Sean O'Connor
Winner of the 2022 HSA Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book: Fragmentation
Writer
haibun, haiku, zuihitsu
books, essays, articles
Editor
the haibun journal
Sean O'Connor
Winner of the 2022 HSA Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book: Fragmentation
Writer
haibun, haiku, zuihitsu
books, essays, articles
Editor
the haibun journal
My Story
On my first day at school, I was in tears as I was the only child with nothing to write with. Then, with a theatrical flourish, a lady gave me my first pencil. This photograph was taken in that school a few months later. That was half a century ago, and since then I have (amongst other things) been a factory worker, a psychiatric nurse, worked in film production, toured internationally as a musician, and lived for five years in Japan.
My interest in Japanese literature began in the early 1980’s when I discovered some books on Japanese haiku and culture in a bargain bin. In 1998 I became editor of the print journal Haiku Spirit. For two years I served as a judge in the Japan based Genjuan International Haibun Contest and in 2019 I established The Haibun Journal.
Over the past 30 years my work has been translated into several languages, appeared in numerous anthologies, and published in journals worldwide. My first solo collection, Let Silence Speak, was shortlisted for The Touchstone Distinguished Books Award 2016 and my fourth title, Fragmentation, won the 2022 HSA Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book.
The Arts Council of Ireland awarded me Literature Bursaries, in 2021 and 2022, for which I am deeply grateful.
Books
A Patch of Earth
For a year after his father’s death author Sean O’Connor made weekly visits to his Dad’s grave outside Nenagh, Tipperary, where he composed the haiku, tanka and haibun which form the basis of this work.
A Patch of Earth is a heart-searing, authentic dissection of grief, deeply personal but also universal and it will resonate with many. Sean O’Connor approaches the pain, depth and complexity of loss with a delicate, loving scrutiny. The silence that holds each word somehow brightens the sorrow. His book stretches the literary forms, haibun, haiku and tanka, in a way that is startling and refreshing.
– Marian Partington, poet and author of If You Still Very Still, Vala Publishing (2012).
Paperback, 84 pages
€18, including delivery worldwide
The God of Bones
In The God of Bones, Sean O’Connor enters the cycle of winter, of war, upheaval, social dislocation, and human cruelty. He finds light in the darkest corners of the soul where, as the Zen conundrum has it, ‘everything is okay’. Writing in the Japanese literary forms of haibun and haiku, he introduces The God of Bones, who is forever watching the karmic outcomes of our actions and inactions. For O’Connor, life is fragile, and therein lies its beauty.
‘By turns elegiac, beatific, and justly outraged, these haibun never fail to astonish through the depth of the humanity with which they bear witness. Stunning in its beauty as in its at times difficult truth, The God of Bones establishes Sean O’Connor as a – perhaps the – leading voice in English-language haibun.’
– Thomas Festa, Professor of English, the State University of New York at New Paltz, author of Earthen
Paperback, 74 pages
€18, including delivery worldwide
Fragmentation
Winner of the 2022 HSA Merit Book Award for Best Haibun Book.
Fragmentation is a series of meditations on dementia, and the dynamics of memory. Written in the Japanese forms of haibun, haiku and zuihitsu, by the author of Let Silence Speak and Even The Mountains; Five Years in a Japanese Village.
‘So this is how it feels to love deeply and joyfully – even in the face of loss. Every haibun in this collection snatched up my heart, then flipped it. Fragmentation shows us how to love with acceptance, even as we suffer. A joy to read.’
– Author Heather Dyer Ph.D.
Paperback, 82 pages
€18, including delivery worldwide
Even the Mountains
Even the Mountains is a vivid account of life in a rural Japanese village as experienced by Irish poet, writer and musician, Sean O’Connor. For five years Sean lived in a traditional House in the village of Yuzuri, Akaiwa-Shi, in Okayama. In this, his second solo collection, he uses prose and haiku poems to build a picture of Japanese culture in everyday life.
‘O’Connor’s glimpses of Japan are crisp and clear and close to the bone: a snake in a laundry basket, a wild boar attacking his vegetables, the unbearable screech of raccoon dogs, the disgruntled spirits of unattended graves, stuff they mightn’t tell you about in the guide books, and all of this peppered with the author’s distinctive, bone-dry haiku.
nothing moves
yet the bamboo
creaks
A book for all seasons by a latter-day Lafcadio Hearn.’
– Gabriel Rosenstock
Paperback, 92 pages
€18, including delivery worldwide
Let Silence Speak
Shortlisted for The Touchstone Distinguished Books Award 2016.
Let Silence Speak is a collection of haiku and haiku prose by Sean O’Connor written over a 20 year period. Much of this work has been translated into several languages and published worldwide. New work by O’Connor is also included, in particular those written while he lived in rural Japan for five years.
‘Koan: what do a million stones, a death rattle, a slightly disappointing sponge cake, fresh batteries and a memory of fireflies have in common? Two answers: silence and life! Sean’s dance of life takes us through Europe, America and Japan – through both their cities and their deep countryside. Quiet, yet exhilarating!’
– Stephen Henry Gill
Paperback, 90 pages
Out of Print
The Haibun Journal
Launched in April 2019, The Haibun Journal is the only print journal in the English language dedicated to the haibun form.
It is published every April and October, is perfect bound and has about 70 printed pages.
Sean O’Connor is the founding editor and Amanda Bell, Paul Bregazzi and Kim Richardson are assistant editors.
Reviews
Links
Essay:
Haiku Rhythm and the Arches of Makudo
The Haibun High Tea event,
A haibun reading as part of Poetry Day Ireland 2021
The Haibun Journal
Workshops
Sean O’Connor provides online workshops and courses for groups of limited size, and on a one-to-one basis, for haibun and haiku poets.
All levels are accommodated.
Do get in touch with Sean if this is of interest to you.
