Author: Lynette Arden

Red Dragonflies’ Autumn Meeting

The six members of the Red Dragonflies haiku group met at Dawn Bruce’s home on Saturday 25th February in glorious sunshine for our first meeting of the year.

We workshopped and shared haiku about global warming and the unseasonal weather which has settled over Sydney for the past few months. We also did an exercise using the colour blue, which resulted in some surprising and exceptional haiku. There was the usual laughter and happy companionship and it was really brought home to us just how subjective our responses to haiku can be, as group members’ opinions about several of the haiku presented varied greatly.

Vanessa Proctor

Report on Cloudcatchers’ Summer Ginko No 24

Ginko No.24 (summer)

Shaw’s Bay, Ballina, NSW
Thursday 9 February 2012

Never be afraid of a wet ginko. When poets gather to experience together the nuances of their environment, images are heightened by the extremes that the elements may present. The Cloudcatchers held their summer ginko at Shaw’s Bay, and at the Skate Park, Ballina, on Thursday 9 February. It rained all day.

Some walked along the beach, wet and laughing; some had umbrellas blow inside out; some had problems with ink on wet paper as they took notes. Some hunkered down in the shelter shed which they shared from time to time with a variety of silent disheveled birds, and small black ants also on a quest for a dry spot.

This is the summer weather of where we live, and we were in it. The smell of the rain, the sound of the rain, the way it joined the puddles, the wide open bay receiving it all. Images were captured in words, and woven into haiku around a large table at the Shaw’s Bay Hotel, where we stayed on for lunch together.

Any poet wishing to join our autumn ginko is welcome to contact Quendryth Young, at: quendrythyoung@bigpond.com

Quendryth Young
Cloudcatchers Coordinator

Bindii 4 February 2012

Venue: Box Factory, 59 Regent St South, Adelaide

Time: 10.30 am to 1 pm.
Present: Lyn Arden, Belinda Broughton, Jill Gower, Maeve Archibald, Margaret Rawlinson, Lee Bentley, Margaret Fensom.
Apologies: Alex Ask, Marilyn Linn, Julia Wakefield, Judith Ahmed, Dawn Colsey.

Haiku Bindii Vol. 1 Journeys 2011 100 extra copies have been printed and are available for sale.

Beverley George has sent postcards for members who met her in Adelaide.

Continue reading “Bindii 4 February 2012”

December 24, 2011

Congratulations to Dr Sharon Dean

Huge congratulations to Dr Sharon Dean, who has had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her by the Griffith University QLD. Her thesis was entitled ‘White Heron: The Authorised Biography of Australian Pioneering Haiku Writer, Janice Bostok.’

Sharon was present at the time of the formation of Cloudcatchers, in December 2005, where she had conversation with Janice Bostok. You will recall that Janice, our Patron, died in September this year. Sharon has maintained a passionate interest in all Cloudcatchers, and their activities and successes, though her work situation has prevented her from attending ginko recently. She has been congratulated by the Dean of the Griffith Graduate Research School on her outstanding achievement and the significance of her work and its contribution to the field of research.

Sharon won the Haiku Dreaming Australia Competition in 2009. And it was a haiku of Sharon’s that was the only one chosen to illustrate the genre in the review of the ‘Third Australian Haiku Anthology’ which appeared in ‘Spectrum’ (Sydney Morning Herald) last Saturday. We are fortunate and privileged to number her as one of us.

Quendryth Young
Cloudcatchers Coordinator

Jutei and Basho by Esther Theiler

Esther Theiler’s new book Jutei and Basho is now available from Ginninderra Press.

www.ginninderrapress.com.au/fiction.html

Jutei was a woman who lived in Japan in the seventeenth century and had a relationship of some kind with the great haiku master, Matsuo Basho. This is an imaginative re-construction of the life of Jutei, intertwined with the historically known life of Basho and written in the spirit of haibun and haiku.

Continue reading “Jutei and Basho by Esther Theiler”

Red Dragonflies’ Summer Meeting

A ginko had been on the agenda for the Red Dragonflies’ meeting at Pearl Beach on Saturday 26th November, however, inclement weather put a decided stop to that plan. The weather being assuredly for ducks rather than dragonflies, we met, instead, at Beverley George’s home, where we workshopped our pre-written haiku before the skies fortuitously cleared and we managed to flit around Beverley’s home and garden in quasi-ginko fashion. By the time we arrived at the beachside café for lunch, the day had turned quite summery. Our spirits more than matched the sunny afternoon. All in all, a thoroughly uplifting occasion.

after the rain
the laughter of kookaburras
suddenly joins ours

Lesley Walter