in total so it’s excellent value for money at $ 20, even…

[juliemellorpoet]

The Haiku Calendar

How lovely to start the new year with a haiku, below, from The Haiku Calendar (Snapshot Press). Last year, my January challenge was to do a post a day on the blog. It was hard, but it went reasonably well and I did manage to complete it. I thought I might try to do the same this year, although I wondered if this might be setting myself up to fail. So, I’ll just aim to post more frequently! In…

[juliemellorpoet]

Crochet kindness ...

Found this little ‘worry worm’ on my walk yesterday, but left it as I though maybe a child might be out with parents today and that they should have it. However, it was still there when I went out today, late afternoon and turning dark, so I brought it home. I’m telling myself how fortunate I am in my own life – I don’t have any major worries, nothing that keeps me awake at night. I do fret about…

[juliemellorpoet]

a poem by John Stevenson ..

Thought this one was particularly apt, given the recent weather. It’s from John Stevenson’s recent collection, This Once (Red Moon Press, 2023). It’s slightly ominous, I know, but maybe that’s why it stands out. At the start of this year I accepted the post of reviews editor at Presence. Needless to say, it’s been a busy year, and a steep learning curve. Still, I’ve managed to fit it in, around…

[juliemellorpoet]

To Live Here ... haiku readings

Just a quick heads up for the ‘To Live Here’ haiku anthology readings this Sunday. Great if you can make it to one of the slots (email above). Many thanks to Claire Thom at The Wee Sparrow poetry press for making all this happen.

[juliemellorpoet]

You can't beat ...

… a good guitar poem. I came across this one in the latest edition of Presence (issue 76) and it stopped me in my tracks. It’s the way it echoes the Robert Johnson story/myth without mentioning it directly. It sent me back to that raw, dark and melancholy blues that Johnson is famous for, and that sad resignation that I can’t help but hear when he waits at the crossroads and no one will stop to…

[juliemellorpoet]

holiday reads ...

Back from our camping trip, so thought I’d share my slightly eclectic mix of holiday reads. Sadly, no haiku as my copy of Presence didn’t make it before we left. It was waiting for me when I got back though, so I’m having my fill of haiku now!

[juliemellorpoet]

this mortal frame ...

‘In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifaces there is something, and this something is called windswept spirit for lack of a better name …‘ So said Basho in the opening to The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel, one of the travel sketches that preceded the more famous The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Basho acknowledges the odd fact that whatever we might pursue…

[juliemellorpoet]

On barns ...

I love the poem by Peter Newton, above. It’s the editor’s choice in the current issue of The Heron’s Nest. You can read the editor’s comments here. For me, the poem echoes the haiku by Masahide, below (on the Poetry Chaikhana blog): That careful dismantling of the barn, beam by beam, in Newton’s poem, somehow slows the reader down. You have to take your time with it, just as it would take time…

[juliemellorpoet]

Ordinary ...

I took this from Yukio Mishima’s novel, Thirst for Love. It’s a bit of banter between husband and wife, but I like how the work-shy husband, Kensuke, champions ordinariness. I’ve done very little blogging recently and mainly that’s because I’ve been busy with ordinary things in what I’d say is a fairly ordinary life. It seems to me that I get a good deal of satisfaction from the ordinary. I’m on…

[juliemellorpoet]

tinywords

So pleased to be in tinywords earlier this week. It’s free to sign up to their email list and receive haiku and other short poems more or less daily. Trust me, it brightens up your inbox!

[juliemellorpoet]

books, books, books ...

Haven’t posted in ages, partly because I’ve had other things needing my time, and partly because I didn’t feel I’d got much to share. However, we’re in Newcastle and having just wandered into the Lit and Phil, I was reminded that books are special objects, and that libraries are those amazing spaces where books live and people thrive!