Welcome
Welcome to the Call of the Page website. We run international online courses, workshops and events with an emphasis on minimal words, and the Japanese forms haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun. If you're looking for a course we hope you enjoy exploring the tabs above.
We also offer one-to-one tutorials/mentorship with Alan Summers and publish the poetry magazine The Pan Haiku Review. Further details on each of these can be found below. And finally, we also run creative literacy and literature projects using the power of words.
If you would like to receive occasional email newsletters from us, you can subscribe at Newsletter Sign-Up.
Online courses
Early 2025 Course Bookings Now Open
Thank you for your support.
Intermediate Haiku
This is our longest running course and will be starting again on 16th January 2025 (but not too late to join!). It is suitable for those with some experience of either creative writing or haiku already. This course is now open for booking here: Intermediate Haiku. (Only 2 spaces left)
One-Line Haiku
This course continues to receive a lot of interest so we will be starting a new run on 18th February 2025. It is suitable for students who have experience of writing haiku. This course is now open for booking here: One-Line Haiku. (FULL - BOOKING CLOSED)
The Shape of Haibun
This course has proved very popular since its launch in 2024. We have therefore organised a second start date for 2025, which is 1st May 2025. This course is suitable for students who would like experience in writing haibun/tanka prose or haiku/tanka; and also for experienced Flash Fiction writers who would like to extend their writing to encompass poetry. For more information and booking please go to: The Shape of Haibun.
If you would like to go on the waiting list for future dates of any of our courses, please email Alison at courses@callofthepage.org.
One-to-one Tuition with Alan Summers
Alan Summers is available for one-to-ones via Skype or Zoom or through written feedback. To pay and book sessions, go to the Special Payments page. Or to find out more, go to the One-to-one Tuition page. Thank you!
Alan has been involved in haikai literature (haiku; senryu; haibun; renku/renga; haiga and shahai), and tanka, since 1993. He is a
Pushcart Prize nominated poet for both haiku and haibun, as well as Best Small Fictions nominated for haibun. He is also a multiple Touchstone Award nominated
poet, and winner.
Alan is a former President of the United Haiku & Tanka Society (2017 to 2021), and previously General Secretary of the
British Haiku Society (1998-2000), and Editor Emeritus for the multi-award-winning Red Moon Anthologies (Red Moon Press, USA) for best haikai literature (2000-2005).
He has been a former roving Embassy of Japan ‘Japan-UK 150’ poet-in-residence, published/supported by the BBC Poetry Season website at that time celebrating 150
years of diplomatic relations between Japan and the United Kingdom (2008-2009).
Alan also found himself filmed by NHK Television (Japan) for “Europe meets Japan - Alan's Haiku Journey” and published in Japanese newspapers:
“Astonishingly moving haiku”
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japanese newspaper 2002)
He is the author of various collections and pamphlets:
Does Fish-God Know (YTBN Press 2012)
Moonlighting (British Haiku Society Intimations Pamphlet Series 1996)
Sundog Haiku Journal: an Australian Year (Sunfast Press 1997)
The In-Between Season (With Words Pamphlet Series 2012)
Comfort of Crows (Alan Summers & Hifsa Ashraf) Velvet Dusk Publishing (2019)
Glint pub. Proletaria politics philosophy phenomena (February 2020)
Forbidden Syllables (Bones Library May 2020)
The Pan Haiku Review
The Pan Haiku Review issue four
haibun & tanka-bun edition
Winter 2024
PHR4 editor: Alan Summers
Now available to download via the PHR page: The Pan Haiku
Review
“Reading the new Pan Review slowly, savoring...It's wild, exotic, and exhilarating. It takes me places I never even considered. Each haibun place I stop, surprises me, and makes me pay attention. It can't get any better than that.” - Jo
“I think Pan Haiku Review is really energising the haiku/haibun scene” - Sheila Barksdale
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