We are fourteen years old! Founded in January 2007, Shamrock Haiku Journal has since been published regularly. On this occasion, we have prepared SHAMROCK HAIKU JOURNAL: 2012- 2018, a print edition of the twenty issues of Shamrock, Nos. 21 to 40, as they appeared on the Shamrock website. This paper-based collection covers the full range of English-language haiku, from classical to experimental, as well as haibun. Also included are English translations from one of the most prominent Japanese haiku poets of the 20th century, Ryuta Iida, and an essay on translating Matsuo Basho's haiku.

Shamrock Haiku Journal: 2012-2018
Edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.

Copyright © 2012-2018 by Shamrock Haiku Journal.

All rights reserved.

Published in Dublin, Ireland.

Printed in the United Kingdom.

Price EUR16.92
ISBN 978-0-244-9767-9-8

Trade paperback. 302 pp.
5.8"x8.3", perfect binding.

Preview available here

A similar compilation volume comprising issues 1 to 20
(Shamrock Haiku Journal: 2007 - 2011) is available here.

IHS International Haiku Competition 2021 announced!

The Irish Haiku Society International Haiku Competition 2021 offers prizes of Euro 150, Euro 50 and Euro 30 for unpublished haiku/senryu in English. In addition there will be up to seven Highly Commended haiku/senryu.

Details and previous winners here:
http://irishhaiku.webs.com/haikucompetition.htm

All the entries shall be postmarked / e-mailed by 30th November 2021.

Good luck to all!

Shamrock Haiku Journal Readers' Choice Awards 

We invite all the readers of Shamrock Haiku Journal to vote for the best haiku/senryu poem published in 2021, i.e. in the issues FORTY-FIVE and FORTY-SIX (you cannot vote for your own poem, though). 

To vote, send an e-mail to irishhaikusociety[at]gmail.com with "Best haiku of 2021" or "Best senryu of 2021" in the subject line. Please insert the full text of the poem you vote for (only ONE poem in each category) plus the name of its author in the body of your e-mail. The deadline for vote is 28th February, 2022. The best poems will be named in the next issue of Shamrock Haiku Journal.

sun-warmed rocks
pond turtles stretch
their necks skyward


summer heat
in each squash blossom
a sleeping bee


morning crows
nothing
left unspoken

-- Cynthia Anderson (USA)




ruined monastery
a flutter of doves
disturbs the peace


early snow
children's boots
fill the mud room


sudden shower
rain drops bounce
off the ping pong table

-- Jay Friedenberg (USA)




moth powder
the year starts
to come undone


planetarium
insects orbit
a streetlight


harvest breeze
the few corn stalks
a tractor missed

-- Bryan Rickert (USA)




spring solstice -
blackbird song
in a cage of twigs

stormy sky -
the undersides of gulls
catch the light


pigeons strutting -
the platform empties
the platform fills

-- Hugh O'Donnell (Ireland)




late winter light
fallen wattle blossom
gilds the creek bank


first snow
moonlight drifts
into valley treetops


filtering
dawn's soft focus
magpie song

-- Gavin Austin (Australia)




willow wands weaving the shape of the wind


autumn ending -
a black house spider
wraps up a wasp

-- Lorin Ford (Australia)




spring breeze
the busker's dog
warms the sidewalk


snow filling footprints
to the bird-feeder
Christmas morning

-- Frank Hooven (USA)




twilight
the silence
of bat wings


summer breeze
there's life yet
in this old fiddle tune

-- Ben Gaa (USA)




running
an empty eggshell in her beak
mother plover


orange breeze
two burrowing owlets
unlock talons

-- Bill Cooper (USA)




a stirring
in the sedge grass...
distant thunder


ghosting the lagoon
echo
of the heron's croak

-- John O'Connor (USA)




dirty snow -
from the budding magnolia,
a sparrow's song


thick snow
on each twiglet -
sunrise

-- Nola Obee (Canada)




the black tip
of a ground squirrel's tail...
stubble fire


salmon dart
across the highway...
non-stop rain

-- Debbie Strange (Canada)



the rustle
of faded flowers...
roadside cross


laid off...
I watch the snow
falling on snow

-- Chen-ou Liu (Canada)




foghorn
figures pass each other
shivering


Dostoyevsky's eye
fades on the cover -
dusty bookshop

-- Noel King (Ireland)




her eyes
my eyes
mirror lake

-- Deborah P. Kolodji (USA)




