Thursday 9 November 2023
How quickly the months come around, and here we are again @ The Oaks, this time with rain falling and puddles filling. So, an inside day it is. Just four of us to lunch—Gregory Piko, Glenys Ferguson, Marietta McGregor and Jan Dobb—our thoughts turning to missing chums, Kathy Kituai and Hazel Hall.
During our catch up, Glenys mentioned her recent lunch date with local poet Carmel Summers and produced a copy of Carmel’s recently published book of poems Lost in the Pleiades. We recalled with Carmel ‘The Seven Sisters’ and their long significance in mythology and astronomy, noting the poet’s imagination and style as she takes the reader on a journey among the stars.
Congratulations were in order for Marietta, who received an Honourable Mention in the 7th Basho Memorial English Haiku Contest, Japan. And we’ve learnt that both Marietta and Greg are among the eight Aussie poets who had haiku included in Selected Submissions International Collection for the 15th Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest. More celebration @ The Oaks!
Over the past several years, Jan has accumulated a sizeable collection of quotes from her readings about haiku—those bits you want to underline, the bits you don’t want to lose and never find again, the impressions you want to share with others . . .quite a list by now. As copies were passed around our lunch table, we admired attempts like the following to capture the elusive essence of haiku:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Maya Angelou, cattails, April 2019
At its best, the haiku comes shimmering out of nothingness with a glimmer of insight into the universal nature of things.
H F Noyes, foreword of Between Two Waves, 1996
These and other quotes—some much longer—were shared between us while our discussion wandered to form, content, translation, inference and . . . Well, how do you adequately define haiku? Haiku, like the universe, veils its inner mystery.
When we packed up and ventured outside again, the sun was shining!
Jan Dobb
Australian Haiku Society 