2009 Seabeck Haiku Retreat

Just back from the Seabeck Haiku Retreat -- and what a retreat it was. See for yourself:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMKA14Imqzw

PHOTOS by Deborah P. Kolodji:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkolodji/sets/72157622519709971/show/

moonflower kigo

.

Surprise!

a moonflower fell -

midnight sound

.............. ......Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902)

The moonflower, Ipomoea alba, is a kigo for late spring / early summer. Its large, fragrant, round blossoms are revealed after dusk in a dramatically rapid fashion, often seeming to almost spring open.

Related to the morning glory, it is native to tropical and sub-tropical regions of North and South America. The large 4-5 inch flowers range in color from white to pink, and are often cultivated as a garden ornamental. In regions like Florida, it can become an invasive twining pest, choking out other plants.

The pre-Colombian Mesoamericans civilizations used the high sulfur content of the moonflower plant to vulcanize latex from the Catilla elastica tree into rubber balls used in arena sports.

Here is a moon flower opening in real time, a mere 72 seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV3uDDnt_14

Higginson on kigo and tradition

The rationale behind season words is tradition, not personal or local experience. It makes sense to add certain items to a season word list according to local custom, such as holidays, unique cultural features, and particular weather phenomena or creature-behaviors unique to a specific region, provided they are included at times when poets have in fact noticed them and writen about them. But this is not always the case for phenomena of more or less universal experience. ...

...The overriding factor here is that, unless one is in a very distinctly different climatic zone than mid-temperate central Japan, on which the Japanese saijiki is nominally based, and the phenomenon in question is already recorded in a common Japanese saijiki, then *millions of poets* already relate to it that way.

--William Higginson

from the World Kigo Database:
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2006/11/wind-chimes-fuurin.html

ANNOUNCEMENT

Shelby County, Iowa's first lesbian wedding:

Billie Dee and Kathleen Marie Mayne
exchanged vows of holy matrimony today,
Monday, June 15, 2009,
at the home of Kathleen's mother
attended by family, friends,
robins and scores of red squirrels.

Finally legal, after all these years!

summer dawn
even on my wedding day
writing haiku

haiga

blue or green

make up your mind

dragonfly

haigaonline 9:2, 2008 autumn ginko

new publications

Contemporary Haibun Online - two new haibun.

Haiga Online - eight new haiga:
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/contemporary/album/slides/06.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/contemporary/album/slides/09.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/07.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/08.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/09.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/10.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/11.html
http://haigaonline.com/issue10-1/workshop/album/slides/12.html

Roadrunner - three new haiku.

haibun

BEATITUDE

I've just walked the dog in the rain. As I hang up her leash, they're running a clip on CNN of the Texas Pickaxe Murderer, her last ten minutes on Death Row. She is dressed in white, face radiant as she grips her Bible, crosses herself, and steps from the cell.

desert moon
a yield sign laced
with bullet holes

contemporary haibun online, 5:1, March, 2009

new webportal

www.onegoldearring.com

Visit my new Webportal: One Gold Earring

links to almost all my websites (yes, there are dozens of them)

garden haiga

fiddleheads unfurl in Paganini's garden silent rain

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Billie Dee is a featured artist at HaigaOnline, Autumn/Winter 2008

kigo: Southern California summer wildflowers

Deborah Kolodji: Bush Monkey Flower, Fish Canyon, 5/31/09

From Debbie Kolodji, near Los Angeles, over Memorial Day weekend:

As a kigo update, here is a list of the wildflowers in bloom yesterday on the Fish Canyon hike:

• California milkweed (just starting to bloom)
• clarkia
• wild mustard
• prickley pear cactus
• Our Lord's Candle (yucca)
• blue dicks (at end of bloom period - I saw only one plant blooming - in March when I did the hike, they were blooming everywhere)
• Indian pink
• goldenstar
• California buckwheat
• cliff aster
• golden yarrow
• wild morning glory
• sticky monkeyflower
• bush monkey flower
• elegant clarkia
• caterpiller phaelia
• Matilija poppy
• common sunflower
• western wallflower
• white yarrow
• California thistle
• California blackberry
• laurel sumac
• dodder
• Calfornia everlasting
• leafy daisy

Thank you Debbie!

