About
Paresh Tiwari.
Naval Officer by profession, a creative writer, and illustrator by choice, Paresh Tiwari grew up in the labyrinthine lanes of Lucknow. A Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published two widely acclaimed collections of poetry.
His first book, ‘An inch of Sky’ was published in winter of 2014 and has been used as resource material for haiku and haibun at the Indiana Writers Centre, USA. ‘Raindrops chasing Raindrops’, his latest collection of haibun and hybrid poems has found an honourable mention at the ‘Touchstone Distinguished Book Awards’ – 2017; commissioned by The Haiku Foundation, USA.
Paresh has co-edited the landmark International Haibun Anthology, Red River Book of Haibun, Vol 1 which was published by Red River Publications in 2019, and is the serving haibun editor of the online literary magazine Narrow Road. His poetry and prose has found a place in various journals and anthologies including, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi – 2019), Quesadilla and Other Adventures: Food Poems (2019), Atoms of Haiku (2016), Galaxy of Dust (2015), Remember (2015) and Journeys (2015).
Paresh has won peer-reviewed haiku competitions multiple times over, and his haiku have been recognised in various contests and reviews. The most notable being a short-list for ‘The Touchstone Award for individual poem in 2016’; ‘Skylark award’; a third prize in the Summer World Haiku Review – 2014; and an honourable mention at the Mumbai Tata Literature Live, Autumn Rain Contest 2014. His haibun won the Wordweavers 2014 Flash Fiction contest.
Paresh is the resident cartoonist for Cattails, a journal by United haiku and tanka society, USA and the serving haibun editor of the online literary magazine Narrow Road, a tri-annual publication.
Paresh has read his works at various literature festivals including the Kalaghoda Festival 2020, Hyderabad Literature Festival – 2019, and The Goa Art and Lit Fest – 2016. He has also conducted haiku and haibun workshops at Arcs of a Circle, Mumbai, Hyderabad International Literature Festival – 2014, SIES College and British Council Library, Mumbai.
Some facts
Awards
Books
Interviews
Books
August 2019
- Hawakal Publishers
- Available Online
(Editor - Somrita Urni Ganguly) The poems in this anthology talk appetizingly about food as an allegory, food as a reality, and food as everything in-between, inviting the readers to a scrumptious literary meal, and taking them on a rich gastronomic journey.
Published: 2019
- Sahita Akademi
- Available Online
(Edited by Sudeep Sen) A landmark new anthology that maps the contemporary poetry scene in India and the broader Indian diaspora. Published by Sahitya Akademi, this book travels a span of two decades and explores the works of nearly 70 poets.
Published: 2019
- Publisher: Red River
- 200 Pages
- Available Online
(Edited by Paresh Tiwari and Steve Hodge) Bashô’s 'Narrow Road to the Interior', a world literary classic and probably the most crucial work of haibun was written at the end of the seventeenth century. Today, more than three hundred years later, the form is experiencing a renaissance world-over, even if it is sporadic and in insulated pockets. Red River Book of Haibun, with a collection of 102 haibun by 61 poets across the world, aims to help the form along this path of resurgence. With haibun’s relatively fluid nature in mind, this anthology has sought to represent writers of every ‘persuasion’ and every ‘school’. And thus, it is - in scale and ambition - quite unlike any haibun book in the world.
15 December 2014
- Publisher - Amazon Direct
- 120 pages
- Available Online
A collection of haiku and haibun by the Indian poet, Paresh Tiwari. The book contains 108 haiku and 25 haibun that take the reader through a journey into the depths of emotions that are easily identifiable and stand out for their disarming honesty.
17 October 2017
- Publisher - Red River
- Available Online
The poems have chosen to recount the story of their lives. They confide how they were conceived in moments of utter desperation or times of languorous lovemaking. How they grew up on hunger or abundance, and the way they abandoned the empty husk of their poet to search for something more fulfilling. In this book of 61 haibun, Paresh Tiwari (Pushcart Prize nominee) dwells in love, memory, family, pain, war, rebellion, dreams, mutiny and mundanity, exploring new facets by shifting meanings and capturing the unknown in his words.
