Month: April 2017

Roberta Beary’s Visit to Melbourne

On Monday 13th March, a group of poets met at Ola Cohn’s Fairies Tree in Melbourne’s iconic Fitzroy Gardens to meet with Roberta Beary, the Haiku Foundation’s Roving Ambassador.

Tucked away from the busy activities of Melbourne’ s Moomba festival, the expanse of grass lawns and trees were a perfect location.

Those who attended were Sophia Frentz, Jayashree Maniyill, Janet Howie, Lorin Ford, Madhuri Pillai, Marisa Fazio, Takanori Hayakawa, Ela Fornalska and Jennifer Sutherland. Continue reading “Roberta Beary’s Visit to Melbourne”

Cloudcatchers Haiku Sequence in the Wake of Cyclone Debbie

During the April ginko held by the Cloudcatcher group, it was suggested by our patron, John Bird, that we each submit haiku images regarding the local flood situation experienced in the wake of Cyclone Debbie, as our response to the disaster.  Some of these have been crafted into a sequence, edited by Nathalie Buckland.

You can read the sequence by clicking on the link below.

Debbie Sequence

Quendryth Young

eBook Launch: Ancient Bloodlines: Australian Collaborative Rengay by Simon Hanson & Ron C. Moss

A new collection of Australian themed rengay by Simon Hanson & Ron C. Moss has been launched and published by Caroline Skanne and is now available for free download at wildflower poetry press and at hedgerow: a journal of small poems. Ancient Bloodlines is accompanied by the evocative watercolours of Ron C. Moss and features a particularly innovative style of text formatting he has developed. With “delicate touches of humour and delight, with tones that range from serious and sombre to playful and respectful. Enjoy the paths they have made for you in Ancient Bloodlines, but also lose yourself in these vivid verses so you can find your own” (from the foreword by Michael Dylan Welch).

Ancient-Bloodlines-(web)

https://wildflowerpoetrypress.wordpress.com/e-books-free/

https://hedgerowpoems.wordpress.com/

Launch of Bushfire Moon

L1020181
Ron Moss and Heather Scandrett at the launch of Bushfire Moon

On the 24th March, in the beautiful surrounds of the Allport Library in Hobart, I had the honour of launching Ron Moss’s recent book, Bushfire Moon, with the following words:

I first met Ron about seventeen years ago when his friend Ross Coward brought him along to a meeting of the then recently formed haiku group, Watersmeet. I remember sitting around the long table in the Salamanca Arts Centre meeting room. We had each brought along an object from nature as a prompt for writing, and when it came to sharing our jottings I was struck by the detailed observation and insight in the pieces Ron read out. I can still see the trail of tiny black ants Continue reading “Launch of Bushfire Moon”

Cloudcatchers Ginko No.45 (autumn)

Brunswick River NSW           Thursday 6 April 2017

Amid the anguish of the flooding caused by Cyclone Debbie, the Cloudcatchers group on the Far North Coast of New South Wales held its autumn ginko on Thursday 6 April. Some of the members had suffered damage to home and property, some were cut off for days by flood waters, experienced power blackouts, and some were still involved with the arduous and heartbreaking job of cleaning up.

The visit to this venue had been planned for over eighteen months. We were anxious to repeat an experience shared in 2011 of exploring the mangrove tidal flats of the Brunswick River, 40 km north of Ballina. For this we needed a low tide at the right time of day, on the right day of the week, in the right month of the season. Eventually the date was established, but after weeks of heavy winds, rain and flooding, the gathering was in doubt. Continue reading “Cloudcatchers Ginko No.45 (autumn)”