Visit Debbie Kolodji's Fickr site for more photos.

Earth Day haiga

I have a new haiga in the Spring Gallery at HaigaOnline: Earth Day 2009.

haiga

autumn shore

finding the perfect worry stone

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Billie Dee is a featured artist at HaigaOnline, Autumn/Winter 2008

May kigo list for Southern California

courtesy of the Southern California Haiku Study Group

The Season

end of spring

spring morning

spring rain
spring storm
spring wind
crisp morning
gray May


Mountains, Fields and Ocean

fresh grass
spring fields
green hills
wildflower fields
trail work
thickened bermuda grass


Flowers and Plants

spent lilacs
first cherries
poppies
mustard
periwinkles
jacaranda blossoms
green fig leaves
bougainvillea
onion lily spikes
star jasmine perfume
roses
succulent blooms
budding gardenia
green hydrangea panicles
spiky shoots of ornamental ginger
late blooming wisteria
aloe vera spikes
cymbidium orchids finish blooming
new stems
buddingCanary Island date palms – fruiting stems
staking tomatoes
lettuce bolting (also cabbage, broccoli)
asparagus shoots


Sky and Heavens

flower moon
warm spring breeze
morning fog
spring sky
spring constellations
changing skies


Birds and Animals

palm rats (newborns squealing)
cut-worms
snails
lady bugs
sparrows
dogs have stopped shedding
baby ground squirrels
baby Island Foxes
chirping baby birds
crows eating baby birds
baby rabbits
baby opossums
turkey vulture nests
Nuthatch nests


Human Affairs

Mother’s Day
Renaissance Faire
Memorial Day
Cinco de Mayo
midseason baseball
French Open
shorts
spring dresses
sandals
wedding invitations
graduations
allergy season
wind chimes
kites
baby strollers
IRS refunds

haiga

winter dawn

gray hair tangled on the pillow

.

Billie Dee is a featured artist at HaigaOnline, Autumn/Winter 2008

Rengay in Frogpond, winter 2009

The Waitress Sings

Billie Dee & Deborah P. Kolodji

outside the café
winter jacarandas
winter sky

the scarf Mother made me
last Christmas

tattered cookbook
a buttered thumbprint
on the biscuit page

autographs
old photographs framed
on the wall

bacon pops
in the black iron skillet

fresh crumbs
the waitress sings
as we drink coffee

Frogpond 32.1, 2009

Dedicated to my dear friend
Judy-the-Beauty Forman,
who owns and sings
at the Big Kitchen,
San Diego, California, USA.

Best comfort-food in town
(any town!) served by community
activist and State of California
Woman of the Year, 2005.

The Rengay Form

The rengay is to renga (and other collaborative verse) as the nosegay is to a large wreath of flowers - small, intimate, accessible, and typically lighthearted and joyous.
--Michael Dylan Welch

The North American rengay was invented in 1992 by Garry Gay (ren-Gay). Unlike renga, there are only a few rules:

1. six haiku verses written by two or more poets;
2. verses alternate between 3-lines and 2-lines;
3. each verse should be an independent haiku (including the 2-line verses), though this is the least stringent requirement;
4. a theme should be followed, but without the tight link and shift patterns in traditional renga.

• 2 person pattern:
  3 lines, poet A
  2 lines, poet B
  3 lines, poet A
  3 lines, poet B
  2 lines, poet A
  3 lines, poet B
  
• 3 person pattern:
  3 lines, poet A
  2 lines, poet B
  3 lines, poet C
  2 lines, poet A
  3 lines, poet B
  2 lines, poet C
  
• Recently, 6-person rengay have appeared in such journals as Sketchbook.
  

