Summer 2020
It was encouraging to me as Convenor and a good start to the haiku year that all current members were present at our Summer meeting held on Tuesday 28th January. Previously our meeting dates were tailored to accommodate as many members as possible. This year however we will hold subsequent meetings on the third Tuesday of the month that begins each season so dates can be noted on calendars well in advance.
Continue reading “Illawong Haiku Group”
Six of us met at the State Library for a two-hour discussion and critique session. Members present were Maeve Archibald, Lynette Arden, Stella Damarjati, Margaret Fensom, Julia Wakefield and Steve Wigg. We had apologies from Marilyn Linn, Jane Harris and Dawn Colsey.
Stella led the session with some definitions and examples of wabi and sabi techniques, quoting Jane Reichhold, and then between us we tried to define the difference if any between the two concepts. Reichhold translates sabi as aged/loneliness, while she equates wabi with poverty. Continue reading “Report of January 25 Bindii Meeting.”
16 February – 15 March 2020
Belinda Broughton, Jesse Budel, Liz Butler, Deb Cantrill, Louise Feneley, Gaynor Hartvigsen, Melissa Hellwig, Heidi Kenyon, Aaron Poole, Evette Sunset, Laura Wills, Jo Wilmot.
In a heart-felt response to the current environmental crisis, Adelaide and regional artists explore transformative ways to mitigate the grief and disconnect associated with the passing of a once-familiar and trusted experience of ‘home’.
Click on the link below for the exhibition flyer with further information on opening night speakers, performances, exhibition hours, venue and location. Everyone is welcome.
Time: 11am – 4pm, Saturday 1 February, 2020
Venue: Immigration Museum 400 Flinders Street, Melbourne
Bid farewell to the long-running exhibition, Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World with a day of multilingual poetry hosted by members of the Australian Haiku Society. A number of poets who attended the opening of the exhibition will be there for the occasion. Continue reading “HAIKU HANGOUT AT THE IMMIGRATION MUSEUM”
With inspiration drawn from Australia and Vietnam, Long Shadows by Jane Gibian is currently being featured as Book of the Week by The Haiku Foundation. In Island, Judith Beveridge wrote that, “Jane Gibian has a delicate and intuitive style…and her haiku brilliantly express the transient, fleeting nature of experience and perception.”
sidesaddle on the bicycle
one plastic shoe not quite
. . . . . . . . . . . .slipping off
on the street of hairclips
buckets of pink crabs
boil in their shells
at dawn
each rosebud wrapped
in damp twists of newspaper
You can download the book here as a PDF archived in THF Digital Library.
The January 2020 Eucalypt: a tanka journal e-Newsletter is now online, announcing our Scribble Award Winners from issue 27, and featuring an insight into the work of our illustrator, Pim Sarti.
Please click on the link to open the PDF file.
Warm wishes
Julie Thorndyke
Editor, Eucalypt: a tanka journal
editor.eucalypt@gmail.com
1st Place
fiery sunset
a single red blossom
on the blackened branch
Louise Hopewell
There is no doubt that the weather is changing and that there is a climate emergency upon us. In Australia the records keep being broken, records of storms, high temperatures, low rainfall, and continuous drought, all of which have beset our beautiful country. I chose this photograph, which I captured on a recent deployment in Queensland fighting the bushfires with other Tasmanian crews, to use for the seasonal image for the Kukai. The fire was out of control and burning over the surrounding mountains. I was looking for haiku that worked with the power of the image to bring us an emotional connection. Louise has captured very well the danger of the scene, but she has also expressed an overwhelming feeling of hope. Things have their time and place, but there will be rebirth. A lot to pack into a one-breath three line haiku, but I think it has been achieved very well indeed and so I would like to award it a worthy first place. Continue reading “Results of the Australian Haiku Society Summer Solstice 2019 Haiga Kukai: Seasonal”
1st Place
painted cow –
the village boy’s makeup
still taboo
Isabel Caves
This haiku appealed for the mystery that it evokes along with the brightly coloured display cow. Who is the boy and what is his life like shrouded in what is still seen as taboo? It seems very much a social comment about the changing times and attitudes we have towards each other. Good haiga are when the haiku and image combine to create something more than their individual parts. I think this combination leads us to examine our thinking, and how there can be change for the better. Continue reading “Results of the Australian Haiku Society Summer Solstice 2019 Haiga Kukai: Non-Seasonal”
Australian Haiku Society 