SMILING CRICKET HAIKU

27 March 2020

razigran

usred suhe trave

plamen vatre

playful

amidst dry grass

a flame

“The Mamba” Journal of Africa Haiku Network, March 2020

BIOGRAPHY

DEJAN PAVLINOVIĆ, born in 1968, is an English and German teacher, part-time tour guide and member of the indie band The Chweger from Pula, Croatia. He serves on the Iris haiku magazine editorial staff, and he is the founding editor of the Haiku HR Facebook page. He has been writing haiku since 2007. His haiku poems have been published in Croatia and abroad, awarded and commended on Croatian and international haiku competitions (Kusamakura Haiku Competition, ITOEN, Vladimir Devide Award, The Betty Drevniok Award, Mainichi Haiku Contest, Vancouver Cherry Blossom, Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum Haiku Contest, R.H. Blyth Award, Santoka Haiga Contest, Ukiah Haiku Festival, Sōka Matsubara International Haiku Contest...). He is also published in various national and international haiku magazines, newspapers, websites and anthologies (Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Blithe Spirit, Presence, IRIS haiku magazine, The Haiku Foundation, Chrysanthemum, Seashores, Senryu To, World Haiku Review, NHK TV Haiku Masters, Poetry Pea Podcast, A Hundred Gourds, The Asahi Shimbun, UnderTheBasho, The Mamba, Failed Haiku, Ephemerae, Cattails, Wales Haiku Journal, Blo͞o Outlier Journal, Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, My Haiku Pond, World Haiku, Scarlet Dragonfly, Sketchbook...). When not being captured by his family, work, travel, sea, sun, music, football and other blessings, Dejan occasionally publishes his haiku both in English and Croatian on his SMILING CRICKET HAIKU BLOG. In 2016 he published his first book, ''MLIJEČNOM STAZOM - DOWN THE MILKY WAY'', a collection of haiku poetry written in both Croatian and English (foreword and afterword by Jane Reichhold and Djurdja Vukelic Rozic, and blurbs by George Swede and Chen-ou Liu). In 2021 he published ''NEXUS HAIKU'', a co-authored and co-created bilingual collection of haiku, senryu, haiku sequences and rengay, where all poems were composed equally and collaboratively during a period of three years by Michael Dudley, Tomislav Maretić and Dejan Pavlinović.

''MLIJEČNOM STAZOM - DOWN THE MILKY WAY'' is Pavlinović's first haiku collection and it contains 100 of his haiku poems from a period of 2007-2016, including those published, awarded and commended ones on various competitions. The book is entirely bilingual (Croatian and English) since he writes and publishes in both languages. The foreword was written by the eminent American author and theorist of haiku poetry and other short Japanese forms, Jane Reichhold. The afterword was written by Djurdja Vukelic Rozic, one of the leading poets and promoters of haiku poetry in Croatia and its wider region. Respectable and awarded authors George Swede and Chen-ou Liu contributed with their short blurbs. The book received excellent reviews, among others also in notable haiku magazines, such as BLITHE SPIRIT (the official journal of the British Haiku Society), FROGPOND (the official journal of the Haiku Society of America) and the Japanese haiku magazine SENRYU TO.

''NEXUS HAIKU'' is a co-authored and co-created bilingual (English and Croatian) collection of haiku, senryu, haiku sequences and rengay. All poems were composed equally and collaboratively during a period of three years by Michael Dudley, Tomislav Maretić and Dejan Pavlinović. Working co-operatively together on the poems created an ebb-and-flow process that allowed continual opportunities for organic expressions of complementary energies; complexities of ideas; shifts of perspectives; and juxtapositions of personal and cultural experiences, perceptions, and memories. The 120 pages of the book have been enriched with Sanela Pliško's foreword and Nina Šestanović's illustrations, as well as blurbs written by Gilles Fabre and Đurđa Vukelić Rožić. The authors of NEXUS haiku are established haiku poets whose haiku poems have been awarded and commended in many Canadian, Croatian and international competitions, and have been published in numerous national and international haiku magazines, newspapers, websites and anthologies. NEXUS haiku is the winner of the 2021 Borivoj Bukva Award for best haiku collection published in Croatia, presented by the Croatian Literary Society.

27 March 2020

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