From conversations with Garry, I know that once having given birth to this new genre he is happy enough to watch its form evolve and become enriched by the imaginations of those who have taken it up. From his perspective, the two incontrovertible “rules” of rengay are (1) more than one participant, and (2) adherence to a theme. -- Carolyn Hall, Frogpond, 2007

Links:
http://www.nc-haiku.org/pdf/RengayWriting.pdf http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/rengay.htm

Be sure to visit Garry Gay's website of photo haiga: The Long Way Home

desert bloom

moolinght perfumes the garden

.

Billie Dee is a featured artist at HaigaOnline, Autumn/Winter 2008

Higginson on the one-line haiku

From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku

A seminal essay from the late William J. Higginson on the 1-liner was published in SimplyHaiku, Fall 2004. He defines four basic types, the latter being more a failure than a class of the genre:

1. One-Stroke Haiku. Those that seem to drive the reader instantly from one end to the other, without a pause for reflection or even noticing the grammar involved.
   
2. Classical-Style One-Line Haiku. Those that have a classic haiku rhythm, dividing easily into three phrases, often with the middle one longer, as do traditional Japanese and three-line haiku in other languages, but which may benefit from being read all at once—as the authors apparently intend. I consider these borderline cases between one-stroke haiku and the following group, but notice that the classical style allows for more play with the internal rhythms of a haiku than may usually be found in a three-line poem.
   
3. Multiple-Meaning One-Line Haiku. Those that may have a classic haiku rhythm, but which also offer the reader a number of syntactic elements, allowing for different interpretations of the poem according to how the reader decides to follow the poem's movement.
   
4. Multi-Line Haiku Written on One Line. Those that include a marked stop or pause, and which therefore are not true one-line haiku in my sense of the term. They usually include extra space between two or more sections, or punctuation marking a grammatical shift, or some other substitute for a line-break.
   

two 1-liners

.
through me the reedy night harmonica

within the stone the sand storm

Roadrunner, August 2008

painter/poet Michele Harvey's website

Be sure to visit Michele Harvey's newly updated website. Not only is she an accomplished poet, but a well-known landscape painter, with work currently showing in NYC and Provincetown, Mass. The subtlety and grace of these mystic images reveal another level of her finely tuned poetic mind.

demarcation
between the lawn and fields
a fence line
dividing the tame from wild
my gold wedding band

cinquain after Rilke

Beast

That dream
where the panther
keeps pacing… and Rilke
won’t tell me which side of the bars
I’m on.

published in Amaze,: the Cinquain Journal, summer, 2007

The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke

His gaze has from the passing of the bars
grown so tired, that it holds nothing anymore.
It seems to him there are a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.

The supple pace of powerful soft strides,
turning in the very smallest circle,
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which a great will stands numbed.

Only sometimes the curtain of the pupils
soundlessly slides up --. Then an image enters,
glides through the limbs' taut stillness
dives to the heart and dies.

[Translated by Edward Snow]

haiga

.

hawaiian shirt

a glass-bottomed boat above

the dying reef

.

Billie is featured in the Autumn 2008 ginko gallery at HaigaOnline

cinquain

Bitterroot

Twilight’s
long-shadowed pines…
now the grasshoppers rest
breathing damp river breeze, come the
crickets.

4 season Japanese saijiki

The SHIKI IE Haiku Salon (from Japan):

a fairly extensive list of traditional kigo, organized by season and type of reference. Includes Japanese terms.

The most useful kigo resources I've come across are:

World Kigo Database
World Kigo Parking Lot (Yahoo email group)

both courtesy of Gabi Greve.

haiga

.

loosening

the sash of her robe

fragrant dawn

.

