October 20, 2007 - Workshop and Kukai

October 20, 2007

Blue Room, Pacific Asia Museum

The October workshop was a joint meeting between the Southern California Haiku Study Group and the Urban Emerging Poets, which meets over eight consecutive Saturdays in the Fall and Spring at the back room of the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Library. Both groups start at 2:00 p.m.

Present were Peggy Castro, Sharon Hawley, Sandra Flick, Elva Lauter, Lynn, Lindy Hill, Debbie Kolodji, Pauli Dutton, Violet, Kath Wilson, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Wendy Wright, Tom Bilicke, Ines Foley, Theresa Antonia, and Mary Torregrossa.

For the haiku read-around, each visiting poet was loaned a book of classical Japanese haiku and given the choice of reading one of their own, or one from the book. A lively discussion followed when Lynn noticed that she had a different translation of the haiku Sharon read from Autumn Haiku, Selected Poems by Kobayashi Issa translated by Lewis Mackenzie:

And, when I die,
Be thou guardian of my tomb,
Grasshopper.

- Issa

Lynn was reading from classic Haiku, selected and translated by Yozuru Miura:

Oh, cricket!
Act as grave keeper
After I am gone.

- Issa

The group thought in the first translation the emphasis seemed to be on the tomb whereas the emphasis in the second translation was on the cricket.

The group then discussed kigo, looking at the season word handouts. We went around the table and had each person say the word that first popped into their head when thinking of October (without repeating someone else's word). Then, everyone was to write a haiku using their word for the kukai.

There were 54 haiku in the kukai, including:

full moon
in a tree of stars --
taste of golden apple

- Elva Lauper

cigarette --
alone in her garden,
the Blue Hour

- Tom Bilicke

temple dog's
silent bark
of 100 years

- Don Kingfisher Campbell

The next meeting of the Southern California Haiku Study Group will be on Saturday, November 17, 2007 at the Pacific Asia Museum at 2:00 p.m.