Category Archives: haibun

The Glittering Prize

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The world continues to offer glittering prizes to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords
F E Smith, Lord Birkenhead

I thought I’d quote Smith for the title, but make it plain I had done so. I didn’t want you to think I’d just nicked the title off the telly, though this is probably unlikely as I just looked it up and find it aired in 1976. hardly a current reference.

I needed a title with “prize” in it as I just won a poetry prize. It’s a poem of the issue award from Eucalypt, a tanka magazine. Every issue, they have two, chosen by the winners of the previous issue’s awards. I now have a commentary on my work and my subscription has been extended by an issue. More worryingly for a man with a very lacklustre education, I have select a winner from the next issue and supply a commentary for it. The one supplied for mine was insightful. The one supplied for the other winner was decidedly erudite. The one about mine used the word trochee. It’s something like 53 years since I last used the word trochee. I’m pretty sure I only used it once then.

As I grow in confidence as a poet I no longer worry about imposter syndrome and am sure I will mange to write an acceptable commentary. I can blog, I can write poetry and I can write about coins, how difficult can it be? I’ll need a few quotes to fill up the space but as long as I get down to it promptly I should be OK.

In the meantime, I should get on with my medallion presentation and making lunch ready for Julia’s return. The poem was a about the stripy shed on the MENCAP Gardens – that’s the pictures today.

I now, of course, regret not taking a photo of the whole shed instead of being arty.

One Door Closes and Another Door Opens

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More of a wish list than an actual “How to” selection of gardening books

Last night I slept fitfully and slept in late. Julia went to Stamford with my sister this afternoon and I went back to bed again, waking some time after they got home. Julia claims I spoke to her when she stuck her head round the bedroom drawer but I did not remember.

After the quizzes on TV I started typing and reading and generally frittering my remaining hours away. I have just looked up to check how long I have to do this post before midnight and found that three quarters of an hour have dissolved as I answered comments and checked some photos. It is actually 18 minutes past midnight so I have failed to post on Monday despite all my talk of good intentions.

The editor I was emailing last night has decided not to use the poem, which is fair enough. It’s my job to write things that are publishable and she has plenty to do without me taking her time up. I did suggest an edit that involved removing the first six lines and going with the rest, but this didn’t appear to be acceptable. It’s a shame, as i like being published, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. As I said in my cheery note thanking her for her decision – after a quick edit it will be part of my February submissions. One door closes etc . . .

Books, books, books . . .

Eight minutes gone, 233 words written. It’s funny how I can write faster when I’m relaxed. Given the time pressure of a deadline I start to choke. This is probably a lesson I could apply to poetry. It always used to seem easier in the early days, when my target was to submit on the first day of the submission window rather than the last.

At the moment, I have enough returned poems to make up two submissions for February already. The target is nine for this month. I have  a few others in mind but they are for a magazine that has never yet taken one of my pieces. Sometimes, particularly when I am listing possible  targets, I list magazines that I regard as “hostile” to make sure I keep testing myself. Other times, particularly when I am feeling lazy, or am at the end of the month, I drop them from the list.

It’s a bit like the verse forms that I don’t do. A number of journals take what they call linked forms, which are haiku or tanka, or both, made into a longer poem. Often they are done by people writing in partnership, though it’s possible for them to be done by a single writer. I keep thinking of expanding my range, but it all takes time and effort and enthusiasm, and I’m not feeling that I have much to spare.

Books by Paul Hollywood

I have 88 submission targets for this year., ten more than last year, but I have to be as good this year as i was last year.  And that’s where the pressure starts . . .

Humans are strange creatures. Even when things are going along nicely I have to add extra layers to the general worries. Quite apart from the normal am I good enough? and when will the bubble burst? worries, I have to add to them by setting targets.

Finally, talking of pressure and deadlines, do you remember me joking about how much time I had before my presentation at the Numismatic Society – 12 months, 11 months, plenty of time to start in the New Year . . .

