NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

This is a twice yearly magazine of haiku, tanka, haibun and related poetry. It is nicely laid out and includes a good selection of single poems and sequences, interspersed with the occasional black and white illustration. This issue includes a special section of humorous poetry, quite a novel concept when applied to haiku!

My favourite poems in this publication were the sequences. For example Tony Beyer's TROPICBIRD, full of sun and birds, with the lovely:

	the islands
	a shape 
	in the mind
	frangipani petals
	floating on a rain pond.

	ii.
	The tea tree shimmers
	flurry of a tambourine
	What else do we know?
	Absence. The spring of the branch
	where a kereru left off....

This issue also includes reviews and an appreciation of the haiku poet Jerry Kilbride, who died in 2005, leaving a legacy of wonderful haiku such as this one:

	silent night
	the singing hands 
	of the deaf child.

Kokako 6 is a fun-to-read well-produced 52-page booklet of haiku, tanka, haibun and related genre and hails from the land of the long white cloud and the kiwi fruit. Its main editor is Patricia Prime.

This edition contains the result of the 1st Kokako Tanka Competition together with a judge's report from co-editor Owen Bullock.

Of the 234 tanka submitted to the contest 27 are published in the results pages. Another 50 or so were felt to be of publishable worth. A testament, says Bullock, to the quality of work on offer.

Sifting through the highly commended I've chosen a couple of epicurean fancies of my own; New Zealand's Bernard Gadd penned:

	you feed the horses
	admire long delicate lips
	your back is warm
	I slip an apple slice 
	between your teeth

	my love whistles
	a light-hearted ditty,
	baking shrimp
	for our meal at midnight —
	because sometimes we must eat

	a seagull
	is here, its sound
	is there

There's another interesting Kokako contest to enter. This time round it's for haiku and senryu. The closing date is simple enough to remember for it's 31st October 2007; just think of those shadows and pumpkins and things going bump in the night.

To sum up:

	good quality,
	enthusiastic team,
	great fun!

KOKAKO 7 is a straightforwardly crafted journal of haiku, tanka, haibun and similar forms, published twice annually. It has a chapbook format, and consists of forty-eight pages of text. There is only one illustration — a monochrome cover painting by A. Batchelor. Besides the poems, there is also a one-page editorial, three book reviews, and an advertisement for an upcoming poetry contest. KOKAKO 7 is edited by Owen Bullock and Patricia Prime.

I found it slightly puzzling that there is no guidance given about the roughly sixty contributors, some of whom are represented by a single poem, others by several. Authors of several poems often have work appearing at different locations within the journal's pages. This arrangement seems to be based entirely upon a preference for keeping poems of a single genre grouped together — though why there is a need for this is unclear, and it might be equally illuminating to see all of a contributor's work in one place. This aspect — and the lack of recognition afforded to contributors — when combined with the slightly inexplicable eulogy offered on pp41-42 (the appropriateness of which I wouldn't presume to question) gives the publication a slightly inward-looking feel. For example, the identity of the haiku-poet eulogised is likely to be obscure to most readers outside the writing circle named therein, and some explanation might be offered.

These criticisms aside, there are many poems in KOKAKO 7 which make it well-worth reading. Some, like this one by Marie Summers, are seductive and poised:

	leaves too small
	to cup rainwater ...
	spring dusk

	group photo
	you
	you
	you you

	midday shimmer
	the elderly umpire
	closes one eye

	a watermelon
	under each of my arms —
	rumbles of thunder

	sunshine
	my child finds the blue
	in a crow's feather