NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

This excellent journal began its life in 1999 as two large folded paper sheets, printed on all sides in bold type, with a simple but attractive layout. Back in 2000 I gave the February issue a good review — full of evocative, finely wrought poems, it deserved it.

That early 'Heron' has really spread its wings. It is now a splendid publication of 181 pages — success indeed. Each season is represented by the editors' selection of the best haiku/senryu from past issues. I cannot claim that the four poems I'm about to quote represent the best in the book — how could I when it contains hundreds of good poems. They are, though, delicately in tune with their particular season.

	gone then?
	cherry petals fall away
	in the rain

	Paul O. Williams

		hay bailer —
		in its wake, a swathe
		of cricket song

		Margaret Chula

	drifting leaves
	the postman
	stops to talk

	Grant Savage

		frost moon
		a dented nail head
		catches the light

		Tony Beyer

THE HERON'S NEST, VOLUME VII, is a must for students of haiku, and any reader who has a passion for poetry.

This is the bumper annual print edition of the four 2006 online issues, together with awarded haiku (and commentaries) from each issue and overall. We are talking here of hundreds of haiku. Such a vast amount of poems, and related writing, leads understandably to a numbing of reaction and appreciation, just too much of a good thing, but here are four excellent pieces, one from each issue, by Marie Summers, Jacek Margolak, Colin Stewart Jones and Curtis Dunlap, chosen as distinctive yet representative samples:

	crescent moon
	the smooth curves
	of her headstone

		empty platform—
		my shadow grows longer
		waiting for you

	spring afternoon
	her buttocks peek out
	from my shirt

		after the burial...
		my father's smile
		on so many faces

	summer morning
	squeak
	of the bicycle seat

	my key
	turns in the lock
	lilac scent

		summer moon
		her eyelashes touch
		the telescope lens