Well it’s 2 months and 10 days away and I still only have a few vague ideas about what I’m doing. I was planning on writing a rough script today but seem to have slept through it instead. Time, I think, for a sense of urgency to appear, ready for next month’s panic.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

Recycled Poetry

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Thomas Paine, Thetford. I wonder what he would think of the modern USA.

Yesterday I generally poked and prodded and did a few lists. I have enough poetry written to meet my planned submissions, the quality is good and it is nearly all finished. It’s a lot easier to finish something that it is to come up with an idea from scrstch. This is particularly true in areas like poetry where editors like subjects that haven’t already been flogged to death. Of course, you have to be careful, like the time I was told I was “difficult” because I referred to the poem  Adlestrop. However, I’ve mentioned that before so I won’t carry on with that.

I once wrote a poem about scrambled eggs. It was 2020 and I taught myself to make better scrambled eggs during lockdown. I tried it on four or five editors and nobody took it so it ended up at the back of my mind. A few months ago I decided to give it another go. However, I rewrote it instead of just tinkering. Same, subject, same story, but written differently, including an observation that I’d never seen a poem about scrambled eggs. It was accepted by the first editor who saw it.  Might have been flawed in its first version, might just have been the right person at the right time. Who can tell?

Gates at a redundant church – Thetford

Next month I will be going through my back catalogue of failures and rewriting a lot of them. It saves coming up with new ideas. On the other hand, if I spot any with familiar and well-worn subjects I will pull the plug on them. Life is too short to continue with old ideas, unless they work, and computer space is limited. I did once think I should store all my notes in case an American University wanted to buy them, or a biographer wanted to study me, but it’s unlikely and I need the space. It was moving house that brought that on. I had a box of notebooks, most of the writing was my normal illegible scribble and the stuff I could read was not inspiring. It is probably recycled by now. Julia’s Uncle has 9.2 linear feet of space in the Harry Ransom Centre at the University of Texas. He, of course, did everything on paper. I do most of my writing on a computer, which would, in any case, be harder to collect. Same with letters – he has letters from artists, writers and editors. I have emails.

House Sparrow

24 Posts 26 Days

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I suppose the title gives things away. Despite all my good intentions this will be post 24, but it is 26th January. Two days have been swallowed up by that mad whirl of naps, TV and procrastination. I can pull two days back quite easily, so it isn’t a problem for now. Be prepared for two supplementary posts over the coming days.

I had an email from an editor yesterday, two more acceptances, bringing the total for 2025 to 55. I know numbers mean nothing, because it’s about quality. But at the same time it does mean I’ve been applying myself to writing and I carried the plan through.

It’s the same with a blog a day – it doesn’t mean I’m writing better blog posts but it does, I hope, mean that I will improve because of the constant practice.

The same goes for ideas. In the past I have hoarded ideas, ready for the day when I feel that stars have aligned and the day is propitious for one of my great ideas. However, theory, and reality, seem to indicate that the more ideas you use, the more you will generate. It does seem to work.

In other contexts, I don’t consider this a good thing. Every time I think about it I remember being in a meeting once where one aspiring volunteer (or aspiring chair, if the truth is told) said “My strength is having ideas. If anyone needs an idea, just ask.”

What still makes me grit my teeth at this, is that everyone can have ideas, but what you need on a committee is people who will work.

That’s the secret with most things. I can have all the ideas I like, but if I don’t work, nothing happens. That’s why quantity is important, it means you are doing the work which will lead to quality. And if you are doing the work and achieving the quality, you may, with luck, become good.

Sunset at Sherwood

 

A Nomination is Announced

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Leaves and frost – Wilford, Nottingham

I’ve just had a newsletter through from the Tanka Society of America, and in it they have a list of the people they have put through as nominees for the Pushcart Prize. Those of you who think I am called Quercus (which was a name I go by the accident of working for Quercus Community when I started the blog) will wonder why I’m bothering to tell you this. Those of you who know my real name will note that it appears on the list, and all will become clear.

Although I am quite pleased with it, it’s important to remember that it’s only a nomination. I have won nothing.  On the other hand, an editor (or in this case two editors) have picked me out as being the writer of one of the six best things they have published this year. Pleasing as that is, there’s a big difference between a nomination and winning a prize. However, like the Oscars, people do note in their biographical notes that they are nominees. This is handy, as I’ve never yet won anything for writing. In fact I’ve never been a runner-up either – just “highly commended”. Twice in twenty years. You will not find me mentioned anywhere as an overnight success.

