JODIE HAWTHORNE has a new haiku book WATCHING PILGRIMS, WATCHING ME, published by Pardalote Press. It was launched in Tasmania. Kaye Aldenhoven had an opportunity to talk to Jodie in Darwin, as she waits for the birth of her child, before returning to China.
Category: NT
Top End Haiku – a report by Lyn Reeves
At the Word Storm Writers’ Festival in Darwin in 2004 I was privileged to run a workshop with eleven Northern Territory writers. The participants had varying backgrounds in haiku, from those who’d come across it at school to a couple of poets who had read much of the contemporary literature on the form. A few had strong background or interest in Zen Buddhism, which I believe is a valuable asset to accessing the haiku mind.
Report from Wordstorm
I recently had the pleasure of attending Wordstorm, the 2006 Northern Territory Writers’ Festival held in Darwin (May 18 – 21) at the Museum and Art Gallery NT. The programme connected almost 60 writers from Indigenous, non-Indigenous and Southeast Asian cultures with a diversity of readers, writers, artists and lovers of life who came to share the experience and excitement of this unique festival.
It was a privilege to be included in the programme and an honour to be asked to run a workshop on the art of haiku. Opportunities such as this continue to raise the profile of haiku in our country and I was thrilled with the energy the small but committed group of workshop participants generated.
I look forward to keeping in contact with all of the participants and sharing their haiku journey.
Australian Haiku Society 