we drink
at the mountain spring
lips just touching
Marisa Fazio
by Jacqui Murray, Patron
We go back a long way. I love them, I trust them, I embrace them and i turn to them for joy, inspiration, comfort and reassurance. Haiku are for staying in touch with, for visiting time and time again, for remembering, for bringing alive old friends, including those that are no longer with us. Haiku speak to me and they touch me. As through John Knight’s
at the airport
wrapped in that last kiss
the still blue sky
Here John, who loved love, captures the essence of great haiku – conveying insight into a special moment best summed up by the early American haiku poet, J W Hackett:
Lifefulness, not beauty, is the real quality of haiku.
Continue reading “Haiku and I Are Old Friends: by Jacqui Murray”
The Red Dragonflies’ spring meeting, led by Vanessa Proctor, was hosted by Dawn Bruce. Also present were Cynthia Rowe, Bill Tibben and Beverley George.
We all enjoyed the challenge of writing to season-related topics and sharing helpful critiquing of our haiku, some of which were presented anonymously. There was much laughter along with renewed enthusiasm for this diminutive but challenging genre and we all look forward to our summer meeting in December.
Beverley George
A new international anthology of haiku & senryu has just been released. Jumble Box, edited by Michael Dylan Welch and featuring the art of Ron C. Moss contains work from 100 poets. This anthology grew out of the many submissions to the National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo) received in February 2017 including selections from seven Australians; Belinda Broughton, Samar Ghose, Jayashree Maniyil, Marietta McGregor, Rowena McGregor, Ron C. Moss and Rosemary Nissen-Wade.
In the introduction, Opening the Jumble Box, Michael Dylan Welch writes; “One of my favorite quotations about haiku is by R. H. Blyth: “Haiku is a hand beckoning, a door half-opened, a mirror wiped clean. It is a way of returning to nature, to our moon nature, our cherry blossom nature, our falling leaf nature, in short, to our Buddha nature.” This observation reminds us that haiku points to a source. . . The following poems emerged as some of the best from many thousands written for NaHaiWriMo in 2017. I shared a short list of about 400 selections with Tasmanian artist Ron C. Moss, who chose one poem for each day of the month. In response, he created twenty-eight original haiga—a painting for each poem he selected, with the poem added in calligraphy. He also created the cover art, and suggested the book’s title, from a poem by Greg Longenecker. Surely the many ways we write haiku are like a jumble box—and as with a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll discover.”
For further information and ordering details click here.
Spring is almost here! for us in the Southern hemisphere anyway, with the approach of the equinox on the 23rd of September, though a friend in Adelaide tells me her almond tree pronounced Spring is here! with a gorgeous burst of blossom back in late July, (that tree clearly not consulting the calendar), while another friend living north of the Tropic of Capricorn tells me they only talk of the wet and dry seasons. Assigning seasons is a precarious business.
August has come and gone as the mystery of time continues to unfold and we have managed to catch a few snippets of it here.