A gorgeous gibbous moon hangs pearly white, the golden sunset fading over the estuary now. Such is the view from my high window, here on Halkyn Mountain.
Indoors, our small tree twinkles and gleams, a fairy-star on top.
Tomorrow will be Christmas Eve, 2023.
I have a haibun in the December issue of Failed Haiku, a haibun telling a humorous true story from my home life, growing up in a 1950s pit and mill town in Lancashire, England. The issue was edited by Bryan Rickert.
Somehow it feels just right to share my haibun with you this evening, and here it is:
The Wager
.
He had a thing about it, our dad. Not quite a craving perhaps, but not far off. He simply adored Mum’s meat-and-potato pie.
Returning from work on weekdays or relaxing at weekend, nothing quickened Dad’s grin like a steaming meat-and-potato pie for dinner. With salt, pepper and lashings of brown sauce, of course. He claimed he’d never tire of it.
So Mum put him to the test.
“I’ll make you meat-and-potato pie every day for the next fortnight,” she said, “and I’ll bet you won’t want it again for a while.”
When the fortnight was up, she said, “What would you like for dinner, darling?”
He replied, “meat-and-potato pie, please, my dear.”
And we all groaned.
the condiments
of desire
lead many astray
Paul Beech
.
Wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Best wishes also from my partner Maureen Weldon, who often comments on my posts here.
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Hi folks,
Much to my delight, Charlotte Digregorio is today featuring a monoku of mine on her brilliant Daily Haiku blog.
Here’s a link, if you’d care to check it out:
Daily Haiku: Nov. 16, 2023 | Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog (wordpress.com)
Please do!
Best always,
Paul
Hi folks,
Well, despite the dazzling sunrise over the estuary below, it’s a very quiet, still morning here on Halkyn Mauntain, chilly too with intimations of the coming winter, frosty windscreens and roofs on parked cars, etc.
But I have news for you about my debut haikai collection Curlew Sunset published by Cestrian Press.
Charlotte Digregorio, the American author and poet, ran a book announcement about it in a special issue of her brilliant Daily Haiku blog on 10th May 2023. And now the book has been formally launched here in Wales, at the best possible venue, Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden. And what a wonderful event it was, complete with a celebratory cake with the book’s stunning cover photographically reproduced on the icing by a very clever baker.
The event was excellently MC-ed by Kemal Houghton, Chair of Chester Poets and Chair of the Wirral Poetry Festival. Thank you so much, Kemal.
Tom Robinson, the Chester singer-songwriter, was simply wonderful, his songs touching our hearts, especially The World Keeps Turning, so relevant to current conflicts in the news. His two 20-minute sets were a huge success with much whooping and applause from the audience. Huge thanks, Tom.
Four fellow poets, Maureen Weldon (my darling partner), Mike Penney, Peter Jones and Kemal Houghton did 5-minutes readings of their own work, much applauded by the audience. Many thanks to you all.
I followed Tom with two 20-minute readings from my book, realising all over again that in Curlew Sunset, with its ten themed sections, I really have produced a sort of haikai memoir. The applause from the very receptive audience was most heartening.
Finally, another huge thankyou. This time to Caroline (Kemal’s wife) for looking after the book stall so well. All those buying my book wanted me to sign it for them, and it was a pleasure doing so.
.
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Hi folks,
Well, it’s a damp, chilly morning here on Halkyn Mountain, preternaturally quiet with not a bird singing as the sun bores through the overcast to gild the estuary below.
Time I think to share a bit of news with you…
Have a good Sunday, everyone, and take care.
Paul
***
At a meeting of the Chester Poets group some months ago, it was proposed, with my agreement, that I should give a workshop for members on haikai poetry forms. This was approved and the date set for Saturday 19th August.
I’d never given a workshop before but decided immediately that I’d structure it as three modules – (1) Haiku and Senryu, (2) Tanka, and (3) Haibun.
I worked very hard preparing my workshop and decided I’d give a full set of my notes to each attendee, so they wouldn’t need to write copious notes and could take my notes home for future reference.
An excellent venue was found, booked and paid for. This was a community centre in Chester with good parking, a café where I could meet and greet attendees, unisex loos, and a library where I could give my workshop with tea and coffee available throughout. My workshop would begin at 12:30pm and run for four hours, ending at 4:30pm.
The event was well advertised and the list of members signing up for it just kept growing and growing!
Leading the workshop was a great experience and the amazing thing was how enthusiastically the participants tackled the exercises I’d set, with practically every hand shooting up when I asked if anyone would like to read their work back. Much of the work showed promise and some was very good indeed.
It was truly gratifying afterwards when many of the participants came up to tell me how much they’d enjoyed the workshop, some even going so far as to say it was the best workshop they’d ever been to,
I truly hope that I might have helped those serious about writing haikai poetry to produce good publishable work.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Hi folks,
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. And there’s a reason for that – work, work, work!
Firstly, my partner Maureen and I were both on the editorial panel for the forthcoming Chester Poets 50th Anniversary Anthology. Needless to say, practically every member of the Chester Poets group wanted to be in this special anniversary anthology, so we had submissions flooding our inboxes day after day before the deadline. The book is due out on 14th September.
