Blossoms in the Breeze celebrates twenty years of haiku poems from the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The festival’s annual Haiku Invitational contest has received tens of thousands of poems from around the world, with winners honoured in six categories for residents of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere internationally, plus a separate category for youth under the age of 18. This book features the top winners from all twenty years, with a new section collecting cherry blossom haiku by each of the contest’s many celebrated judges. This book invites you to enjoy 155 haiku and senryu by more than 130 poets from around the world, all poems in praise of cherry blossoms.
VCBF founder Linda Poole provides a foreword that outlines the festival’s history and its commitment to haiku poetry. Editor Michael Dylan Welch introduces the collection, inviting readers to “celebrate the cherry blossom season each spring with your own dances amid the blossoms, as you join the blossoms in the breeze.” He also encourages reader participation with an infectious essay, “Jump into Haiku,” followed by an informative list of haiku resources. Anne Dunnett has given the book a sumptuous design that helps you savour each engaging poem. As Linda Poole says in her foreword, quoting the poet Issa, “thanks to the cherry blossom, none of us are strangers.”
CONTRIBUTORS:
Cristina Ailoaei, Aurora Antonovic, an’ya, Sonja Arntzen, Cheryl Ashley, Sanjuktaa Asopa, Marianne Baharustani, Helen Baker, Aaron Barry, Maxianne Berger, Pearl Bird, Shawn Blair, Chuck Brickley, Alan S. Bridges, Randy Brooks, Stefanie Bucifal, Anne Elise Burgevin, Allan Burns, Marcia Burton, Andreea Buzuc, Terry Ann Carter, Karen Cesar, Paul Chambers, Antoinette Cheung, Sebastian Ciobica, Andreea Cirligeanu, Rosa Clement, Sue Colpitts, Susan Constable, Pamela Cooper, Georgiana Cucu, Dan Curtis, Henryk Czempiel, Raphe Dacre, DeVar Dahl, Marcellin Dallaire-Beaumont, Anne LB Davidson, Tish Davis, Helen Davison, Angelee Deodhar, elehna de sousa, Jan Dobb, C. Jean Downer, Robert Michael Drouilhet, Rukshila Dufault, Anne Dunnett, Garry Eaton, Emily Edwards, Julie Emerson, Rachel Enomoto, Jeffrey Ferrara, P. H. Fischer, Daniel Flaszynski, Laryalee Fraser, Marco Fraticelli, Terri L. French, Sophia Frentz, Lucas Garczewski, Garry Gay, Lin Geary, Beverley George, Ferris Gilli, Stephen Henry Gill (Tito), Barry Goodmann, LeRoy Gorman, Jennifer Hambrick, Ann Harreby, Michele L. Harvey, Karin Hedetniemi, Christopher Herold, Gary Hotham, Charlotte Hrenchuk, Harvey Jenkins, Brendon Kent, kjmunro, Deborah P Kolodji, Mia Lin, Chen-ou Liu, Iris Liu, Carole MacRury, Hannah Mahoney, Damian Margolak, dl mattila, Mary McCormack, Vicki McCullough, Tanya McDonald, Joe McKeon, Sarah E. Metzler, Emiko Miyashita, Joanne Morcom, Katherine J. Munro (kjmunro), Ulrike E. Narwani, Terry O’Connor, Polona Oblak, Rita Odeh, Lorraine A Padden, John Pappas, Marianne Paul, Jacquie Pearce, Madhuri Pillai, Linda Poole, Marilyn Potter, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Nancy Richards, Vicky Rizzardo, Chad Lee Robinson, Candis Rooker, Carmen F. S., Srinivasa Rao Sambangi, Agnes Eva Savich, Julie Schwerin (Warther), Isabella Slattery Shannon, Grzegorz Sionkowski, Beth Skala, Melissa Spurr, Jill Stanley, John Stevenson, Debbie Strange, Leah Ann Sullivan, George Swede, Eduard Tara, David Terelinck, Tito (Stephen Henry Gill), Jessica Tremblay, Victoria Vieira, Christine L. Villa, Julie Warther (Schwerin), Michael Dylan Welch, Amy Wells, Neal Whitman, Billie Wilson, Geneviève Wynand, Quendryth Young, Sherry Zhou, and Edward Zuk.
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