HaigaOnline, Summer 2008

SoCalHaiku Study Group March Kigo List

March Kigo List

for the Southern California Region

The Season

spring
early spring
Daylight Savings Time
spring rain
spring wind
warmer days

Sky and Heavens

worm moon
spring sky
vernal equinox

Mountains, Fields and Ocean

snow run-off
spring fields
green hills
wildflower fields

Flowers and Plants

cherry blossom
apricot blossom
camellias
daffodils, jonquils
Dutch iris
spring wildflowers
ceanothus/California lilac
California poppy
jade plant
teddy bear cholla
octotillo
paint brush
bladderpod
Joshua tree

Birds and Animals

lizards
coyote pups
wren song
breeding plumage
nesting birds:
barn swallow
American robin
green heron
wren
song sparrow
American coot
black Phoebe
California towhee
wrentit
raven
scrub jay

Human Affairs

spring cleaning
college acceptance/rejection letters
spring break
city election
St. Patrick's Day – green beer, shamrocks
St. Joseph's
Day – St. Joseph's Table
Lent
Purim
Chinese lantern festival

courtesy of Deborah Kolodgi and the Southern California Haiku Study Group

1000-Armed Kannon

at the temple of the 1000-armed Kannon..... 2 pickpockets

Billie is featured in the Autumn 2008 ginko gallery at HaigaOnline

Here is a fascinating video of a Kannon dance. Although the video quality is poor, it's a highly polished, surreal production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKslrx8nVRY

summer tattoo

summer vacation
shopping for my first tattoo
I choose Kandinsky

haiku published in 2007 Yuki Teikei Anthology

Young Leaves is the Yuki Teikei website

.

I plan to get my first tattoo on my 80th birthday. This one:

.

.

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923

April kigo for Southern California

From the Southern California Haiku Study Group

The Season

spring
spring rain
spring storm
spring wind
warmer days

Sky and Heavens

pink moon
spring sky
spring constellations: Virgo, Leo, Ursa Major

Mountains, Fields and Ocean

snow run-off
spring fields
green hills
wildflower fields
trail work

Flowers and Plants

Easter Lilies
wisteria
young leaves
cherry blossoms
crab apple
blossoms
Our Lord's Candle
sky lupine
red bud
trumpet tree

Birds and Animals

swallows
baby rabbits
deer fawn
harbor seal pups
rattlesnakes
nesting birds:
Western gulls
terns
white-throated swift
grebes
wood ducks
California
quail
woodpeckers

Human Affairs

shorts
spring
dresses
spring break
planting
vegetables
Easter
Festival of Books
National Poetry Month
baseball season starts
vacation plans

Thank you Debbie!

Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational 2007

Yipee! I've won an honorable mention, my first haiku prize.


hide and seek--
cherry petals frosting
their shoulders

Haiku Scotland

Please note that Issue 13 will be published in May. Issue 14 will be a>special dedicated to the work of Duncan Gardiner.

Submissions always welcomefor each issue, but please no more than 8 at any one time (I receive hundreds each month and the number increases each month, so please bear>with me if I don't make me usual 2 week-turnaround.

Frazer Henderson

http://home.clara.net/nhi/mg0223.htm
http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/revs/mg043.htm

haiku

sitting
under the cherry tree
I swear off ambition

thinking of Russia

.
I spent June/July of 1993 in Russia -- an enlightening experience; mostly good, except for the 3 times my pocket was picked and the bribes I had to pay to travel. Amazing scenery, architecture and wonderful, well-educated, outgoing people. Even in small villages, someone is eager to practice their English, especially school children.

Traveling the Volga canal system from St. Petersburg to Moscow (the Potemkin cruise) is an experience I would recommend to anyone -- don't go without a guide, but do go, talk with these beautiful people, enjoy their legacy of art and literature. The place is crawling with poets and artists eager to speak!

impressions

white nights*
the smell of peonies
and Marlboros

palace jewels
I now understand
the revolution

white night
outside the winter palace
gypsy children begging

summer in Moscow
such delicate fingers
picking my pocket

silhouetted
against the power plant
abandoned cathedral

Lake Ladoga
a monk swats mosquitos
while praying

Red Square
a gypsy woman pissing
into a rag

summer in Moscow--
subways filled with the treasures
of tzars

See the subways of Moscow as an art treasure: http://www.beeflowers.com/Metro/Komsomolskaya/Kom1/mainpage.htm

