



Thankyou for the Haiku poems in the last week. We will take a break from the different types of poetry this week and call for poems on the Commonwealth Games.
Prompt: Commonwealth Games 2018
Go Aussies

Please Email poems to:
poemoftheday.jaxton@gmail.com
Cheers
Jeanie
And today’s quote:

soccer pitch
the border collie running
in circles
Tristan Barclay (Winner of an international children’s haiku competition 2018)

Teacher Notes:
Please have a look at this wonderful resource:
Click to access learning-to-write-haiku-a-teachers-guide-k-raine.pdf
Haiku: A Japanese poem traditionally evoking images of the natural world.
Vanessa Proctor President of the Australian Haiku Society sent through information on Haiku poetry. I would have instructed you all in the 5/7/5 way it is taught in schools however that is not really correct. Please read below and have a look at the article by Sharon Dean and link to the Haiku society.
Article by Sharon Dean: http://ssoa.com.au/haiku-shakes-off-syllable-myth/
The haiku definition by the Haiku Society of America is a good read to gain an understanding of Haiku.
http://www.hsa-haiku.org/archives/HSA_Definitions_2004.html
HAIKU
Definition: A haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition.
Notes: Most haiku in English consist of three unrhymed lines of seventeen or fewer syllables, with the middle line longest, though today’s poets use a variety of line lengths and arrangements. In Japanese a typical haiku has seventeen “sounds” (on) arranged five, seven, and five. (Some translators of Japanese poetry have noted that about twelve syllables in English approximates the duration of seventeen Japanese on.) Traditional Japanese haiku include a “season word” (kigo), a word or phrase that helps identify the season of the experience recorded in the poem, and a “cutting word” (kireji), a sort of spoken punctuation that marks a pause or gives emphasis to one part of the poem. In English, season words are sometimes omitted, but the original focus on experience captured in clear images continues. The most common technique is juxtaposing two images or ideas (Japanese rensô). Punctuation, space, a line-break, or a grammatical break may substitute for a cutting word. Most haiku have no titles, and metaphors and similes are commonly avoided. (Haiku do sometimes have brief prefatory notes, usually specifying the setting or similar facts; metaphors and similes in the simple sense of these terms do sometimes occur, but not frequently. A discussion of what might be called “deep metaphor” or symbolism in haiku is beyond the range of a definition. Various kinds of “pseudohaiku” have also arisen in recent years; see the Notes to “senryu”, below, for a brief discussion.)
There are lots of examples of haiku and discussion on the Australian Haiku Society website
https://australianhaikusociety.org/
Here are four examples of Haiku from Vanessa:
harvest moon
the rattle of possums
on the roof
Friday afternoon
above the rush hour traffic
racing pigeons
summer heat
a lorikeet sips nectar
from the flame tree
summer twilight
kangaroos boxing
on the golf course
How about giving it a try?
Please Email poems to:
poemoftheday.jaxton@gmail.com
And today’s quote:

This weeks prompt is Australian Animals. See what you have or can come up with. Funny or serious? There is a lot of poems out there about kangaroos. How about choosing an unusual Australian animal to write about?
Have a look at these 8 to get you thinking: My favourite is The Yoda Bat.
Looking forward to your contributions.
Please send to: poemoftheday.jaxton@gmail.com
Cheers
Jeanie
And today’s quote:

Good Morning,
As we head towards Australia Day I would love you to submit poetry you have written with an Australian theme and as we head towards Valentines Day in Feb I would love to have poems on the theme of Love. Now if you can combine Australia and Love you have a winner!
But “I love a sunburnt country” has been taken. (insert laugh here)
More details will follow weekly.
Please send to:
Thankyou
Jeanie
And this weeks quote:

MJ Bush is a full-time writing coach, editor, and fantasy writer.
Now we are in December let’s get Christmas Poems out there. There are only a few weeks of school left this year depending on which state you are in and I’m sure teachers would appreciate great Christmas poems to read to their students. We will continue this prompt up to Christmas.
Thankyou
Looking forward to your contributions.
Please send to: poemoftheday.jaxton@gmail.com
And this weeks quote after going to see “The man who invented Christmas” the story behind Dickens “A Christmas Carol” novel

This week’s prompt which may grow wings and go for a fortnight is “A Dedication Poem”
This can be any poem you have written or a new one you are writing and you have a person or animal in mind when you wrote/write the poem.
You can write who the dedication is for and sent a photo if you want or keep that part private.
Looking forward to your contributions.
Please send to: poemoftheday.jaxton@gmail.com
And this weeks quote:

William Wordsworth was an English romantic poet
Warm And Fluffy
The animals have hairy fur.
The birds have got their feathers.
These keep their bodies warm enough
throughout the chilly weather.
The fibres in those fluffy coats
criss-cross to form some air-holes
that can’t escape or waft away
because of all the hair-folds.
Their skin gives off some body-warmth.
Just like a radiator.
Their fluffy coats help keep that heat
as thermal insulators.
The warm air’s trapped inside the fur
to shield them from the outside.
The way that blankets on a bed
are cosy on the inside.
But if that fluffy coat gets wet
those air-holes fill with water.
Their body’s warmth escapes as that
wet coat’s a heat conductor.
The soggy fur clings to their skin.
No longer insulated.
And water makes their body cold
as it’s evaporated.
Any fluffy animal will
shake that water well away.
So if your puppy’s had a swim …
Watch-out for all that water spray!
When it comes to having a fluffy coat, it’s a good idea to shaking off any water, so as not to get cold. Dogs are the best shakers! I love the sound of their lips and soggy ears slapping their head as they do it.
by Celia Berrell

This week due to an incredible response we will continue for one more week.
“Fur, Feathers and Fins”
These three words are stretching into three great weeks. On 25th of October we had 998 views to this site. Please keep emailing people the link to get the word out there.
This weeks quote to ponder on:

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was a poet and civil rights activist who wrote seven autobiographies
Regards
Jeanie