Cloudcatchers’ Ginko No.34

The thirty-fourth ginko of the Cloudcatchers was held on Thursday 31 July 2014 at the site where it all began in December 2005; Torakina Park at Brunswick Heads. It was the mid-winter ginko, but a strange weather pattern had us absorbing the ambience of this beachside location in gloriously warming winter sunshine.

The beach was dotted with dads and toddlers, who featured strongly in many haiku. John Bird noted one of the little ones wading off in the direction of New Zealand. There were ample bush turkeys to challenge little boys, and in spite of excited young voices there was the usual abundance of birdsong in the surrounding tuckeroos and banksias. Recently published haiku were shared before the silence, which was followed by the round-table reading and workshopping of first drafts. Ten Cloudcatchers participated, and we continued the camaraderie at The Bruns (hotel) over lunch together. The Winter Round Robin is currently under way.

Quendryth Young

Red Dragonflies winter meeting 2014

The Red Dragonflies, with the inclusion of guest, Bill Tibben, held their winter meeting on Saturday 19th July at Vanessa Proctor’s home. With the smells of freshly baked bread and buttermilk cake with passionfruit icing wafting about us, we workshopped our pre-set exercises which had presented the usual challenge, i.e. to compose original haiku on topics including a night in the country, a winter plant, and International Friendship Day.

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Lorin Ford’s ‘a wattle seedpod’ now a free e-book

Lorin Ford has made her book of haiku, ‘a wattle seedpod’ (PostPressed, 2008) available to all as a free pdf download from the The Haiku Foundation Digital Library. As well as 109 haiku, ‘a wattle seedpod’ has a cover by Ron Moss and a foreword by John Bird, founder of HaikuOz.

www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/175

‘a wattle seedpod’ won first prize in the 2009 HSA Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Awards, the first book by an Australian author to be awarded that honour.

Review of two recent books on Haiku

by Janet Howie

Over the summer holidays I read two informative, inspirational and professional books on haiku that featured the work of a wide range of influential poets from Britain, America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Haiku in English – The First Hundred Years, edited by Jim Kacian, Philip Rowland, and Allan Burns with an Introduction by Billy Collins. First edition printed in the USA, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 andWhere the River Goes – The Nature Tradition in English-Language Haiku
edited by Allan Burns. First edition published by Snapshot Press, Orchard House, High Lane, Ormskirk L40 7sl in great Britain in 2013.

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Bindii 7 June 2014

The Bindii Group met at the Box Factory: 59 Regent St South, Adelaide for our June meeting.

Karin Anderson presented a very well researched workshop on senryu, haiku and also touched on kyoka.

Kyoka stands in the same relation to tanka as senryu to haiku. We looked at examples of the forms and definitions and tried to work out which example fitted into which category, not always an easy task.
This was followed by general workshop of members’ work.

Lynette Arden
http://haiku-bindii.blogspot.com.au/

Red Dragonflies Autumn Meeting 2015

The Red Dragonflies had a rewarding autumn meeting kindly hosted by Lesley Walter and her husband Terry. As well as Lesley, Barbara Fisher, Beverley George and Vanessa Proctor attended. The atmosphere was convivial as we sampled a delicious variety of cakes, drank Terry’s excellent coffee and discussed haiku over an overflowing haiku bowl. Haiku for discussion were on the subjects of migrating birds, families and home-grown food. As always, topics for the haiku bowl were individually chosen and varied from travel to the streets of Sydney and from lighthouses to rabbits.

Vanessa Proctor

Red Kelpie Haiku Group Ginko & Meeting #1

The Red Kelpies met on Sunday 4th May, 2014 at the Melbourne Zoo for our first meeting and ginko. We were honoured that HaikuOz President, Cynthia Rowe, and her husband Bruce, came all the way down from Sydney to be with us … a most auspicious sign! Of course, Cynthia and Bruce are now Honorary Members.

It was one of those traditional Melbourne days, with the rain bucketing down one minute, blue sky and sunshine the next then ominous, leaden cloud-banks again.After introductions, we gathered at a table outside the cafeteria which was sheltered by an umbrella

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Haiga Collaboration

A new haiga collaboration involving Beverley George, Mariko Kitakubo and Ron C. Moss can be viewed at:

http://www.haigaonline.com/issue15-1/contents.html

The previously published or awarded haiku of Australian Central Coast poet and former president of the Australian Haiku Society, Beverley George, are translated into the delicate calligraphy of Tokyo tanka poet and performer, Mariko Kitakubo, and further enhanced by the skilled and sensitive sumi-e of Tasmanian poet and artist, Ron C. Moss.