JANICE M BOSTOK
PROSE: Short stories; fillers; personal experiences: The Australian Women's Weekly; New Idea; The Secondary Teacher, Victoria; The BGF Bulletin (Banana Industry Journal); Women's Household, USA; The Friendly Way, USA; Holiday, USA; Rockhound, USA; Round the Pond, Romania; Article on HAIKU, Scope Magazine, Australia; Notes on Haiku, HOBO, Australia; Haibun, Famous Reporter, Australia; Book Reviews and Articles on Haiku in The Sting, Newsletter of the Paper Wasp Haiku Group; Reviews in The Australian Multicultural Review; Town & Country Farmer, humorous article.
INTERVIEWS: Queensland State Library, 1996; Yellow Moon Magazine; 1997; The Australian, 3rd March, 2001, The Daily News, Murwillumbah, 13 March, 2001. Radio: ABC FM, ABC local, 5UV Writers Radio, Adelaide and Bay FM, Byron Bay, the Daily News, Murwillumbah, 28th March 2003.
POETRY; AUSTRALIA: Poetry Australia; Makar; Compass; Grapeshot; Khasmik; Saturday Club Book of Poetry; Tweed; The Naked Pomegranate; Stet; Daughters of Aphrodite; Famous Reporter; Hecate; Social Alternatives; Scope; Hobo; Micropress; LiNQ; Centoria, The New England Review, Poetrix, Readers’ World, SideWalk, Salt-lick; Quadrant. And the e-zines: PixelPapers, Retort Magazine, Stylus, Dotlit, Sara Moss's Bottom Drawer Poems.
USA: Special Song; Sunburst; Bardic Echoes; Bitterroot; Janus Scth; Encore; Hyacinths & Biscuits; Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, Haiku West; Haiku Happenings; New World Haiku; Dragonfly; Haiku Highlights; Bonsai; Haiku Magazine; Wind Chimes; Modern Haiku; Mirrors; Lynx; Brussels Sprout; Frogpond; Ant,Ant,Ant,Ant,Ant; White Heron; Heron Quarterly of Haiku and Zen Poetry.
INTERNATIONAL: Azami, Japan; Mainichi Daily News, Japan; Outch, Japan; Poetry Nippon, Japan; YoMiMoNo, Japan; Poet, India; Haiku Byways, England; Blithe Spirit, Presence, Tangled Hair, England; Swarovski Collector, Austria; Wind Song, Canada; Raw Nervz Haiku, Canada; Albatross, Romania (both in English and translated into Romanian); Tomis, Romania (translated into Romanian); Sparrow, Croatia, (both in English and translated into Croatian); WinterSpin, New Zealand; Vuursteen, Holland (both in English and translated into Dutch); FRESH, New Zealand, Nineteen – O – Splash, New Zealand, PoetryNZ, New Zealand.
My haiku have been translated into eight languages.
I have had a number of chapbooks published: On Sparse Brush, Makar Gargoyle Poets Series, UQP, Brisbane, 1978; small haiku books from Snapshots Press in England and Tiny Poems Press in the USA. Recently I had my 'collected haiku works', Amongst The Graffiti,' with a foreword by William J. Higginson published by PostPressed, Brisbane, and I was No. 25 in the Wagtail Poets Series, from Picaro Press in September 2003. I am having a book of tanka poems published by PostPressed in February 2004.
The most notable awards have been for haiku: the Haiku Society of America's Book Award in 1974 for Walking Into The Sun, and in 2003 the Sea Shell's Haiku Award for the most loved haiku written in English, from the UK.
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AFTERMATH OF FLOOD
An image leaves the cane fields on our right
attempting to cross the busy roadway
in the dusk. A silhouette of dark flight,
determined before the light fades. In play
above the dusty lane, legs, tail, lifting;
lifting and flapping upward in strong strokes.
Again and again rising and dropping
it meets its shadow in backlit she-oaks;
seemingly large enough for us to guess:
the wing span of a wedge-tailed eagle.
When our car slows to give it way a less
imposing swamp wallaby — non-regal
disappears into muddy sugar cane.
Its plight leaving us joy mingled with pain.
