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Well into the future, the year 2020 will need no introduction. Like every legendary age that preceded it, 2020 will go down as a larger than life, deeply transformative time that puts every other calendar year with a dark story to tell in the shade – especially for those who lived through it. Covid-19 shocked, rearranged and reinvented the world. Things we took for granted became nuggets of irrational desire – like going to the movies, having dinner out, visiting our mums and dads, and toilet paper!
More than any city in the country, Melbourne bore the brunt of the metamorphic shock of the global pandemic. Two lockdowns, one lasting 4 months, are testament to that. Collateral damage of the Covid-19 pandemic included the 2020 AFL season. Border closures and quarantine regulations posed the biggest threat to the completion of a VFL/AFL season since WW2. For the first time in history, football was played in front of no crowds, with not a single game (including the Grand Final!) played in Melbourne after Round 5. Bubbles, hubs, quarantine breaches and the permutations of rolling fixtures and shortened quarters dominated the back pages as we sat on the edge of our couches, crossing our fingers for a meaningful, if not satisfactory resolution to a season no one had anticipated.
With the grand final wrenched away from Melbourne, and with much of the country forced to watch it from their living rooms, it was always going to be a different day. For everyone, including haiku poets entering the 9th running of the Grand Final Haiku Kukai, it was a time of curious anticipation. In true form, they rose to the challenge.
In the days leading up to the game, haiku poets reflected on the poignancy of the event:
as two thirty nears ghost siren over Punt Rd my bones feel the roar
Amanda Collins
grand final parade pigeons strut through the mall
Myron Lysenko
Grand Final— yellow and black daisies on my brother’s grave
Mary Stone
The afternoon of the first night grand final – bugger all to do
Clem Byard
grand final day not at mum’s
Glenn Harper
grand final day the MCG fills with seagulls
Louise Hopewell
MCG a lone seagull looks for a chip
Jeanie Axton
Here near St Kilda I don’t hear any neighbours barracking at all
Hamish Danks Brown
Some of our haiku poets follow the footy as much, if not more, than the average supporter, and engaged in some of the pre-game banter of the build-up with their uniquely fanatical and humorous offerings:
Eastern Standard Time – Pop go the Pies in Gabba Bubble
Bill Wootton
Something in the air – Tom Hawkins denies it
Bill Wootton
Late change AFL rethinks presenting premiers with Cartier watches
Michael Potter
smoke and lasers the singer’s single hit
Glenn Harper
But it’s in the clinches where all haiku poets worth their salt belong, and from the first bounce to the last, they put their heads over the ball and produced the most prolific performance in the 9-year history of this event to date. This year’s kukai generated 450 haiku in total including 330 during the game itself – approximately 3-4 per minute. A blistering pace. The highlights reel is below.
As usual, a huge thanks goes out to the poets all over the country and beyond. It was another cracking kukai. ‘Til next year at the ‘G (hopefully).
– Rob Scott (aka Haiku Bob)
playing her role from the toss of the coin lady luck
Simon Hanson
Geelong kicks one way Ablett’s shoulder goes the other
Rob Scott
each man has four shadows- first quarter
Jade Pisani
first goal all the cat’s eyes look away
Ron C. Moss
lip reading… smooth flow of epithets
Madhuri Pillai
balmy in Queensland you’d think the pitch invaders would discard their clothes
Kim Jeffs
quarter time – more sausage rolls than the scoreboard
Glenn Harper
it’s an even game the lagging Facebook refresh and my vodka brain
Derek Begg
Second quarter – Cats give the goal posts a good spray
Jen Worthington
who scored that goal? I find the replay in a haiku
Myron Lysenko
my lover and the football blue sky danger
Alan Summers
half time . . . all the haiku poets kicking goals
Ron C. Moss
Game to be won Danger and Dusty move forward
Ian Gostelow
go kukai poets final half of footy to find the goals
Ross Coward
momentum change – she says its over
Glenn Harper
sexting all of a sudden it’s close
Bee Jay
one-man supporter painted in the colours of the losing team
Adjei Agyei-Baah
Spellcheck hates Riewoldt Like, seriously hates him Wonder if he knows?
Ivana Dash
on the sidelines Annastacia Palaszczuk stifles a yawn
Kim Jeffs
A neighbour cheering or is it because Uber Eats has just arrived?
Hamish Danks Brown
spring moon – the bald head of Ablett still centre stage
Rob Scott
tv free house celebrating neighbours are my final siren
Lucy Annicka Lysenko
________________________________________________
Rob Scott’s report reprinted from the Australian Haiku Society webpage:
On a glorious winter’s day, 5th August, 2020, in Perth, Western Australia, I contemplated the healing power of the sun as it entered my study windows through thin vertical blinds. Outside, the succulents were busy showing off their light and shade, their colour and variation; inside, I was preparing for the two hour Paperbark Haiku Zoom Winter Ginko gathering.
To Helen Davison for winning First place in the annual Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Award hosted by The Heron’s Nest and judged this year by Susan Antolin with:
police siren—
a swarm of moths
flat on the wall
Helen Davison
All the selections and judge’s comments can be read here.
Quendryth Young has generously supplied some context to the writing of this haiku…
Born 1952 to Ukrainian parents Stepan and Eugenia in Heyfield, Victoria, Australia. Lives in Woodend, Victoria. Has two daughters, Lucy and Zaidee.
Myron began writing haiku and senryu in the late 1990s. He is the Victorian Representative for the Australian Haiku Society. He is also a member of Melbourne based haiku group Fringe Myrtles, led by Rob Scott.
He has published seven books of poetry, the latest two of haiku/senryu. His small poems have appeared in several hundreds of journals and anthologies worldwide.
PUBLISHED BOOKS: Coughing with Confidence 1998 SoftManCon Canberra Australia Pets & Death & Indoor Plants 1991 Penguin Books Melbourne Australia Winning and Losing 1998 Hit & Miss Brunswick Australia I’m Ukrainian, Mate 2002 Alternativy Kiev Ukraine Winning and Losing Again 2005 Flat Chat Press Greensborough Australia a rosebush grabs my sleeve 2005 Flat Chat Press Melbourne Australia a ghost gum leans over 2021 Flying Island Books Macao SAR
Editor/compiler: Going Down Swinging 1 -15 1980-95 Hit & Miss Prod. Coburg Victoria Cleeland’s Living Poets Society 1989 Cleeland Press Dandenong Victoria Poets and Other Endangered 1992 Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Victoria I thought it was safe 1996 Eastern Riverina Arts Wagga Wagga NSW Shots from the Chamber 2016 Pomonal Publishing Stawell Victoria
Myron is a publisher and editor in partnership with Kevin Brophy of the small press publishing house Hit & Miss Productions. They co-founded the literary journal GOING DOWN SWINGING which was first published in 1980 in Coburg Australia.
Hit & Miss mainly publish chapbooks and their author list includes Dan Disney, Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M Whelan, Angela Costi, Nolan Tyrrell, Myron Lysenko, Mary Stone, Ben Oost and Tracey McGuire.
Myron is the leader of poetry and music band Black Forest Smoke, resident band at the monthly poetry readings in Woodend Victoria titled Chamber Poets. The band released a limited edition 5 track EP It’s Alright 2017.
