On Saturday 30th September, two teams will play off in the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. To celebrate this famous day on the Australian sporting calendar, haiku poets from all over the world are once again invited to take part in a real-time footy haiku kukai for the duration of the match.
This will be the 6th year this event has been staged, after Rob Scott, Myron Lysenko and other haiku enthusiasts spontaneously started writing haiku over social media during the 2012 grand final. The event has grown steadily over the years and last year more than 60 die-hard poets from around the globe participated, producing a record 200+ haiku. That’s about one haiku every 30 seconds of the game – virtually a call of the game in haiku!
Here is a write up of the 2015 Grand Final kukai from The Footy Almanac website: Parades and Brightly Coloured Men
This year, we’ll be at it again and I hope more people can join us for this annual celebration of football and haiku. Like the game itself, there are no hard and fast rules. Any style of haiku is acceptable. Even 5-7-5. One line or three. Just keep it nice.
So whether you are at the game, watching it on TV, listening to the radio in the back shed or, like me, watching from a dark corner of the local Irish pub here in Stockholm (at 6.00am!) log-in to this event on Facebook and drop us a line or three!
The event can be found by clicking here.
Game starts at 14.30 (Australian Eastern Standard Time) in Melbourne and we will be accepting haiku anytime up to the first bounce.
See you at the game!
Rob Scott
Australian Haiku Society 