Red Kelpie Haiku Group #18

Having woken the cat and I with a huge sonic boom, the thunderstorm climaxed and passed in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, 2nd December, the date of the RKHG’s summer meeting.  Although it was a cool morning with a forecast of “possible showers”, we were in luck: no rain.  Five members of the RKHG met at the Botanic Gardens and apologies were received from Robyn Cairns, Robbie Coburn and Marisa Fazio. Many plants were in flower, including the small yard of Flanders Poppies near the Shrine of Remembrance, the Southern Magnolia with its huge blossoms and the lovely, old-fashioned hydrangeas. The air was fresh after the night’s rain and we saw, unusually, a single shearwater (mutton bird) dozing in the sun. It had probably sought refuge there from the night’s storm.

Our topic for the day, led by Takanori Hayakawa  (Taka) was both challenging and interesting: ‘Kigo in Kyoto and Melbourne’. We were privileged to be guided through kigo culture “from the horse’s mouth”, so to speak. Continue reading “Red Kelpie Haiku Group #18”

Watersmeet Spring Ginko

Watersmeet Haiku Group held its Spring ginko on 16th November at Princes Park, Battery Point. We were a small group. Irene McGuire, Leanne Jaeger, Ron Moss and Lyn Reeves were joined by Jenny Barnard, an original member of Watersmeet, who had been unable to come to meetings for some time.  It was a delight to have her with us again.

In the park, swallows wheeled in swift circles across the grassy hill that sloped down towards the road, and one or two solitary walkers traversed the paths. A mother and her toddler climbed on the wooden boat-shaped play structure that gives the green space its local name of The Boat Park. The new green leaves of shade trees ruffled in a slight breeze from the waterfront where the CSIRO’s research vessel, Investigator, had docked that morning after a month-long voyage studying currents around Antarctica.

Continue reading “Watersmeet Spring Ginko”

19th Bowerbird Tanka Workshop at Arboretum

The venue for the 19th Bowerbird Tanka workshop was not this time ‘Wirraminna’ but  the newly upgraded gardeners’ cottage in the Crommelin Native Arboretum, in Pearl Beach. The venue proved very satisfactory and inspiring for the 13 delegates, with wide double doors of the cottage opening to a grassy slope. The two main workshops on music (Hazel Hall) and tanka as medication (Carmel Summers) were well-received. You can read about them in the report by Kent Robinson on the Eucalypt web-site under the heading Bowerbird along with  tanka appraisals by Beatrice Yell and Yvonne Hales and a fitting celebration of the landscape around us by Michael Thorley which alluded to the many tanka about trees published in the first issue of “Eucalypt: a tanka journal”.

Continue reading “19th Bowerbird Tanka Workshop at Arboretum”

Paperbark Haiku Ginko

By Samar Ghose

Paperbark Haiku (formerly Mari Warabiny) had its Spring Haiku Gathering and Ginko on Wednesday the 14th of November 2018. The selected location was The Ruth Faulkner Public Library and its surrounding gardens in The City of Belmont in Perth, Western Australia which enjoys a 34 year long sister city relationship with Adachi-ku, a special ward of Tokyo, Japan where there stands a statue of Haiku Master Matsuo Basho. Continue reading “Paperbark Haiku Ginko”

Name Change for Mari Warabiny

Mari Warabiny Haiku Group has changed its name! We are now called Paperbark Haiku.

The linking of ‘paper’ and ‘bark’ is a connection to nature, and its fragility juxtaposes well with the longevity of the written word. Or as Tash Adams said “paper bark … for me has a 2nd meaning, like a barking piece of paper… or something on the paper that speaks” The peeling away of the bark can be likened to the peeling away of the layers of meaning within haiku. Continue reading “Name Change for Mari Warabiny”