The upstairs room of The Children’s Bookshop at Beecroft was filled to capacity on Saturday 28 May with an appreciative audience attending back-to-back afternoon events celebrating collaborative poetry and the tanka form.
In the first event Vanessa Proctor, President of the Australian Haiku Society, launched A Shared Umbrella. This joint project by Beverley George and David Terelinck is a collection of ten tanka sequences and thirteen rengay written over several years of collaboration.
Vanessa elaborated on the title metaphor, illustrated so enchantingly on the book cover by South African artist Tumi K. Steyn. The cover, in a pleasing shade of gold with autumnal notes, features a traditional Japanese umbrella, or wagasa. To quote Vanessa:
“To share such an umbrella with someone, you need to stand close in order to be able to share the space together, to walk in step. That walking in step is an art which Beverley and David have mastered beautifully.” Continue reading “A Metaphor and a Milestone”
Australian Haiku Society 