30 March 2018
- Publisher - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- 46 Pages
- Available Online
Keepers is a delightful romp through religion, rebellion and rambunctiousness. French’s haibun offer an artful fusion of memory tied to parenting her two boys along with her imagination steeped in regional awareness of rural Alabama where she has lived for the last thirty years. The haibun capture the authentic voice of 11-year-old JT Blankenship and are reminiscent of Twain’s Huck Finn.
February 2016
- Publisher - Red Moon Press
- 184 Pages
- Available Online
Edited by Jim Kacian & the Red Moon Editorial Staff, this is the 20th volume in the longest-running and most awarded series of anthologies in the history of English-language haiku.
February 2015
- Publisher - Red Moon Press
- 208 Pages
- Available Online
Edited by Jim Kacian & the Red Moon Editorial Staff, Big data is the 19th volume in the most decorated series in English-language haiku history, an anthology incorporating 170 poems, a dozen linked forms and two theoretical/historical essays on the genre.
27 April 2016
- 366 Pages
- Available Online
This book will help you to remember who you truly are and to be your authentic self in it's entirety, your soul and spiritual self and help you to become everything you ever dreamed of being. You have a soul mission and it is time to wake up and fulfill your destiny.
02 November 2016
- Publisher - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- 204 Pages
- Available Online
Haiku is the latest form of poetry that has come from the past and it is spreading throughout the world. Author's United has teamed up with the seasoned editors like Archana Kapoor Nagpal, Arie Gerev and Sanjukta Asopa to create a blend of Haiku with different styles into one book. It is an honor to thank all the 19 authors who contributed to this anthology.
21 September 2015
- Publisher - Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
- 288 pages
- Available Online
Journeys 2015 is an anthology of haibun, a Japanese genre of poetry. Edited by Angelee Deodhar, it has a total of 145 haibun, the work of 31 poets of international repute. This is the second of a series of anthologies devoted solely to printing some of the best of the poets' published works. It also has articles by 3 renowned poets. It will serve as a reference book on haibun.
Interviews
Interview with Frontier Poetry
" This being my second collection of poetry, the award reinstates my own faith in my work. Somehow, I constantly live under the fear of burning out. The award might dispel my fears for a while and coax me to write more. There however, is a larger picture, in the eight years of the awards’ relatively brief history, I am the first Indian to be on the list. I feel it might in a small way shine... "
Frontier Poetry
Interview with New Indian Express
" We as poets assemble words, images, memories, feelings, experiences and a little bit of our sould on the paper. I love words and the way they fall on paper or slip over a tongue to begin a life of their own. I wish to caress every contour, every cadence, every meaning they have to offer. So, i do plan to write in other forms. "
New Indian Express
Interview With Archita Mittra
" I believe all art forms do converge somewhere. And the convergence is life itself. And yet, I am usually in completely different mind-space while practicing these two art forms. As a poet I empathise a lot more. I try to become what I write. As a cartoonist, on the other hand, I am more of an observer. I prefer to be, rather than observe. "
Archita Mittra
Interview with Sakal Times
" I began my life as an artist. The day I could hold a pencil, I expressed myself in lines and doodles. Writing too happened sporadically from a very early age. Joining the Navy was a conscious decision - the allure of the uniform, the unblemished patriotism, the honour. At a young and unsullied age, this seemed like the only way to repay my country. "
Sakal Times
Interview with The Hindu
" I am yet to meet a reader of haiku who is not a writer of haiku. The form is so deceptively simple that anyone who reads it feels that they can write it. You look it up online and see the basic rules and begin writing and as with any creation, you put it up online and it becomes part of the ever growing internet database. "
The Hindu
Interview with MCXV
" I believe all art forms do converge somewhere. And the convergence is life itself. And yet, I am usually in completely different mind-space while practicing these two art forms. As a poet I empathise a lot more. I try to become what I write. As a cartoonist, on the other hand, I am more of an observer. I prefer to be, rather than observe. "
MCXV
