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On 24th Jan 2008 I received this e-mail from Japan. It awoke a lot of nostalgia.

Dear Dr Keith,
I have been writing a documentary in Japanese on a Japanese bimonthly haiku magazine since 2004. I am going to publish it both in Japanese and in English after I finish it. It is about the history of the post-war haiku movement and the children’s world haiku contest being promoted by JAL and JAL Foundation.
I would like to introduce you in this documentary as the first prize winner of “Guardian Haiku Competiotion” held in 1967. So would you please answer to the following questions?

1. What was the motive to participate in the competition?
2. Who picked up the following winning haiku for the apply, you yourself or your girl friend? I was once told by professor Sato your girl friend did? Is it true?

Evening rain-mist,
two larches stand on the hill,
somewhere a cuckoo …

3.You were given two around-the world tickets as the prize. With whome did you enjoy the 15days travel? Your girl friend?
4. When did you come to Japan? What was your impression at that time? How did you spend the days in Japan?
5.I was once told that you married with the girl friend. Is that true?
6.You have become to send your haiku to the haiku column of English Mainichi News Paper edited by prof Sato. And you tell your website you are famous as an haiku writer in Japan and have published a haiku book. Please inroduce me your favorite haiku, one or two which I would like to refer to in my documentary.
7. I have read through your profile, personal history on your website. It’s wonderful! Is there some connection between your career and your interest in haiku?

sincerely yours
Shunichi Shibota

These are my answers…

Hi Shunichi,
I’m so pleased you are interested in my haiku writing. It has meant a great deal to me over the years.

I will answer your questions:
1. I wanted to enter the competition because at that time I was completely immersed in poetry and haiku in particular and, because of my interest in Basho, Issa and so on, I felt I could write a better haiku!
2. Not quite true. I did choose it myself. In fact I sent 2 entries. The other was better in my view but the judges said not!
3. Again, not quite correct. There were 2 UK winners, one male, one female. I had never met the female before, who I think was called Judith. She had never written haiku before and did not understand wabe, yugen etc. I had one ticket, she had the other. There were competition winners from Germany, France, Holland and Italy. But only in Britain was the competition for haiku poetry. We travelled as a party of 10, with a multi-linguist Fabrizio LaTorre (I even remember his name)
4. The JAL world trip was my first time outside the UK and my first visit to Japan. I enjoyed every second and wore a kimono around the streets much of the time (not so strange back then!) The most special and sacred places were the gardens and temples, which I loved deep in my heart. I also love bonsai and sumi-e.
5. It is correct I married my girlfriend Pauline and she was my wife for 30 years before we parted. We have 2 sons. It was she who brought my attention to the competition. I would not have known about it if she hadn’t encouraged me to enter.
6. I have lost my most favorite haiku. I will now begin a search of my documents. Many are still in England, though I now live in California.
Here are one or two I am proud of:

Warm rainy day
Words will not come easily
So lost in my thoughts

And this one. I tried to experiment with sound/rhyme. Not enough room in a haiku!
But I did play on the following phonemes: k-u-d-s and came up with dusk, duks, skud and kuds sounds.
Here’s the haiku:

At dusk, two wild ducks
Scud across the sea bay calling
Could sounds make this ache?

I wanted to write a series of haiku called “100 ways of Looking at a Cuckoo” (to commemorate Hokusai’s “100 Views of Mount Fuji”) but I soon realized I would never live that long!

But here’s one I wrote after returning to valley where I wrote my prize-winning haiku, after many years absence.

Grey bird of sadness
Loudly over this dark fell
Where once my heart flew

Fell means hill in English but hill was no good, I wanted the “f” sound to match “flew”.

And this one has onomatopoeia (t- and k- crackling sounds of a wood fire):

Sunrise and white frost
A woodfire crackling brightly
Chats with a tom-tit

7. Many physicians, as you know, become writers, some very famous, like Somerset Maugham and Michael Crichton.
I think poetry and deep meaning come naturally to those who work with death.
But the jump to Haiku form really came about as a result of passionate reading about Zen Buddhism in my late teens.

I hope these replies help and will look forward to more correspondence.
Please give my great regards to Prof Sato.

Yours sincerely,
Keith Scott-Mumby