*white night is a kigo for the long summer daylight in northern Russia. June in St. Petersburg: the sun sinks to (but not below) the horizon about 2:30 a.m., creating an eerie twilight that lasts until 4 a.m. St. Petersburg (59 56 0 N) is at approximately the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska (61 13 06 N). See World Kigo Database: white night

selling Russia

babushkas
selling their heirlooms
at bus stops

Moscow gift shop
expired antibiotics
for sale

Moscow kiosk
half a banana
500 rubles

changing money
in a Moscow taxi
the driver's oozie

banks of the Neva
selling "McLenin"
t-shirts

the Aroura*
an old soldier selling
his uniform

*During the October Revolution of 1917, the cruise ship Aurora gave the signal (by firing a blank shot) to storm the Winter Palace. It is now a floating museum located on the Neva River, St. Petersburg.

Apologies for waxing on and on, but despite the failures of the post-Soviet economy and big city lawlessness, Russia is an amazing country: a world treasure, an enigma -- go if you can.

Church of the Transfiguration, Kizhi Island on Lake Onego,
a UNESCO World Heritage site. The onion-domed church is built
entirely from birch wood, with no metal nails or parts.

seasonal moon names

Found at the Farmers' Almanac site:

• Full Wolf Moon - January Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January's full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.

• Full Snow Moon - February Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February's full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.

• Full Worm - March Moon As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

• Full Pink Moon - April This name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month's celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

• Full Flower Moon - May In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.

• Full Strawberry Moon - June This name was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. Also because the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June . . . so the full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

• The Full Buck Moon - July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month's Moon was the Full Hay Moon.

• Full Sturgeon Moon - August The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

• Full Harvest Moon - September This is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada and Europe. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice the chief Indian staples are now ready for gathering.

• Full Hunter's Moon - October With the leaves falling and the deer fattened, it is time to hunt. Since the fields have been reaped, hunters can easily see fox and the animals which have come out to glean.

• Full Beaver Moon - November This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.

• The Full Cold Moon; or the Full Long Nights Moon - December During this month the winter cold fastens its grip, and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule. The term Long Night Moon is a doubly appropriate name because the midwinter night is indeed long, and because the Moon is above the horizon for a long time. The midwinter full Moon has a high trajectory across the sky because it is opposite a low Sun.

a discussion on punning

The American poet Kenneth Rexroth, in his introduction to "One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, says:

The 'kake kotoba' or pivot word is a word or part of a word employed in two senses, or, very rarely, in three, one relating to what precedes, the other to what follows. It is a device not unknown to late Latin and it turns up now and then in English humor andf requently in James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake." The word 'matsu', for example, is often used in the sense of 'pine' and 'long for' exactly as in the English 'pine' and 'pine.'. . .

See the rest of this discussion by Larry, Gabi Greve, and Sakuo Nakamura at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/4000
.
For more on Rexroth see: http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/

Haiga Friends

• HaikuShelf ~ Angelika Wienert's (Germany) bilingual photo/haiku blog. Beautiful writing by this widely published author.
  .
• Watercolor, Pen, Photography & More: A gallery of art, photography and poetry by Jerry Dreesen and his friends ~ introspective hand painted haiga that convey the strong feelings of an experienced haijin. I'm looking forward to future posts.
  .
• KANKODORI ~ Olga Hooper (pen name "Origa") is a sumi-e haiga artist and an accomplished haijin, writing in both English and Russian. Links to her work lead to a terrific display of haiga at Simply Haiku. Follow all the links for real pleasure.
  .
• Everyday Issa ~ Haiga on Issa by haijin Sakuo. English and Japanese translations. On everyday I recieve English haiku, then transelate it to Japanese. To make sure my image, I paint it to a picture that is called haiga=haiku picture.
  .
• The Haiga Pages ~ lots of good browsing from this list of online haiga artists.

