This week’s featured poet from ‘Under the Same Moon’, the Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology, is Tasmanian poet, Simon Hanson.
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Thursday 9 May 2024
A showery day, so no trees and magpies for us this time. Instead we enjoyed the cosiness of a table inside with a view of dripping leaves beyond the window. Four of us settled in—Hazel Hall, Gregory Piko, Marietta McGregor, Jan Dobb—and we missed Kathy Kituai and Glenys Ferguson.
As usual we chatted informally, noting the bond that has developed since the six of us first came together, a number of years ago, to share our journeys with haiku. We appreciated the continuing contribution of Marietta’s photography to the enhancement of Echidna Tracks; a sensitive visual reflection of ET’s Australian essence. Consequently, we felt a growing concern about the recent intrusion of AI and its threat of producing mere universal images.
The highlight of the afternoon was our welcome back to Greg who has been absent from our recent get-togethers. Greg has been in Japan. He intrigued us with thoughtfully prepared travel tales about finding himself ‘in the steps of Basho’—though not consciously looking for them! His delightful and inspiring presentation evoked enthusiastic response. Thanks a lot Greg. We, too, enjoyed the journey.
Until next time. . .
Jan Dobb
The Perth-based Paperbark Haiku group met on Friday 3rd May for our autumn ginko in the historic Harold Boas Gardens; an inner-city treasure of a park with winding pools of water, carefully placed boulders reminiscent of a Japanese garden, lush exotic bushes and trees, ducks and ibis and a Monet-style bridge.
An enthusiastic group of seven (Barry Sanbrook, Michael Spark, Jake Dennis, Rita Tognini, Ruari Jack Hughes, Rose van Son and Candy Gordon) met for coffee and an exchange of ideas on the elements of haiku, followed by a
contemplative walk in the gardens. We then shared our writing; some read completed haiku, some had words and thoughts to take home and work on, and all of us enjoyed the exercise, the company and the meditative garden setting on yet another warm, autumn day.
The following are some of our words inspired by nature –
boulders
light and ripples
stroke them
Barry Sanbrook
butterfly without wings
expecting to fly
caterpillars dream
Michael Spark
bird’s nest fern
the hollow fills
with leaves
Rose van Son
butterfly yellow
winging across limpid pools
reflecting wonder
Ruari Jack Hughes
one-legged ducks
yoga pose
better than mine
Candy Gordon
emerald
set in West Perth high-rise
Boas Park
Rita Tognetti
This week’s featured poet from ‘Under the Same Moon’, the Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology, is Melbourne-based poet, Madhuri Pillai .
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With its first edition (from December last year) well received, Catchment – Poetry of Place will release a second issue on 21 June 2024. Again, it will publish both tanka and longer free-verse poems, showing a sense of location. Since the submission period is set to close soon — on 21 May — poets resident in Australia are encouraged to make contributions, using the following link:
https://www.bawbawartsalliance.org.au/catchment2/on-line-submissions/
Julia Wakefield, Jake Dennis, Steve Wigg, Stella Damarjati, and Lynette Arden met on Sunday, May 5, at 7 p.m. using Google Meet. Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne, Ewan Rourke, and Maeve Archibald apologised.
We workshopped some of our haiku and discussed possible topics for future meetings. We have decided to take a closer look at some of the techniques listed in Jane Reichhold’s book, Writing and Enjoying Haiku. The list can also be found on her website here: https://www.ahapoetry.com/haiartjr.htm
Continue reading “Report on the Bindii Meeting May 5 2024”In 2023, the first anthology of Australian haiku in over a decade was released. It was the largest collection of haiku by Australian poets ever assembled, containing over 160 poems by 104 poets. The Australian Haiku society is proud to showcase this anthology over the coming months as part of its featured haiku collection.
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Lilly Sievers is once again collecting haiku for her ongoing column in the Urasenke Sydney quarterly magazine. She would like to express her gratitude to the many Australian Haiku Society members who have contributed to prior columns and would love to continue featuring contemporary haiku.
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Australian Haiku Society 