Format: Asynchronous - written work and assignment links, working in your own time, and submitting through the Call of the Page website.
Level: Pre-Intermediate, or a reboot for experienced haiku writers.
Lead Tutor: Alan Summers Prompts & Exercises:
No. of Assignments and Feedback: 5
Group Size: up to 6
Course Description: This course provides a stepping point between Introducing... Haiku and the Intermediate Haiku classes, but is also a good reboot for anyone wanting to remind themselves to use all of the senses over their haiku writing. The well-eyed are so often drawn to the visual. Haiku is a craft of observation, but we also observe through our ears, noses, and through touching and tasting. Over five sessions, one of each of the five senses will dominate the assignment briefings. There will be a written exercise each time exploring the "sense of the session" and then using your exercise observation notes as a starting point, you'll be invited to submit two haiku. There'll be written feedback on your exercise, and on your haiku, in a joint document so that classmates benefit from a shared learning experience.
Lead Tutor for haiku; tanka; haibun; senryu; and tanka stories.
Alan is a Japan Times award-winning writer, and multi-award winning poet for haiku, plus a Pushcart Prize, and Best Small Fictions nominated poet for haibun.
He’s been President of the United Haiku & Tanka Society (2017 to 2021), and General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000).
Alan holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University (U.K. 2007-2008), and a Diploma for Creative Writing from the University of Bristol (U.K. 2000-2001).
In September 2015 NHK TV of Japan made a documentary about Alan's work: http://tinyurl.com/NHKHaikuJourney
Alan’s work regularly appears in haikai genre journals, and prominent anthologies, including Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton 2013).
He has extensive experience as a tutor and workshop facilitator in both live and online settings. Alongside this he’s also an experienced editor for anthologies and journals. Alan’s been an essayist, article writer, critic, book reviewer, international competition judge, co-founder, and founder of various haiku & haibun journals.
Alan is currently editor-in-chief for The Haiku Reader anthology series, and opened with the first presentation at the Haiku Society of America’s 2022 National Virtual Conference (Saturday, June 4, 2022) taking questions about the anthology.