Nola Borrell, at sundry times parent, teacher, sociologist, researcher, counsellor and volunteer, has had haiku and other forms of poetry published in New Zealand and overseas since the mid 1990s.

She has won various awards in competitions, including 2nd in the Robert Speiss Award, 2009; and 2nd= in the Haiku Presence Award, 2008. Nola co-edited the 2008 national haiku anthology, the taste of nashi, with Karen Peterson Butterworth, and judged the junior section of the NZPS International Haiku competition in 2008. Nola co-organised the first NZ haiku festival in 2005 with Karen and the late Jeanette Stace. She is convener of Windrift Haiku Group of Wellington and a member of Zazen, an email workshop.

In 2013 she published waking echoes, a collection of her haiku. Contact Nola.

adult walk
a skip
in the child’s step

this wide sky
    in the grass
    a thrush’s broken egg

 

waking echoes the piping of pied oystercatchers

 

night storm
her waters 
                         break

 
twilight
a tui mimics
a tui

 

exhibit
the tuatara stares
at the class

 
cold wind
every oystercatcher
headless

 
cathedral tour
the locals
keep praying

 
daybreak
the baby’s first cry
drowned by thunder

 

old dance floor
               the piano ivories 
               lifting

Publication notes:

adult walk: Modern Haiku (US) Vol. 40.2; 2nd, Robert Speisss Award, 2009.

this wide sky: Presence 37.2 (UK); 2nd= Haiku Presence Award, 2008; a runner-up, The Haiku Calendar Competition 2009; The Haiku Calendar, 2010 (Snapshot Press).

waking echoes: Presence 42, 2010.

night storm: Before the Sirocco (NZ Poetry Society anthology) 2008; Commended NZPS International Haiku Contest 2008.

twilight: First, Katikati Haiku Contest, 2006.

exhibit: tiny gaps (NZPS Anthology) 2006.

cold wind: The Enormous Picture (NZPS Anthology) 2004; The Haiku Calendar, 2005.

cathedral tour: across the fingerboards (NZPS Anthology) 2010.

daybreak: Before the Sirocco; Commended NZPS International Haiku Contest 2008.

old dance floor: Kokako 11 (NZ) 2009 (from a haibun, Pigeon Bay).