A meeting of people interested in writing haiku occurred in Orange, NSW, in mid-June of this year. Facilitated by Christine Judd, expressions of interest were collected via Facebook, with positive responses received from 15 people.
The aim of this endeavour was to see if there were people interested in Japanese short-form writing in English, to offer such events within regional NSW generally, and to see if there is scope for a regular haiku group to form locally in the future.
On a cold autumn Saturday, six people came together for the initial gathering, with four apologies received. The meeting was held at a local nursery-café with a sunny, protected outside table reserved. Over tea, coffee and lunch, Chris brought some examples of haiku from 3 different publications: Echidna Tracks, Modern Haiku, and Femku. The concept of haiku was discussed with individuals identifying haiku that they liked from examples provided. At the end of the hour and a half, there was a consensus to meet again and to have some ‘homework’ to explore before the next gathering. This includes looking at online journals and finding haiku from published writers that they particularly find interesting, reading some of the online websites such as of the Australian Haiku Society, and, of course, writing their own haiku, or fragments.
Further resources were supplied, including names of a range of journals, the Australian Haiku Society website, alongside websites from other countries and organisations, and finally, the wonderful resource from Quendryth Young, A Haiku Workshop With Quendryth Young (located in the AHS website resources) to take home and read in their own time.
The next meeting will be convened in the second half of July and resources/ ‘homework’ has been emailed to those people who could not attend. We will use the same venue weather permitting. If you would like to know more about this fledgling group please email: orangenswhaiku@gmail.com
Christine Judd
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