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On Saturday 14th March, members Beverley George (convenor), Maire Glacken, Pip Griffin, Marilyn Humbert, Colleen Keating, and Kent Robinson met at our usual venue, the Gosford Regional Gallery, for morning tea before beginning our ginko in the ever-beautiful Edogawa Japanese Garden. The garden commemorates the sister city relationship between Tokyo’s Edogawa city and the New South Wales Central Coast city of Gosford.

In autumn sunshine, it was a delight to wander in the gardens, to watch koi and ducks in the stream and groups of children, accompanied by parents, running about excitedly near the pavilion, enjoying the unusual wild life and beautiful surroundings. As usual, there was plenty to inspire our haiku: pink-flowering rhododendron bushes, sparkling raked white pebbles, glimpses of the blue, shining bay through the palisade fence, the little Japanese bridge and the gently falling waterfall. We sat at different spots, jotting down haiku ideas, before going back to our meeting room to talk about our published haiku and/or book launches we are preparing, to share a haiku from a poet that had impressed us, and read aloud the haiku we’d brought, triggered by Beverley’s prompt, ‘unpredictable summer weather’.

Marilyn shared highlights of her very recent trip to Malaysia and commented on our haiku, sharing her expertise. I shared a haiku recently published in Echidna Tracks. Colleen told us she has been invited to read from her just-launched poetry book Ring the Bells at Words on the Waves Writers’ Festival on the Central Coast. Beverley showed us a lovely handmade haiku book, Winged Ones –birds of four seasons, by Satoru Kanematsu. She and Kent are planning a book launch of their delightful new haiku collection, Interwoven. The book will be stocked by Books Plus in Bathurst.

After a very satisfying morning of reading and sharing ideas, our meeting finished at 12:30pm. Our next meeting will celebrate Winter on Saturday 13th June, followed by Saturday 12th September, celebrating Spring.

Pip Griffin