Q and A with Owen Bullock
March 2013
Q & A with Owen Bullock)
1) Do you think your haiku are somehow different from those written by other haiku poets around us? If so, what exactly are the differences, and where do you think they come from?
I think my haiku are a bit quirky. There’s a lot of humour in my work and people tend to say that I have an unusual way of looking at the world. Some find them odd but, for me, unless they evoke something new, they’re a waste of time. Probably the fact that I work in many genres helps me stay fresh.
2) In this connection, what are the things you have in mind when you compose your haiku?
I don’t have anything in mind when I compose haiku; they come to me. When I’m editing them, I have in mind to make them as concise as possible, to make sure there’s a moment there, or to ensure that I haven’t myself read something too similar in the past, in which case I throw them away.
3) Who, and what have influenced your haiku? From whom have you learnt it mainly? And who are your favourite haiku poets, modern and ancient?
Early on, Martin Lucas helped me most of all. I repeatedly asked him for feedback when I was first sending to Presence, the magazine he edits. His comments had a great impact on me, and I still consider Presence to be extremely important. In New Zealand, the work of Catherine Mair and John O’Connor inspired me. Elsewhere, George Swede and John Barlow have been fine examples. The anthology Modern Japanese Haiku by Makoto Ueda had a significant effect in terms of possibilities for haiku. I tend to prefer very minimalist work or haiku which have philosophical depth; to that latter end, Basho keeps reappearing.
4) You have written poems, fictions etc. apart from haiku. How do haiku differ to you from these other genres?
I write haiku when I’m feeling more balanced in my life. When I’m disturbed by some strong emotion I write longer poems. Obviously, tanka can be emotional, too, but sometimes writing them is interchangable with haiku. I write fiction when I have a story in mind, or when I want to explore prose aesthetically – this is also a kind of poetry. I write haibun when I travel, or when collaborating. My longer poems have been described as semiotic in technique.
Each form is a mode for me, and attempting whichever mode I feel like is part of the richness of life. One of my early ambitions was to publish a book in as many different genres as possible. So far, I’ve published five books, in four genres (poetry, haiku (2), fiction and academic), and several chapbooks (which take in haibun and spiritual writing). Often, readers in one genre are unaware of my work in another form.
5) How did you discover haiku, or haiku you, in the first place?
I first started writing haiku and tanka after reading WinterSPIN in 1999 (this is the magazine that later became Kokako). I published my first pieces the following year in WinterSPIN and tangled hair. My first haibun was published in Stylus in 2003. This felt a disproportionately huge achievement to me as I viewed (and perhaps still view) haibun as the most difficult form.
6) Do you prefer haiku to tanka? Or, are they just different?
At the moment I prefer reading haiku, and I don’t write as many tanka as a I did a few years ago. Essentially they are just different, but the particular challenge of haiku seems to reap greater rewards for me just now.
7) Are you very highly enthusiastic about haiku (mad, hooked, crazy, addicted, short of being fanatic), or is haiku a cool friend for you (i.e. Though mobilising all your passion, inspiration and sensibility and having your creative juice under control, you do not get carried away as if haiku is something like a religion or drug)?
Somewhere between the two. Haiku excites me because it seems able to achieve such huge effects with little output. But haiku isn’t quite a religion or drug, partly because of the peacefulness that surrounds my experience of it. Haiku is a tremendous gift that humanity has evolved and given to itself. I find that audiences respond unexpectedly well to haiku at readings, even when they are unfamiliar with them; this delights me.
8) In addition to the haiku you have submitted for the next issue of WHR, will you please send me (a) other haiku of yours which have appeared in WHR and (b) other haiku (20~30 of them) which you yourself feel went well (i.e. the best), including but not exclusively those which have either won some prize or published in leading haiku magazines?
a) Owen Bullock’s haiku in World Haiku Review:
already morning
cicadas
stridulate
Merit, Neo-Classical, Oct 2008
sunny day –
why not get
the divorce papers?
1st Place, Vanguard, Oct 2008
reprinting the thesis
leaving the mistakes
in
Honourable Mention, Vanguard, Oct 2008
an ant
carrying one of the ants
that didn’t make it
Merit, Shintai, March 2009
we go halves
on the cost
of the divorce
Honourable Mention, Vanguard, March 2009
moving day –
the last wardrobe
his son’s dresses
Honourable Mention, Vanguard, March 2009
the sky
and all of the lake
in the lake
Merit, Shintai, Aug 2009
a butterfly
bangs into my head –
summer’s en
Merit, Neo-Classical, Aug 2011
long after
the bell stops
I hear it
Honourable Mention, Shintai, Aug 2011
park bench
she puts acorns
in his ears
Merit, Neo-Classical, Dec 2011
little noise he makes
before he rings the bell
is the bell
Menit, Shintai, Dec 2011
first light
I have to let go
of yesterday
Honourable Mention, Vanguard, Dec 2011
your hips sway
as you cut the bread –
late supper
Merit, Vanguard, Dec 2011
your white legs
on a summer’s day
Merit, Shintai, Dec 2012
watering
the zen garden
with water
2nd Place, Vanguard, Dec 2012
he discovers
a periwinkle on the beach
but not himself
Honorable Mention, Vanguard, Dec 2012
the cloud
has swallowed
the artist’s palette
Merit, Vanguard, Dec 2012
if I don’t
pick this flower it has
a few days more
Merit, Vanguard, Dec 2012
Collaborative haibun with Patricia Prime were also published in April and December 2012.
