The Fringe Myrtles met on Sunday 20th October at the Melbourne Athenaeum Library. In attendance were Rodney Williams, Robbie Coburn, Takanori Hayakawa, Louise Hopewell, Olivia Ark and Rob Scott.
Today’s meeting began with a discussion about editing haiku. Rob has recently been going back over old work and considering ways of improving them. He shared some tips for editing/revisiting haiku from Lee Gurga’s book, Haiku: A Poet’s Guide. This raised some interesting discussions around various aspects of haiku writing, including word choice, internal comparisons, sound qualities, humour and cultural differences in haiku. It was a wide-ranging discussion which, in some ways, had us debating the essential qualities of haiku.
This meeting was our final meeting of the year and was also the last meeting that our friend, Takanori Hayakawa, will attend before returning to Japan early next year. I would personally like to thank Taka for his warmth, knowledge and friendship over many years. His contribution to the Fringe Myrtles has been immense and he will be missed.
Our meeting was also the prelude to a fabulous ink drawing workshop at the library, led by Junko Azukawa. See our results below.
– Rob Scott
Australian Haiku Society 