Toni Piccini was born in 1959 in Trieste. He wrote his first poems in Triestino (‘Triestin’) and Italian, but soon discovered that the form that best suited him – for its economy, universality, and exclusion of ego – was the haiku. His works include individual haiku and suites that blend verbal and photographic texts into haiga compositions. These have appeared in many Italian and Japanese publications and on websites launched from more than a dozen countries, as well as in combination with other art-forms, such as sculpture and dance. Toni Piccini’s poems have appeared on Italian national radio and with his haiku he took part in the web-radio event ‘24 hours: A Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimiation’ (March 2006), which was aired live across five continents. His personal show, entitled Costruir Levando (‘Making/A/Rising’), which constituted the first-ever Italian haiga exhibition, was featured at the 13th International Genoa Poetry Festival (2007), with an introduction by Kuniharu Shimizu. In November 2008, he represented Italy at the first Tokyo Poetry Festival. His current works-in-progress are the bilingual Italian/English sequence Haiku apocrifi / Apocryphal haiku and the Haiku Bonsai / Bonsai Haiku project. Website: www.tonipiccini.it
