Cloudcatchers Summer Ginko #60

Pop Denison Park, Ballina, NSW
Thursday 28 January 2021

Cloudcatchers gathered for Ginko No. 60 at a lovely little seaside inlet, Shaw’s Bay, in Ballina, just north of the mouth of the Richmond River. Previously the group has celebrated each ‘noughty’ ginko at the site of our first gathering in 2005, at Brunswick Heads, but we have all aged since then. As most of our more senior and stalwart members are now reluctant to make the half hour drive in highway traffic, we ‘stayed home’, and the younger ones came to us.

Still in the search for ‘What makes a good haiku?’ we enjoyed reading snippets to each other from the recent ‘Windfall’, Issue No.9 2021 (edited by Beverley George, published by Peter Macrow of Blue Giraffe Press). We appraised a number of haiku by members, and also those of some highly respected haijin, savouring the process.

We remembered all who have trodden this land before us before heading out for our quiet time for forty-five minutes. Rain is certainly needed here, and had been predicted for that day; however the weather was perfectly sunny with a slight seaside breeze. We were right by the water’s edge at a location that also offers unspoilt remnants of a littoral forest. There was certainly plenty to engage our senses.

On returning to the picnic table each poet attempted to create haiku from collected images, and then we read these first drafts in turn. Some were amusing, some thought-provoking, some quite delightful. There was time for the workshopping of some of them before we moved on to the Shaw’s Bay Hotel for lunch together.