Thangs Cafi Haiku Reading

Thangs Cafi is holding a haiku reading to celebrate Spring and Summer on Thursday November 16th at 8pm. Featured readers will be Sue Stanford, Matt Hetherington, Leanne Hills, Antony Ley and Myron Lysenko.

There will also be an open reading of haiku, and prizes will be presented to the most striking and memorable haiku of the night.

THANGS CAFI 502 Lygon Street, Brunswick East (near Albion Road). Enquiries to Roger 9383.7851 or Paul Gibson Roy at this email address: roypg@unimelb.edu.au

Haiku – 5-7-5? An article by Vanessa Proctor

When many people hear the word ‘haiku’, their immediate response is, ‘That’s a Japanese poem written in seventeen syllables – 5-7-5’. While it’s true that traditional Japanese haiku is written in this form, haiku in English, because of the very nature of the English language, doesn’t conform to the 5-7-5 pattern.

Continue reading “Haiku – 5-7-5? An article by Vanessa Proctor”

Words & Water Dragons – a report

This year for the first time Queensland Poetry Festival and Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha invited poets and poetry lovers to an informal reading of haiku and other Japanese verse forms in the the Japanese Garden.

On Saturday 19 August, a lovely spring-like morning, 20 or so people gathered for the readings.

The morning opened with a dedication and reading of the work of Barry Dangerfield, a former curator and significant force behind the gardens as they are today, who passed away late last year.

A strong selection of Brisbane writers including Duncan Richardson, Katherine Samuelowicz, Jeff Harpeng, Ross Clark, Rowan Donovan, Graham Nunn and Ynes Sanz read from their own and others’ work.

The highlight of the event for organisers was hearing from a number of people who responded to the invitation to compose a haiku during the morning, especially since some of them had never before written a haiku or read in public!

Those who were there enjoyed the opportunity to listen and read in such a peaceful and fitting setting and supported the idea of building from this somewhat tentative beginning in future years.

Ynes Sanz