The Writers of Wales Database

JONES, KEN

Troed Rhiw Sebon, Cwmrheidiol, Aberystwyth, SY23 3NB 
Tel: (01970) 880603

Haiku poet, contributing regularly to UK haiku magazines and represented in British and American anthologies. For his contribution to Pilgrim Foxes: Haiku and Haiku Prose, co–authored with Jim Norton and Sean O’Connor, Ken was awarded the Sasakawa Prize for Original Contributions in the Field of Haiku (2002). In 2005 his work entitled ’Travellers’ (published in The Parsely Bed) took first place in the annual English Language Haibun Contest. 

Ken has played a prominent part in pioneering the Western development to the haibun, an ancient Japanese prose poetry genre and is also co–editor of the annual international anthology Contemporary Haibun. Ken is a  Zen practitioner and teacher of thirty years’ standing, and author of books on socially engaged Buddhism. Ken currently lives in Ceredigion, Wales, with his Irish wife, Noragh.

Reviews:

“…It is the brilliant storytelling that makes this book memorable … I expect you’ve never read a book quite like this one…”
Carolyn Hall, Frogpond

“...A varied, sparkling collection … Ken Jones has distilled for us here his long life of adventure, struggle, and illumination...”
Ratnagarbha, Urthona: Buddhist Arts Journal

“...The impressive scope and indelible prose style of one of the foremost practitioners of the [haibun] genre today … work that is truly ground breaking...”
Jeffrey Woodward, LYNX

“...He reaches back into history, literature and art for his images, and into Buddhist philosophy for the expression of his compassion … uniting all these themes there is the wit, the style the insouciance of the writer...”
George Marsh, Blithe Spirit


Selected Publications:
The Social Face of Buddhism: A Guide to Social and Political Activism (Wisdom Publications, 1989)
Beyond Optimism: Political Ecology of Buddhism (Jon Carpenter, 1993)
Arrow of Stones (British Haiku Society, 2002)
Summer Dreams: American Haibun & Haiga (co-writer) (Red Moon Press, 2002)
Stallion’s Crag: Haiku and Haibun (Iron Press, 2003)
Ageing: The Great Adventure - A Buddhist Guide (Pilgrim Press, 2005)
New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action (Wisdom Publications, 2005)
The Parsley Bed: Haiku Stories (Pilgrim Press, 2006)
Stone Leeks (Pilgrim Press, 2009)

Contributed to:
Pilgrim Foxes: Haiku and Jaiku Prose (co-writer) (Pilgrim Press, 2001)



The Parsley Bed (Pilgrim Press, 2006)

The Parsley Bed is an unusual literary genre in that it combines the poetic discipline known as haiku  with narrative story-telling, to produce  haibun – descriptive and richly allusive, if sometimes ambiguous prose-poems that focus on broad human themes such as nostalgia, love, death and the natural world. So whilst many of the stories in the collection are fictional in nature, they are all informed by an underlying and universal truth. The haibun are interspersed with haiku, which offer their own snippets of life and loss.

“The last section [is] a song of farewell to the richness of the world, to Ken Jones’s love of people and solitude, and to the comedy of his quest for enlightenment” – Tony Conran

Click on the cover to purchase this title from gwales.com

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Readings from/discussion of own poetry.
2. Readings from/discussing the halibun as a literary genre.
3. Haiku workshops.

AGE RANGE: adults