Thursday 11 April, 2024
A table beneath the trees on an autumn day in Canberra—what more could our little band of poets desire for a haiku lunch meeting?
Five of us this time—Kathy Kituai, Hazel Hall, Marietta McGregor, Glenys Ferguson, and Jan Dobb. We missed Gregory Piko who was out of town. Always a mutual joy to come together again ‘in real life’, as the saying now goes. A couple of optimistic magpies added to the reality!
As lunch orders arrived, our personal catch-up turned to the topic of synesthesia, a carry-over from thoughts we went away with last time we met. Although effective as a poetic device, we acknowledged that for some people synesthesia is indeed a fact of life: numbers do have colours, a sound can truly be white. We wondered about Basho when he heard those wild ducks . . .
Most of our time, however, was taken up with a volatile and quite intense discussion of experimental haiku. Copies of twenty or so haiku from a variety of sources were circulated for discussion. The range was broad, yet it seems all had been editorially accepted as genuine haiku. Again, we were faced with the perpetual questions of what is haiku and what is not haiku? While experimentation and originality certainly have a place as haiku evolves, a nebulous yet underlying ‘haiku spirit’ remains essential. On this point, we surmised, the reader’s perception comes into play. As someone said, ‘The reader becomes the fourth line’.
We came away with our spirits fired and much to think about. Another great time of sharing—including a chip or two for the magpies!
Jan Dobb
Australian Haiku Society 