Secondly, I’m due to give a haikai workshop for Chester Poets on Saturday 19th August, and this has required a great deal of preparation.
Anyway, finally clear now, I should like to post my last haibun in which my “Kid Bro” appears. As regular readers of this blog will know, he passed away on Tuesday 18th April. Brian (to use his real name) was not only my brother, he was my best buddie too, and he will forever be in my heart.
My haibun was first published in the November 2022 issue of Failed Haiku, edited by Bryan Rickert.
Have a good Sunday everyone, and take care.
Paul
*****
THE CONTEST
We’ve been many hours on the road. Dad driving, Mum at his side. We three boys in the back. Yes, many long, boring hours…
But now our spirits soar.
We’ve left the grime of our Lancashire mill town behind. The smoke and stench of factory chimneys too.
Now we have a Welsh mountain purple with heather. We have salty sea air. And a first glimpse of the Menai Straights with Anglesey and Puffin Island beyond…
Dusk is falling as we reach the guest house. Penmaenmawr lies below, first lights twinkling.
I help Dad carry our bags in.
adventure books…living the life
Sunrise…
After a leisurely breakfast, we walk into town. Kid Bro and I are with Dad, Mum trailing with Junior.
A sudden bang echoes down the mountain and we freeze on the spot. Dad explains they’re quarrying for granite. He buys Kid Bro a beach-ball and me a crabbing line.
back-alley skiffle…whoops and laughter
Sunset…
Whilst Mum is putting Junior to bed, we older boys walk down to the beach with Dad. And there he teaches us to fling stones so they skip over the tide.
A golden ebb tide it is. And Dad’s first flat stone skips six times. Kid Bro and I manage a miserable two skips each, but we’re determined to beat Dad’s score.
Half an hour later, in the deepening dark, we give up. My best score was three skips, Kid Bro’s four. But there’s always tomorrow…
box brownie days
black-and-white memories
we treasure
Paul Beech
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2022, 2023
Hi folks,
I’m delighted to report that Charlotte Digregorio is featuring a haiku of mine on her brilliant Daily Haiku blog on Friday June 2, 2023. The poem is actually one from my recently published haikai collection Curlew Sunset.
Below is a link, if you’d care to check it out.
Please do!
Daily Haiku: June 2, 2023 | Charlotte Digregorio’s Writer’s Blog (wordpress.com)
My very best,
Paul Beech
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Hi folks,
My debut haikai collection Curlew Sunset, newly published by Cestrian Press, has just been announced by Charlotte Digregorio on her brilliant blog, much to my delight.
Here’s a link, if you’d care to check it out. Please do!
Best always,
.
Paul Beech
Hi folks,
It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here on Halkyn Mountain, the estuary below winking gold in the risen sun, woodpigeons calling joyfully. Yet the news I must impart, I do so with a heavy heart.
My brother Brian, two years my junior, and often referred to in my haibun as “Kid Bro”, died in a hospice in the early hours of Tuesday 18th April 2023. He’d been suffering Alzheimer’s, that cruellest disease, for many years, having once been a brilliant inventor in the television field.
I posted the following rather poignant tanka here on 25th September last year, but now wish to post it again. I wrote it after visiting Brian at the care home he was in down in Hampshire. It was published in the August 2022 issue of Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society edited by Caroline Skanne.
Tanka
.
wrapped in a blanket
against the spring chill
my brother sips sweet tea
i sing a song from childhood
and his eyes meet mine
.
Paul Beech
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2022, 2023
Hi folks,
It’s a rather damp grey morning here on Halkyn Mountain. But gazing out over the estuary just now, my thoughts turned to tanka.
And below is one of mine. It was published in the November 2022 issue of Blithe Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society, edited by Iliyana Stoyanova.
Have a good Sunday everyone, and take care.
Paul
***
.
Tanka
.
ebb tide …
I skip over runneled sand
following the sun-path
oystercatchers
at my shoulder
.
Paul Beech
.
Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Hi folks,
As I begin this post, the dawn, in bars of gold, green and mauve, reflects on the estuary below our Halkyn Mountain home. And all is still, save for a solitary woodpigeon calling.
You’d think it would be calling for haiku, as these focus on nature. But no, this woodpigeon is curious about human nature, so it will be a few of my senryu I post this morning.
Have a good Sunday, everyone, and take care,
Paul
***
Senryu by Paul Beech
.
spreadsheets…
I lace my coffee
with cognac
.
(Published in Failed Haiku, vol 7, Issue 81, 01/09/22. Editor: Bryan Rickett)
.
ostracised I change my will
.
(Published in Blo͞o Outlier Journal, Issue 4, the senryu special, 31/12/22. Editors: Alan Summers and Pippa Phillips)
.
visiting a care home
I discover
my singing voice
.
(Published in Failed Haiku, vol 8, Issue 85, 01/01/23. Editors: Arvinder Kaur and Hafsa Ashraf)
.
an old ID badge my long-forgotten beard
.
the memory stick
my past life lies
in ambush
.
(Both published in Failed Haiku, Vol 8, Issue 86, 01/02/23. Editor: Michael Henry Lee)
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Copyright © Paul Beech 2023
Grandy's Landing 