new kigo

sunset
the freshly whitewashed fence
bathed in pink

I think fence painting could be a summer kigo: no snow, rain, wind; plenty of heat to dry the paint -- a Saturday afternoon's work... Tom Sawyer, etc.

found along the way

• Carol Raisfeld: Haiku Buds ~ haiku, photography, haiga, art-haiku, photo-haiku, poetry, prose. See especially her haiga gallery - lucious photo work, thoughtful ku.
  
  
• PhotoHaiku.net ~ first rate haiga site with many valuable links.
  
  
• Haiku Hut ~ good link source, especially for haiga sites. Short Stuff (now defunct), an on-line journal of short form poetry - archives maintained at this site. Michael Rehling, editor. Michael Rehling's links for further study include:
  
  The Haiku Society of America Haiku Definition
  http://www.hsa-haiku.org/HSA_Definitions_2004.html
  
  Two essays by Lee Gurga, editor of Modern Haiku
  http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haiku/haiku.aesthetics.gurga.htm
  
  http://www.haikuworld.org/begin/lgurga.jun2003.html
  
  Essay from the World Haiku Review by Cor Van Den Heuvel
  http://www.worldhaikureview.org/2-3/worldmap2.shtml
  
  A World Haiku Club Essay by Susumu Takaguchi, Chairman
  www.worldhaikureview.org/2-1/whcessay_translatedst.shtmlAn Article by A.C. Missias, editor of Acorn, on haiku formwww.webdelsol.com/Perihelion/acmarticle.htm
  
  Essay by Lee Gurga, editor of Modern Haiku
  http://www.haikai.info/articles/gurga.aesthetics.html
  
  A fine article on Meditation and Haiku by Ray Rasmussen
  http://tinyurl.com/uqpk This essay, by Sandra Fuhringer, a past president of Haiku Canada, explains the problems in defining 'form' in haiku...
  Following it is an essay on Content in Haiku...hometown.aol.ca/sfuhringer/page7.htmlEssays on haiku by Jane Reichhold and others, on this very comprehensive site -
  www.ahapoetry.com/haiku.htm
  
  Is It Haiku? Letter by Jane Reichhold
  http://www.haikupoetshut.com/isithaiku.html
  
  Suggestions for creating haiku poetry in English, a WHC essay by James, W. Hackett
  http://www.worldhaikureview.org/2-1/jwh_reflectsuggest.shtml
  A longer article on Haiku form in English by George Swede -
  http://pages.infinit.net/haiku/histnortham.htm
  
  An article 'Haiku is What?' by L. A. Davidson
  http://www.cyberoz.net/city/dhugal/davidson.html
  
  Editorial from the World Haiku Review on the 'aha moment' and Zen in haiku
  http://www.worldhaikureview.org/2-1/editorial.shtml
  
  Here is one article that I particularly enjoyed by Alexey Andreyev:haiku - home1.pacific.net.sg/~loudon/alexey_def.htmWant to Renga? Want to Renku? 'The' site for the Renga/Renku studentRenga/Renku - renku.home.att.net/
  
  
• Gabi Greve's notes on Ginkoo (haiku walk)
  My Japanese haiku teacher in Kamakura always said: "Do NOT take pictures, do NOT sketch, but empty your mind and look deeply and not judgemental into anything you see on our walk. Imprint it in your heart and mind and then let a haiku flow out of it easily." How haiku study groups work in Japan
  
• Haiku Dictionary ~ from University of Virginia's Japanese Text Initiative

more--war--again

everything
returns to dust
Fallujah

I know traditional ku/waka avoid the political, so maybe this is just a cranky 3-line poem. Whatever.~ Billie

surf log

• HaikuOz, the journal of the Australian Haiku Society, announces a new international biannual haiku journal Chrysanthemum. Gabi Greve is one of these editors and will be translating English language submissions into German (Thank you Gabi san!) The listed URL does not work yet (site under construction).
  
