ILLAWONG HAIKU GROUP AUTUMN MEETING

Tuesday 19th March 2019

It is sometimes said that bigger is better but at our first meeting for 2019 it must be said that is not always the case. While unfortunately three of our members Barbara, Gavin and Lana were unable to attend it allowed our small group to spend more time on all things ‘haiku’.

It was originally planned that our meeting be held outdoors at Burnum Burnum Sanctuary, Woronora. However, due to the unpredictable weather it was decided to meet at the very pleasant alternative Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre at Gymea.

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Red Dragonflies’ Autumn Meeting, 2019

Our first meeting this year was hosted by Cynthia Rowe on Saturday 2nd March. Others present were Barbara Fisher, Dawn  Bruce, Vanessa Proctor and Willem Tibben.

Vanessa had forwarded the exercises beforehand so everyone came well armed with work.

The most testing exercise was  to write a haiku about writing poetry (a subject dear to all poets) and for another we had to choose a favorite haiku and then say why we liked it.

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Announcement of AHS Autumn Equinox Haiku String 2019

The Australian Haiku Society welcomes contributions from haiku poets worldwide to the AHS Autumn Equinox Haiku String 2019.

We will be holding a Haiku String during the day of the Southern Hemisphere Autumn Equinox, which occurs in Australia on Thursday, 21st March 2019. The String will remain open for contributions until Saturday 23rd March to accommodate international poets who may wish to take part. Continue reading “Announcement of AHS Autumn Equinox Haiku String 2019”

Red Kelpie Haiku Group #19

On Sunday 10th March a pall of dense smoke haze hung over Melbourne for the second day. As I walked past the Cenotaph, on my way to our rendezvous in the Botanic Gardens, the Eternal Flame rose high in the seemingly breezeless air, bringing to mind the recent bushfires in Gippsland. Not only our bushfires came to mind, though: that wavering film of heated air surrounding the Flame triggered the instantaneous return of a particular translation of a haiku by Bashō I’d been thinking about a few weeks ago:

Almost as high
As the crumbled statue,
The heated air shimmering
From the stone foundation.

         — Matsuo Bashō, from The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa, 1966).
Continue reading “Red Kelpie Haiku Group #19”

White Pebbles, Autumn Meeting 2019

The poet of ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, John Keats, would be proud of our group of Haikuists taking an autumnal walk around the Gosford /Edogawa Gardens on the Central Coast this past Saturday 9th March 2019.  We were aware of the concept of ichi-go ichi-e, the Japanese idiom ‘treasuring the unrepeatable nature of the moment.’ Continue reading “White Pebbles, Autumn Meeting 2019”