Local Organizers for Haiku North America 2009
Claudia Coutu Radmore is a Montrealer transplanted to Carleton Place, Ontario. As a member of the League of Canadian Poets, Haiku Canada and Kado Ottawa, she writes prose, lyric poetry and Japanese-form poetry. Co-editor of the Plattsburgh International Haiku Conference Anthology 2008, consulting editor of Raw NerVz, and new editor of The Haiku Canada Anthology, she helps select tanka for Gusts, the Canadian tanka magazine. Her Japanese-form poetry has been published in Modern Haiku, Raw NerVZ, Mainichi Daily News Haiku, Gusts, Haiku Canada Anthologies, the Basho Festival Anthology, and Carpe Diem among others. Claudia is the creator of Thousand Leaves, Karuta Haiku Canada, a card game based on the traditional Japanese tanka game.
Claudia is the author of White on White, a haiku sequence performed with Terry Ann Carter; Tracing Your Ribs; Blackbird’s Throat, tanka with references to ancient and contemporary Chinese poetry, based on a recent teaching experience in China, and a minute or two/without remembering, lyric poems spoken in the voices of her French Canadian ancestors who settled in New France. For Arctic Twilight, Claudia edited letters from Leonard Budgell of The Hudson’s Bay Company, and wrote its introduction. A former teacher who has taught in Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario, Claudia trained teachers in the South Pacific for three years; her first publication was a teacher-training manual in Bislama, the national language of Vanuatu. An artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Queen’s University, Kingston, she has a studio in Carleton Place. Claudia is the second place winner in the 2008 Francine Porad Haiku Contest.
You can email Claudia at: claudiarosemary@yahoo.com
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Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Terry Ann Carter moved to Canada in the late sixties. Retired from the classroom, she devotes time to Haiku Canada (four conferences at Carleton University) and the League of Canadian Poets (past education chair). Her first book of lyric poems (Waiting for Julia, Third Eye Press, 1997) was followed by Transplanted (Borealis Press, 2005). Terry Ann has participated in international renku at the Basho Festival, Ueno, Japan, and the Tenri Cultural Center, NYC. Her poems have appeared in small presses around the world. She won first place in R.H. Blythe’s people’s choice award, HM in the Betty Drevniok Award, and first place in the Vancouver International Cherry Blossom Festival (2007). Her chapbook Anapanasati, (lyric poems) was a finalist for the Acorn Rukeyser Chapbook Award(1999).
As Random Acts of Poetry poet for the city of Ottawa (2005/06/07) Terry Ann had the opportunity to read poems at bus stops, local parks, hair salons, hot tubs and fire halls. With Marco Fraticelli, she was the English co-editor of Carpe Diem: Anthologie Canadienne du Haiku/ Canadian Anthology of Haiku jointly published by Les Editions David and Borealis Press. Her haibun sequence “Photos” appears in Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam Era (Seraphim Press, 2008). She co-founded Ottawa KaDo in 2002 (with Marianne Bluger) to promote interest in haiku and related Japanese forms in the Ottawa area. A broadsheet, often with invited guests, is launched each spring at the Japanese Embassy. Terry Ann currently works on arts related projects for Learning Through the Arts /Toronto Conservatory of Music.
You can email Terry Ann at: tacarter@rogers.com
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How things sneak up on one. As a former “kilted” infanteer, international marketer, freelance writer, diplomat with 5 years in Japan and enjoying the fun of it all, Guy Simser finds himself a septuagenarian with an imminent 50th wedding anniversary. So soon? His poetry has appeared in several publications such as:
(USA) Journey to the Interior: Anthology of American Haibun; Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Heart; Landfall: Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka; Wind Five-Folded: Anthology of English Language Tanka; Modern Haiku; Brussels Sprout; MET Journal; Atlas Poetica; American Tanka; Contemporary Haibun; Amaze Cinquain; Ribbons.
(JAPAN) Four Seasons Haiku Anthology; KŌ Poetry Magazine; NOON: Journal of the Short Poem; Poetry Nippon, METROPOLIS Tokyo; NHK Educational Textbook (Japan National TV network); Japan Tanka Poets Club Magazine.
(CANADA) ARC Poetry; Countless Leaves (tanka anthology); Carpe Diem (haiku anthology); Inkstone; Gusts; Anthos; RAWNerVZ Haiku. AUSTRALIA – Eucalypt.
(ENGLAND) still.
Writing awards: Diane Brebner Poetry Prize (Canada); Tanka Splendor Prize (USA); the Special Prize, Hekinan International Haiku (Japan); plus short story, radio documentary and radio drama.
You can email Guy at: guy.simser@sympatico.ca