April 7, 2006 - Teahouse Meeting, San Jose

Fay Aoygai and Wendy Wright
Japanese Friendship Garden, Kelley Park
San Jose, California

Four members of the Southern California Haiku Study Group traveled north to San Jose for a free haiku morning workshop by the Yuki Teikei Society and an afternoon haiku reading by Fay Aoygai and Wendy Wright.

The workshop starting at 10:00 in the Japanese tea house in San Jose’s Kelley Park. Participants had a short discussion based on the zen haiku book Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey by Clark Strand, which was followed by a kukai based on kigo observed in the garden. There was a 45 minute haiku break to wander the garden, sit and watch the koi, and write haiku before returning.

The list of kigo included:

bird nesting, Japanese maple “young leaves”, wisteria blooming, returning ducks, cherry blossoms, budding anything, pineapple weed, returning egret, spring rain, spring storm

After the kukai, where SCHSG member Linda Galloway wrote the haiku with the most votes, there was a short break before the 1:30 pm reading by Aoyagi and Wright. This was followed by an open haiku reading done in a circle, where each participant read one haiku at a time.

Open reading participants included Roger Abe, Fay Aoyagi, Ann Bendixen, Claire Gallagher, Linda Galloway and her husband Nardin, Deborah P Kolodji, Patricia Machmiller, Linda Papanicolaou, Carol Steele, Ebba Story, Alison Woolpert, and Wendy Wright and others.

At 4:30 pm, fourteen participants went to a restaurant in Japantown to finish off the day.