Heron at Clumber Park

I did get into the Red Moon Anthology a couple of times, I also slipped out again, as you are only as good as your last poem.  The first year I was in, I worried about never making it again. The next time, I worried less, but it wasn’t a great year and I didn’t write anything good enough to be chosen. That was depressing, but also made me concentrate a bit more, so I have bounced back. Of course, the trick is making sure I keep the quality coming.

Pushcart Prize Nominations for 2025

November 25, 2025

The Tanka Society of America is pleased to announce the following nominations for The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses LI anthology, as selected by Ribbons editors Liz Lanigan and Susan Weaver.

For those of you who are interested, this poem was turned down three times before it was accepted and became my most “successful” poem to date.  I actually think I may have written better poems last year, but that is how it goes. I certainly wrote worse ones!

Robin at Clumber, Nottinghamshire

 

The Dog-Eared Page 

Stumbling, after treading on my trouser cuffs, I fall against the wall. I have grown portly, and my waist has dropped, making my trouser legs too long. It is a hazard of old age I had not anticipated and I, like Prufrock, must wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Balding, sniggered at, ignored by singing sirens, I stagger on a one-way trip through the strange country that is old age. I never thought, when I first read Eliot as a teen, that I was looking at a route map of my life.

the road ahead
is shorter than the one
behind
crowded with regrets
and tests I did not pass

 

Two Acceptances and Plans for Writing and a Conservatory Roof

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Tree cutting on the island.

It happened again. It’s now January 3 and I have only published one post. I am now sitting up in the middle of the night trying not to fall too far behind.

I slept in late as a result of my nocturnal writing last night, allied to a late night for New Year. Then I watched antiques on TV, fell asleep in my chair, woke just before Julia returned from the cafe, did enough typing to make it look like I had been working and stopped for tea and cake, a visit from my sister with tarpaulins for tomorrow and watched quizzes. All in all, I did not distinguish myself with industry. Tomorrow? You are probably asking. Tomorrow we are emptying the conservatory and as long as the snow holds off we should have a new conservatory roof by the end of next week.

Black Headed Gull

Finally, 12 months after taking possession, we should be water-tight and fully repaired. We would be 100% functional if it wasn’t for the fault on the light switches in the hallway that started over Christmas and the back gate which is starting to fall apart. Annoyingly, in the old days, although I never meddled with electrics, I could have built a new gate in a day. Now I will have to pay someone to do it. Is there no end to household repairs?

Meanwhile, back with the writing, I have heard back from one of the editors I submitted to on 30th December. That’s fine service, and two more acceptances to add to my 2025 tally. That takes me to 53 for the year. It’s also means I have a number of rejects to form the basis for my submissions this month. I may well junk my haiku, as I very rarely manage to sneak one in but the returned haibun and tanka will all do for resubmission.

Mandarin drake at Arnot Hill Park, Nottinghamshire

Little and Large!

I have started a couple of new haibun too, having listed my work for the month ahead. It’s on an archaic spreadsheet – or “written on a piece of paper” as we used to call it, and I am feeling more organised. When I feel organised I always seem able to do more work. I won’t list my calculations, but I’m going to need to be organised if I have any chance of improving on last year, particularly as I want to improve my quality and increase my range.

The Heron is back again. Arnot Hill Park

 

 

Reading About Myself in Google

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Robin

I’ve just been checking myself on Google. It’s not a pursuit for the faint-hearted or the modest.

I am, it seems,  a prominent British haibun poet and my work is frequently published in leading haiku and haibun journals where it is a regular fixture in journals like Contemporary Haibun Online, Drifting Sands Haibun, and the Wales Haiku Journal. Another entry records that I am a contemporary writer known for my haibun, often featured in journals like Contemporary Haibun Online, where my works explore everyday observations, life changes, and poignant reflections on subjects like old mills, cormorants, funerals, and war-torn landscapes, showcasing my keen eye for detail and emotional depth within short, evocative pieces. 