November gloom -
the fireworks stand
wet with rain

-- Michael Dylan Welch (USA)




back to shore
the surfer
in dripping sunshine

-- John Zheng (USA)




ambulance siren...
the sway of the feeder
beneath the blue jay

-- Joshua Gage (USA)




sunlight
in sacred groves
primeval forest

-- Roberta Beach Jacobson (USA)




speeding home
on back roads
ducks backlit by dawn

-- Kristen Lindquist (USA)




spring rain -
garden as it was,
garden as it will be

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen (USA)




wheat field
the white underside
of a circling hawk

-- Joseph P. Wechselberger (USA)




ocean dusk
waves of starlings
set the sun

-- Gary Hittmeyer (USA)




king snake
tail of another
twists in its mouth

-- Cole Eubanks (USA)




koi
the kitten paws
a ripple

-- Marilyn Ashbaugh (USA)




chimney smoke
sidewinding
skyward

-- Corey Cook (USA)




a bit of breeze
the roof clatters
with acorns

-- David Oates (USA)




ceremonial fire -
the dancer's shadow,
the weight of flame

-- Dan Salontai (USA)




barefoot
on frozen dew
the stars cascade

-- John Newson (England)




dry riverbed
the old bridge creaks
bone on bone

-- Robert Witmer (Japan)




dusk
a little owl
calls up the moon

-- Michael Moule (Sweden)




blue January
a black dog howls
the world apart

-- Bisshie (Switzerland)




quiet moths
in the dry grass -
meteor shower

-- Ernest Wit (Poland)




in a deserted garden
the call of
an extinct quail

-- Padmini Krishnan (Singapore)




leaning half moon
milky light pours
onto the road

-- Tom Staudt (Australia)




Zen garden -
stirring a passing cloud
in my tea

-- Adjei Agyei-Baah (Ghana)




distant thunder
a scrap-yard dog gnaws
on his chain

-- Michael Baeyens (Belgium)

Ales Razanau

(Belarus; 5th December 1947 - 26th August 2021)

rooks build nests -
a fallen twig
gets back to the tree


cherry-tree by the road -
hurry up, first blossom:
you'll be the bees' bride


on her own this spring night,
a girl plays hide and seek
with the new moon


this thing useless
and that...
a crow sorting garbage
in the bin


such a gloomy sky...
but this is where
spring comes from

(translated from Belorussian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky)

Most Mornings

by dl mattila (USA)

  
I do my writing in a coffee shop, the same coffee shop I've been going to for the past 14 years, the one with the barista who knows me by name, knows I like my espresso with velvet-like foam. And when I arrive at the same time most mornings, the same square table with its solitary chair waits for me, up against the wall, a good six-to-eight feet from the next nearest seat, just far enough for me to ignore idle chat, to claim the space that I need to muse and create, to send the message I'm busy, except when Tel, the same man I see in the coffee shop most mornings, this morning, walks-up to say that the woman at my table mustn't've known I was coming.

     abandoned burrow a weasel lays down another marker

Epitaph
Herculaneum, AD 79

by Marietta McGregor (Australia)

     pillars of an altar
     to benevolent gods
     rising curls of smoke

She wonders if her friend is as famished as she feels, even though she managed to gobble down a handful of grapes from the sideboard before her mother hurried her out of their house. She guesses her friend will have with him clutched tightly to his thin chest the spotted mongrel puppy they found wandering in an alley a few days ago. After a spirited argument about who would take it home, he won. She doesn't really mind. She knows she has no room at her house for a dog. They will share it. She feels a soft kiss on the top of her head, and snuggles into the protective curves of her mother and aunt. The dragon roar is suddenly louder. Everything around her trembles. Then all is hot and black and there's no more wondering, or feeling, or knowing.

     from the green slopes

     of a hungry mountain
     lachryma christi

Forecast

by Seren Fargo (USA)

     monsoon season
     the split casing
     of a cicada

There was a gripping sensation on my whole body, as if from the earth itself. Then a tingling on the back of my neck. It almost seemed that I knew what was going to come next... the flash of light and sound that obliterated everything else. And as quickly, everything else returned.
Including my legs, moving like lightning back into the house.