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OMEN
this morning he places a single day
lily in a squat bulbous vase
an elaborate butterfly paused on
one side of the heavy china base
unable to lift such weights
from my mind with papery wings
the day lily stretches petals
pale yellow into light
its tongue tiny purple dotted
the envy of any orchid as their
days lengthen into weeks
holding proud and formal day
after day
the day lily unable
to last for just one as
short lived as our first born son
unrecognised in past times
the omen haunts me now
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MEASURING TIME
this distance from the dry
centre measures time
water surrounds this
land mass
caressing
lapping
a thousand licking
tongues of desire
on warm days
the gentle swell over
rocks sweeps my thighs
leaves the saltiness
of sweat
each trailing finger-
tip creates a channel
where pelicans glide
on folded wings
trawling for the quick-
silver fishes in my
mind
a flash lightens
the dark surface of night
surprising swift and
true in aim
the blast tearing flesh
smashing ribs
exposed lungs suck at air
drowning as surely
as deep water
can erase memories
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POETS SPEAK
poets speak
of joyfully walking
through woods quietly
sitting in forests
i’m here to tell you my
wood/forest/bush
doesn’t conjure such romantic pictures
the heaviness of german
woods the damp english
forests the dry undergrowth
of australian bush holding
back the lightness of step
the enlightenment of sun
on new leaves
the turn of local seasons where
no mound of earth
covers the burial places
of native animals their dignity
lost by my intrusion
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SONNET FOR A ‘SORRY’ LEGACY
Words unsaid flood the cavern of my mouth
Their silent shout an echo coming down
Through years of long forgotten summer days
The mediocrity unremembered
As less intense passion than the mountain
Peaks and crevices from which we now shrink
For soon our ancient bodies illfitting
As butterfly wing patterns on former
Caterpillars’ smooth skin rippling with hope
Will leave a gene pool for a legacy
Memory inherited by the next
Generation is deeply rooted in
This land of parentage and of carers
So distant from the one we once shared
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SONNET FOR THE ADDICTED
When the mystery of night draws me close
I will happily pass right through your skin
To settle inside your body, a drop
In the long river of your warm blood stream.
I’ll sleep through the secret darkness sheltered
On waves as sea birds rest when far from land
And when dawn vapours lift from the veiled earth
Day will waken in you each tiny cell —
Each limpid pool and its minute movements,
triggering mirrored responses in me.
If I should die, be cast out of your sight,
You will not know to suffer the parting.
Such a small shattering will quickly heal
Leaving no scar to once in a while itch.
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SONNET FOR CREATURES THAT FLY
We lie in wet grasses, sleek and shiny
Feathers which mantle the earth’s ruggedness.
We have known this land for many years;
Its reflection flashing in your dark eyes.
My marrow receives the inner lightning,
Your kiss, salty from the joining of mouths —
The magic windows of our earthly minds,
Through which we ratify our daily love.
Without your presence in our dwelling place
There is nothing: no furniture, no books,
No food, no material treasures held.
All is invisible in your absence.
Your being is voice by which all birds sing;
The feathers enabling them all to fly.
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SONNET FOR A NEW LOVER
My mind, entangled in the day’s web of
Mysteries, stands at the crossroads, rubbing
Against realities. As smoke from a
Distant bushfire is only perceived
By the nostrils, my future is hidden
From sight by the bulk of evergreen trees.
Pieces of perception subtly arrive
When least expected, calmly expecting
Me to accept their deepest sorrows, or
Perhaps joys, almost as hard to contain.
Passing through a frontier of emptiness,
I find everything laid out before me.
When we are kissing my assertions get
Lost somewhere between my mind and my lips.
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AFTERDEATH
sunlight slips behind the city skyline
i wake in a dormitory darkened
by separation from life
dead men rise from their graves
breathing death into screaming mouths
an unseasonal autumn moon
chills puckering skin from bone
the pull of an outgoing tide
wrinkles as certain as does gravity
volplaning above treetops
the air captured between body cells
joins the silent wing beats of owls
searching for prey
the caretaker carefully mows
between headstones
gently pulls the ribbon grass
from between my toes