It then cites a  Guardian article about me and has a line that says “AI responses may include mistakes”

They are not wrong about that.

Robin

The Simon Wilson in the Guardian is younger than me, better groomed, more successful and, above all, Australian.

There are many Simon Wilsons spread around the place, including several who are poets or journalists, so there is plenty of room for confusion. However, much of what they say is factually accurate even though it has been fashioned into something capable of giving a misleading picture of me and my work. “Prominent” and “fixture” are both pushing the boundaries of accuracy, to be fair, and some of the other stuff is rather flattering too. However it’s nice to see AI in action. I am now aware that it has been programmed to add a veneer of sophistication and success to our achievements and, as such will definitely be taking over the world. It’s easy to resist an evil genius, but far harder to be cynical about flattery. Who doesn’t like to be described as “prominent” and “a regular fixture”? I can already feel myself beginning to admire AI for its good taste.

Robin in the Garden Centre cafe

 

 

 

A Plan is Born

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Plans for next year include writing more, writing better, managing my time and, most importantly, finding new markets. I’ve done over 80 articles on coins and related subjects but they have all been published in the lower levels of society journals.  I don’t want to be rude about them, but it’s not really a challenge getting into something where you are one of two regular contributors and they are read by about six people.

The situation with the articles is that I am either going to have to up my game or stop writing them and use the time for something else. In my first stint as a poet I wrote for new magazines and those known to be easier to get into. It produced results, but when I restarted a few years ago I aimed for the better quality magazines. It has gone quite well and I feel like I have produced something worth doing.

Next year, instead of producing 85+ articles for society Facebook pages and the like, I want to appear at least 12 times in magazines which pay and the journals of the more serious  kind. I think 12 is realistic, just as 50 (again) is realistic for poetry.  That’s why the target is now set at 60 and 15 – there’s no point in sitting back and feeling complacent. At the same time, I still want to support the societies I’m in but I’m going to reduce my output to around 50. I’ve asked other people to help but they haven’t responded, or have made excuses, and they can’t complain if I do other things.

Photo by Roman Koval on Pexels.com

That, of course, is the easy bit. I now have to work out how I’m going to manage my time and actually achieve the targets. That’s the trouble with planning to write more – the first day or two will be taken up with planning. And I just remembered that one of the regular magazines has pulled out.  That will be six fewer slots to aim for.

I will, to be honest, simply send more poetry out and develop a new range of work. I’ve never done a haiga, for instance, which is a photograph with a haiku. Nor have I ever tried any of the linked forms where you put haiku or tanka together to form longer poems. It also feels like time to get back into free verse. And there you go – a plan is born.

Orange Parker Pen

Using the pen pictures reminds me once again that my efforts at product placement have not met with much success. Either that or my complimentary Parker pen has been lost in the post.

Next year I may lower my sights a bit and use pictures of snack food.

 

Thirty! Forty six!

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Something strange happened this afternoon. The day, having started as Friday (I even wrote about it being Friday) but by lunchtime it had become Saturday. I even started planning for “tomorrow” thinking it was Sunday. This has never happened before. I have sometimes struggled with what day it is, and have needed to gather my thoughts, but I do not remember changing days in mid flow.

This would be just another amusing anecdote, but after the cabbage episode I am beginning to have some serious doubts regarding my mental capacity. The advantage is that after having one “Saturday” I am now able to have an extra day at the weekend. The disadvantage is that, being retired, the concepts of “weekend” and “extra day” now have little meaning.

On a more fun note, I tried a pickled egg today. They have been in the fridge for two weeks now, which is the minimum time suggested by the Hairy Bikers in the recipe. They are OK. I will check again in two more weeks, as they did say a month was better. The vinegar is diluted with water in the recipe, and has some sugar in it. Currently, the taste is slightly sweet and the vinegar lacks bite. I will do another lot without water or sugar and see how they go. After that I may need to look at the quality of vinegar. I’m currently using the cheapest, and it may be false economy. However, it does cut the grease effectively when wiping down the hob.

