Tag Archives: British haiku Society

Shakespeare’s Monkey

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Little Egret

An answer I made to Tootlepedal in the comments about writing a lot and letting blind chance sift through it for the good bits reminded me of this poem.

As I was about to press the Publish button, it struck me that I may have posted it before as it seemed familiar. The trouble is that a lot of them seem familiar because they spent so much time inside my head.

Anyway, it seems I did post it before. Sorry if it seems repetitious. I note from reading the version in the other post that it has a different haiku in each place. The one in the other post was the one it was originally written with, the one here is how I sent it. Sometimes I make last minute alterations, and sometimes I don’t make sure all the versions are consistent.

I now think that the unused haiku is better than the one I eventually submitted. At the time, I obviously thought that the other version was an improvement. It was published, so it must have done the job.

Shakespeare’s Monkey
Another rejection. My words have, again, forked no lightning. This is driven home by the fact that I borrow the words of Dylan Thomas to describe my situation. However, I am convinced that if I write enough, I will eventually produce a sonnet of enduring excellence or a haibun that brings tears to the eyes of an editor. Tears of joy, that is. They like you to be clear about such things.

new poems—
the favourites I have not
yet read

First published Blithe Spirit November 2022

Little Egret at Aldeburgh

The pictures are Egrets because they are quite poetic birds, and I have no pictures of monkeys.

Ups and Downs

16 Replies

It was another day of manic activity as we kept getting orders from the new sales initiative. I quite like the active days, though it would be nice to have a little variation in pace.

The day started off with my second failed blood test in two weeks. I am consistently coming in too high and actually climbing as they seek to adjust the dose downwards. I’m not sure why this is happening but I suspect it might b because I started making an effort to do things properly. Instead of drifting on and forgetting to take my pills or taking them late, I am establishing a routine and I wonder if this means I have effectively increased the does without meaning too. I’m not taking supplements, I haven’t changed any medication and I haven’t ben eating huge amounts of green vegetables, which can all affect it. Whatever has caused it, the slow reduction by one tablet a week, as they have done this week, isn’t going to see it corrected any time soon.

Yesterday, I had an email headed “Congratulations”. Normally I’m wary of them because they usually contain details of how lucky I am to have been chosen to launder the estate of a deceased African politician. Presumably, the way things have been going, they will soon be inviting me to launder the estates of corrupt Tory supporters who have amassed illicit millions by making PPE for the NHS.

This one was from the British Haiku Society. I entered their annual competition and the results are out. According to the results there were 587 haiku, 164 tanka and 71 haibun entered. I am one of the top five haibun. I wasn’t 1st or 2nd but I did get an Honourable Mention which means I have a certificate and a free book.

The strange thing is that  the one I did all the work on made no impact but the successful one was one which had only been returned by an editor the week before. I tweaked it a bit, in line with his comments, and sent it off to the competition. It just goes to show, as I have said before, that I am not a good judge of my own writing.