b) Owen Bullock’s haiku in other publications/competitions
years later
off the pier
the same few boys fishing
3rd Prize, New Zealand Poetry Society International Haiku Competition, 2001
waiting . . .
a leaf falls
into my lap
The Heron’s Nest, IV:4, 2002
into the stillness
a neighbour shovels
gravel
Presence #17, 2002
my shadow could be anyone
Presence #18, 2002
ex-junkie
two bags
in his teacup
Frogpond XXV:3, 2002
leading the way
the dog trots
slightly sideways
Presence #20, 2003
beneath the waves
a vision
of the womb
bottle rockets #15, 2006
late night
at the pub
comparing thumbs
Presence #29, 2006
me
& the cows
backs to the wind
Presence #31, 2007
dawn –
the smoke alarm
blinks
Presence #38, 2009
another love
that doesn’t work out –
he cleans the kettle
Magnapoets #4, 2009
an ambulance
fades with the distance . . .
sometimes . . .
Commended, NZPS International Haiku Competition, 2009
waterfowl
drift into
photos
Co-winner, 11th Haiku International Association Contest, 2009
Graduation Day –
a former Prime Minister addresses me
at the urinal
Kokako 12, 2010
the wave
travelling backwards
on the wave
2nd Prize, 5th Kokako Haiku and Senryu Competition, 2010
shadows
on the chess board
becoming fewer
moonset 6:1, 2010
city dump
a little boy finds
an old speech bubble
Presence #41, 2010
life alone
licking
the ladle
The Heron’s Nest XII:3, September, 2010
midnight
the silence
of this wall
Presence #43, 2011
meditation –
the dent in the monk’s
head
The Heron’s Nest XIII:1, March, 2011
log split
a moth
flies out
The Heron’s Nest XIII:2, June, 2011
after all these years
bent with longing
I assume
the half lotus
A Hundred Gourds 1:1, December, 2011
a green balloon
floats east
down the Liffey
3rd Prize, Kusamakura International Haiku Competition, 2011
even now I decide
not to cross out
mother’s number
paper wasp 17:4, 2011
two attempts
at the trouser leg
New Year’s Day
The Heron’s Nest XIV:1, March 2012
once again
the sea has removed the names
from the sand
paper wasp 18:1, 2012
getting younger
with each day that passes
river’s edge
Kokako 17, 2012
changing my status to donor
a tick
in a box
paper wasp 18:4, 2012
winter light –
how long have I been driving
in the wrong gear?
Finalist, Janice M Bostok Haiku Award, 2012
on the piano
photos of the ones
who don’t visit
Highly Commended, Irish Haiku Association
Competition, 2012
9) A brief account of yourself: where you were born and brought up (I used to know Colin Wilson in St. Austell), why or how you moved to NZ, what you have been doing, what you are now doing, your daily life, hobby, family etc..
I was born in St Austell, Cornwall, and grew up in the tiny hamlet of Greensplat in the middle of the China Clay country. I started writing poetry and songs aged 14. I fell in love with Shakespeare at school; I read the complete poems of Thomas Hardy when I was 16, and local poet Jack Clemo. I never knew that Clemo lived less that two miles from me, but I wouldn’t have known what to say to him as a teenager as I was very withdrawn and he was deaf and blind. Later I was influenced by Dylan Thomas, and I moved to Wales when I was 20 and started a family soon afterwards. Two years later (in 1989), I came to New Zealand with my ex-wife, who is a kiwi. We had two more children; being a father has been a vital and powerful aspect of my life.
The first New Zealand poet to influence me was James K. Baxter (who I’d read before I came to NZ). After talking with Alistair Paterson, editor of Poetry NZ, I immersed myself in contemporary New Zealand poetry and became inolved through submissions of my own work and editing magazines. Alistair has had more effect on me than everyone else put together, through his insistence on rigorous editing and his drive to continue to explore the potential of poetry.
My favourite jobs have been daffodil-picker, busker and creative writing teacher. I teach at present and do some freelance editing and caregiving work for the Salvation Army. It’s a strange mixture and changing hats often seems tiring, but it’s rewarding, too.
I enjoy music, especially jamming with friends, and juggling. My partner recently described me as a sunflower. She likens life, too, to this great bloom. Each thing we do is one petal of the flower, and there’s much to be experienced in each aspect of life.