Tanabata

Debbie Kolodji, Wendy Wright,
Naia and Peggy Hehman-Smith
Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden, CSULB
Tanabata Celebration, July 8, 2007

The SCHSG manned a table at Tanabata Festival at the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at CSULB on Sunday, July 8, 2007. Peggy Hehman-Smith, Naia, Wendy Wright, Debbie Kolodji, and Janis Lukstein were the participating members.

The afternoon was rewarding, talking to the parents and children who came by to learn about haiku. There were two tables. One was set up for the younger children with coloring book style haiku drawings for the children to color. Wendy did the artwork for some tanabata haiku by Issa.

For older children who didn't want to color but didn't want to try to write haiku, Wendy put a haiku on a blank paper by Issa:

Even the insects sing
"it's great Tanabata!
Tanabata!
- Issa

On display was a book illustrating how to draw various types of insects. One little girl drew a very cool-looking earwig. All of the papers had a hole punched at the top with a ribbon so the kids could take their haiku artwork home and hang them up for Tanabata.

At the other table, there was tanzaku for haiku writing as well as some blank paper. Several books of haiku and art were on display.

A surprising number of people were game enough to attempt their first haiku with some help from the group.