The poets of Watersmeet celebrated International Haiku Day on Wednesday 17th April by creating a window of haiku at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart. Fullers generously made space in the front of the shop, pushing back shelves and placing a table just inside the window where we spread a collection of haiku books for people to browse. The staff provided us with A5 size cards, the border designed by Ron Moss, on which we wrote our own or a favourite haiku. These we taped to the window for passers-by to read. A similar event held in 2006 was “Haiku Grafffiti” where we wrote on the shop windows – because of the time it took to clean the windows back then, it was decided to use cards this time.
A special feature was a slide show of Ron Moss’s haiga sequences playing on his laptop, the beautiful images adding an extra dimension to the experience, and the accompanying music creating a sense of serenity.
Many people stopped to read the poems and some joined us inside to learn more about haiku or add their contributions. Watersmeet members who were able to attend were Jane Williams, Irene McGuire, Leanne Jaeger, Peter Macrow, Jenny Barnard, Ron Moss, Ross Coward and Lyn Reeves, along with many friends from the writing community who dropped in throughout the day, and quite a few customers who were also keen to take part in the celebrations. In all, there were 76 poems on display before we packed up at three o’clock after an enjoyable day of sharing haiku together.
We are grateful to Clive Tilsey for again allowing us to promote the enjoyment of haiku in the community, and to Tim, Emmy and Kelly for their generous assistance in making the event a success, advertising the event through their facebook and web pages and for displaying haiku books on their counter. And special thanks to Irene McGuire for not only having the idea, but for all she did to make it work so well.
report by Lyn Reeves, photos by Irene McGuire
Australian Haiku Society 