The AHS Haiku String on ‘Place’ for the Winter Solstice 2017 will appear on this website at 14.24 on 21 June (Australian Eastern Standard Time) and contributions will be allowed for the following 48 hours.
Contributions are welcomed from haiku poets in Australia and internationally.
Further details here
The Red Dragonflies warmly welcomed their newest member, Willem Tibben on Saturday and immediately set him to work to write the meeting report below:
The Red Dragonflies gathered at the welcoming home of Barbara Fisher for their winter meeting. Present were: Dawn Bruce, Cynthia Rowe, Vanessa Proctor, Willem Tibben, and our host.
Vanessa had set the homework around four themes: absence, parenting, going barefoot and chocolate. She had also asked everyone to bring two haiku each for the ‘bowl’. After a round of copy distribution and dexterous folding (‘macramé haiku’ someone ventured) we were away…
For those of us who might be experiencing a slump or fallow period in our haiku writing: we might take heart from a winter haiku by the all-time master:
菊の後大根の外更になし
kiku no ato daikon no hoka sara ni nashi
After the chrysanthemums,
Apart from radishes,
There is nothing.
Bashō, trans. Linda Inoki, The Japan Times, December 7, 2005
R.H. Blyth also has a translation of this haiku in his Haiku Vol. IV, Autumn – Winter (He substitutes ‘turnip’ for radish since his EL readers were unlikely to be familiar with the daikon. These days, we can find the long white Japanese radish in any supermarket.) Blyth comments:
“(Winter) is a kind of off-season for poetry by the calendar of haiku. (This haiku expresses) simply and spontaneously the poetical emptiness that Bashō feels”.
Perhaps Bashō’s haiku might inspire us to write haiku on not being inspired to write haiku?
Entries for the 22nd International Kusamakura Haiku Competition in Kumamoto are open until September 11th 2017. Applicants may submit 2 previously unpublished haiku by mail or via the online submission page. For further details please visit the website. Awarded haiku from previous years may also be read here.
Ten members of the Bindii group attended a tanka workshop led by Dawn Colsey and Lynette Arden at the Box Factory, 59 Regent St South, Adelaide.
Lee Bentley, as chair of the meeting, welcomed the presenters at 12.30.
Some written material had been distributed to members by email prior the meeting and links to further articles are displayed on Bindii Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1150474291637982/
Several members brought in a range of journals and books containing tanka, so all could share a range of published work. Continue reading “Report on Bindii Japanese Genre Poetry Group meeting: 3 June 2017”
The Australian Haiku Society will be holding a Haiku String during the day of the Southern Hemisphere Winter Solstice, which occurs in Sydney NSW on Wednesday, 21 June 2017 at 2:24 pm AEST. We will keep the string open for contributions until Friday, 23 June at 2.24 pm AEST to accommodate international poets who may wish to take part. Continue reading “Prior Notification of AHS Winter Solstice Haiku String on ‘Place’.”
Australian Haiku Society 