Welcome to the annual celebration of Australian footy and haiku!
Calling haiku poets from all over the planet to participate in the Annual AFL Grand Final Haiku Kukai for 2025. Over the past decade this has become a much-loved event – the one day of the year when haiku poets (expert and novice), footy fans and misanthropes turn their Zen or otherwise addled minds to producing a live haiku call of the AFL Grand Final. Sounds bonkers, doesn’t it? Come along and find out!
International Haiku Day is celebrated worldwide on April 17 each year. Local poet, Myron Lysenko, Victoria’s Regional Representative for the Australian Haiku Society, has organised haiku activities in Woodend throughout April, including a haiku contest, haiku readings, haiku workshops, pop-up haiku poets, and a haiku picnic. Lysenko is the convenor of the monthly spoken word event Chamber Poets, and is an avid promoter, practitioner and teacher of haiku.
Continue reading “Woodend Haiku Festival – April 2025”Grand Final day—
the clear blue sky
is part of the scent
Welcome to the annual celebration of Australian footy and haiku!
Calling all haiku poets from every nook and cranny on the planet to participate in the Annual AFL Grand Final Haiku Kukai for 2024. This has become a much loved event, now running for over a decade! The one day of the year when haiku poets, expert and novice, footy fan or critic, turn their Zen minds to the rip-roaring, white-knuckle ride of a footy match to produce a live haiku call of the AFL Grand Final.
Registrations for Haiku Down Under are free and close on August 11.
The Haiku Down Under weekend, taking place online via Zoom from Friday to Sunday, August 16-18, will provide a unique occasion to explore haiku and related forms in depth, and to connect with fellow haiku poets in Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
It’s now only two months until Haiku Down Under 2024, which will take place online via Zoom from Friday to Sunday, August 16-18, 2024. Register for free for Haiku Down Under 2024 via the form on the website’s Register page. You will receive an initial confirmation email. Zoom links will be sent in August. Registrations will close on August 11. A haiku contest to be run in conjunction with HDU 2024 will only be open to registered participants.
Visit the Programme page for current information on the mix of presentations, interactive workshops and other activities planned for the weekend. Visit the Presenters page for details of our exciting line-up of poet presenters.
For any queries or messages for the Haiku Down Under team, please use the link on the Contact Us page.
The Melbourne Poets Union presents Haiku and the Seasons Writing Workshop, by Alice Wanderer, Sunday 9 June, 2024 11:00am.
This workshop is aimed at anyone interested in learning to write haiku or in deepening their understanding of it. It will focus on the English Language haiku tradition and Japanese haiku intersect.
In celebration of International Haiku Day, the FRINGE MYRTLES HAIKU GROUP will be the featured readers at CHAMBER POETS, a monthly spoken word event organised by Myron Lysenko since 2013. It takes place on the second Saturday of each month between 1pm- 4pm at the Woodend RSL (32 Anslow Street Woodend). The date for this haiku celebration/reading is 13th April. There will also be an OPEN SECTION and resident band BLACK FOREST SMOKE will perform haiku set to music. All welcome. Entry by donation $10/$5.
Performance artist and Fellow of the State Library of Victoria, Leisa Shelton, is working on a project for an exhibition ‘(In)visible Libraries’ that includes small hand-made books of haiku from Under the Same Moon alongside their translation into Braille. The first of these features urban haiku. Poets whose work has been selected are Olivia Ark, Gavin Austin, Dawn Bruce, Jane Gibian, Louise Hopewell, Jayashri Maniyil, Maurice Nevile and Lyn Reeves. There is a readers’ corner where people can access these books. If you are in Melbourne you may like to drop in and enjoy the poetry. For more information please visit the link below:
https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/invisible-libraries
For more background to the project, see the ABC news story from last year.
Australian Haiku Society 