22 January 2024
Although having given up on summer, our group risked gathering outdoors for a breakfast meeting near the Portarlington Pier. Twenty degrees and a light but cool breeze were no deterrent as we shared an array of breakfast goodies before we got down to business.
Business consisted of reading articles: ‘How to Approach Haiku’ and ‘What Makes a Haiku a Haiku’, both to assist with how we read and judge haiku written by others and how we critique our own work.
We then read aloud a number of haiku we’d selected as being our favourites, both Issa and Basho popping up amongst them, and explained why they were chosen. This was followed by reading one or two of our own haiku that had become personal favourites.
We each wrote one of our own on a piece of material. These were put together as bunting and tied between fence posts to provide passengers arriving from Melbourne on the daily ferry with a creative and exciting piece of Portarlington culture!!
Discussion continued regarding our impending involvement with ‘Haiku Down Under’ and also ways we could celebrate International Haiku Day on April 17. Adding a number of laminated haiku on leaf-shaped cards to a ‘nominated haiku tree’ outside a local cafe was one. Haiku-bombing the pier or footpaths with chalk haiku was another.
Our regular kukai continues enthusiastically and the results are published, along with a short article, in our monthly local paper, with members excited to see their work in print.
A ginko in the Geelong Botanic Gardens is planned for later in February.
Jenny Macaulay (facilitator)
Australian Haiku Society 