L E Mumford

Writer & Photographer

Newtown, Sydney, Australia - unceded Gadigal land

Over recent months my haiku been published in:

Modern Haiku 55.1, February 2024
Echidna Tracks 12, 01 February 2024
Haiku 30th Anniversary - Meguro International Haiku Circle, January 2024
Creatrix 63 Haiku, December 2023
Seashores 11, November 2023

With great sadness, I'd like to acknowledge the untimely recent death of Ghanaian poet Adjei Agyei-Baah, who was living in New Zealand while completing his PhD at the University of Waikato. Adjei was a widely published poet and a co-founder of the Africa Haiku Network and also of the journal The Mamba. Haikupedia entry. 27th January Haiku Down Under Facebook post.

Gadigal Ginko is an opportunity for Sydney-based haiku poets to gather on an occasional basis. The fourth Gadigal Ginko took place on Saturday 3rd February, 2024.

Haiku Down Under 2022 was held via Zoom over the weekend of 7th-9th October, with over 200 registered participants from Australia, New Zealand and further afield. This was the first ever trans-Tasman haiku conference. I'm extremely grateful to the presenters for the work they put into their sessions and to all the participants who helped to make it an enjoyable weekend. I would like to say a very big thank you to my co-organisers, Sue Courtney (New Zealand), Carole Harrison (Australia) and Sherry Grant (New Zealand), as well as Sandra Simpson (New Zealand), who helped to initiate the project. You can read Sandra's summary of Haiku Down Under at her breath haiku collection site.

In May 2022 I joined the committee of the Australian Haiku Society as Secretary, alongside Clem Byard from Melbourne.

In April 2020 a poem of mine was one of six to receive a Touchstone Award for Individual Poems 2019 from The Haiku Foundation. It's the first time one of my haiku has been even shortlisted for an award, so I feel extremely honoured and in very illustrious company. I'm very grateful to the judges, to the editors of Echidna Tracks who published my haiku in 2019, and to whoever (anonymously) nominated my poem.

Foundation member of Inkstone Poetry Forum November 2016.

Frequent guest member of Meguro International Haiku Circle in Tokyo; first visited 2013.