  Chrysanthemum is an international internet magazine that will appear twice a year, and will showcase previously unpublished Haiku/Senryû, Tanka, Haibun, Essays and Interviews in German and English. Haiku/Senryû submitted in English will be translated into German, if not already accompanied by a German translation, which is welcome but not required. Tanka, Haibun, Essays and Interviews will appear only in their original language. Submissions in languages other than German or English are also welcome as long as as they are accompanied by a translation into German or English.
  Chrysanthemum welcomes work based both on traditional values as well as modern, innovative contributions in form and content, although there will be a special focus on innovative work of quality. Chrysanthemum hopes to achieve a connection between the heritage of the genre and the development and adaption in countries outside Japan.
  
  
• A collection of English haiku on a Geocities-Japan site. 2004 11th Haiku Meeting: December 11, Moderator: Catherine Urquhart. I can't read the headers, but this series is worth a read.
  
  
• From WorldKigoLibrary: SOME PHILOSOPHY AND PERSONAL NOTES ON HAIKU by Paul MacNeil, Florida, USA
  
  It is my conviction that much short poetry is mistakenly shared as "haiku." I ask rhetorically (and others have posed this long before me), "why call it haiku?" By this I mean, why call what you write "haiku" if not to acknowledge the tradition and philosophy of the "haiku" that is Japanese haiku? The differences of language and form are very well covered in an essay by a Japanese, Keiko Imaoka. Her writing has influenced me. http://epiphanous.org/mark/haiku/resources.html
  and Mark Alan Osterhaus: http://www.execpc.com/~ohaus/haiklink.htm
  Among others, look there for definitions by Barlow of Britain, Alexeyev of Russia, Mena, Missias, Higginson, Davidson, and Reichhold of the USA. At a website http://www2.ori.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~dhugal/haikuhome.html
  
  
• From 5-7-5 to 8-8-8, Haiku Metrics and Issues of Emulation -- New Paradigms for Japanese and English Haiku Form by RICHARD GILBERT and JUDY YONEOKA
  Language Issues: Journal of the Foreign Language Education Center (vol. 1) Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Kumamoto (March 2000) Japan.
  An detailed linguistic analysis of Japanese -on and English syllabic metrics; heavy reading ~ Billie
  
  
  

found on the web

2001 Waka for Japan 2001

Poetry has its seed in the human heart and blossoms forth in innumerable leaves of words ... it is poetry which, with only a part of its power, moves heaven and earth, pacifies unseen gods and demons, reconciles men and women and calms the hearts of savage warriors.
Ki no Tsurayuki, Preface to the Kokinshû, Ninth Century

Tsurayuki's words, written over a thousand years ago, are the first description by a Japanese of waka. The word is made up of two parts: wa meaning 'Japanese' and ka meaning 'poem' or 'song'. It was probably coined at about the time Tsurayuki was writing as a way to distinguish the poetry written by the Japanese in their own language from that they read and wrote in Chinese - the source of much of Japan's poetic inspiration.

new links

Washed ashore in today's websurf:

• Haiku, Haibun, Haiga by Ray Rassmussen ~ Do not miss this site! Artistically, it is one of the best personal websites I've run across. Fresh, energetic writing from a master haijin. I especially recommend the haibun section (Rasmusen is webmaster of Contemporary Haibun Online). The links and didactic sections are worth the trip alone. The linked photo gallery is pure gravy. Enough raving, just go...
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• a procession of ripples: an anthology of selected haiku ~ Laryalee Fraser has put together a collection of fine English language haiku from such notable haijin as: an'ya, Robert Wilson, Jane Reichhold, Mike Rehling, Lorin Ford, Carol Raisfeld ... The accompanying photography suggests the haiga tradition. Pure pleasure here. There is even a page that formats printouts for you!