I’ve had two acceptances today, so I’m quite cheerful. One needed a minor edit and a discussion on quotation marks. I was cheery and cooperative and pretended to care about punctuation. This brings the number of acceptances up to 46 for the year and I’m happy that I will probably make it to 50. In artistic terms this doesn’t matter. Forty nine or 51 are much of a muchness, but 60 has a psychological value. Total submissions are 70 so far with another 10 planned. It is significantly short of my  target of 100 submissions. There are several reasons for this, including a patchy work rate, a number of magazines cutting back on publication frequency and the fact that I haven’t written any non-Japanese style poetry this year. I may not make it next year either, as I am doing more numismatic writing. If you take them into consideration I’m on target to do about 70 more, but as they are all for societies there is actually no quality threshold and I have a 100% acceptance rate – that’s not really proper writing.

Finally – food. I made a mushroom biriyani tonight. Well, I used a spice kit for biriyani. The actual ingredients and outcome were non-traditional. However, I used sweet potato, onions, peas, rice and mushrooms, so it was healthy. Of those, the red onions, sweet potato and peas were making their first appearance this week. That makes 30. I have the veg prepared for tomorrow, with swede and cabbage, so look likely to manage 32, possibly more if I eat some nuts.  I am happy with that, and happy I was able to source over 30 plant-based ingredients in the house without doing any special shopping.

And that is that for today. Pictures will be from October 2018. Many are from Clumber park in the days when they weren’t charging fro entry and I could actually walk.

 

Would Larkin call it Quiche?

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Swings and Roundabouts, what goes around comes around, as one door closes another door opens . . .

Hot on the heels of my last rejection comes an acceptance. Not only an acceptance, but an acceptance for two tanka prose. Any double acceptance is a red letter day, as I said recently. This one was particularly good, as I had only sent two.

This is when I noticed something strange. The three that had been rejected a couple of days ago, looked poor when they were returned. The two that were accepted looked good when I re-read them. When I sent them off, they all seemed to be much the same level. It looks like I evaluate my work in relation to what happens when it is judged by an editor.

I must guard against this effect when viewing my work.

Here is a haibun that was rejected many times (four, I think) but accepted within hours by the final editor. It changed a few times over its life but the final version was not, as I recall, changed from the version that had been rejected by the previous editor.

Hidden Worlds

He wears a grey gaberdine and rides a bicycle from church to church. In his head he composes poems about sex and tombs. On YouTube he flickers in black and white, like a newsreel from the 1950s. Smiles are clearly still on ration.

Larkin used more bad language than you normally expect from a librarian. This becomes understandable when you find that he started his day with half a bottle of sherry.

monochrome photo
my parents younger than me
1963

Inspired by the life of Philip Larkin

(Published in Failed Haiku – February 2021)

I added the footnote because I had just been rejected by an editor for being obscure( it was a poem about a visit to Adlestrop). The editor who accepted it, did not use the footnote. You might want to read this, if you aren’t familiar with Larkin. I selected 1963 partly because of the poem and partly because of the sound. It wasn’t an easy decision because the rhyme counts against it in Japanese style poetry.

Meanwhile here are some pictures of my latest quiches, complete with ready made pastry cases. When I was a boy quiches were called flans and my mother used to make “egg and bacon pie”, which has been replaced by Quiche Lorraine. Haven’t we changed over the years? Change and improvement, that old thing.

The top picture is what happened to the leftover egg from the quiches. We just ate it for breakfast. The other pictures are quiches with a definite yellow cast to the photo and a couple of pics of the great biscuit disaster. I only had two cutters – the little man and a glass from the cupboard.

There is a lot of spinach in the flans, though you can’t really see it. We’ve also had it in curry this week. It’s going to mess my INR results up but I ordered a 500g bag with the groceries, which is a lot more spinach than it sounds when you actually have to use it. Green vegetables contain Vitamin K, which is the antidote for Warfarin so if you eat more, the INR goes down. You are supposed to eat the same things each week to stop the INR moving. So the choice is this – die of a blood clot, die of boredom, get scurvy. Discuss.