February 18, 2012 Workshop

Greg Longenecker and Naia

Naia was the featured reader for the February meeting at the Pacific Asia Museum. She read for 20 minutes from a selection of her haiku. Naia’s performance was carefully crafted to flow from season to season, starting each section with a haibun, followed by a grouping of haiku appropriate for the season, ending each season with a selection of her haiga.

Gregory J. Longenecker presented a program on Basho: His Life and Haiku for about 45 minutes. He prepared a handout which included a timeline of Basho’s life and a selection of his haiku, arranged by date. He asked attendees to read either an entry from the timeline or one of Basho’s haiku, and then Greg expanded on the timeline entries and discussed each haiku in the context of Basho’s life.

The meeting also included a read-around of haiku, including some haiku from the following books: in pine shade (the 2011 HSA anthology), carving darkness (the 2011 red moon anthology), The Complete Basho by Jane Reichhold, The Master Haiku Poet Matsuo Basho by Makoto Ueda, The River of Heaven by Robert Aitken, bottle rockets: the café issue, and Basho’s Journey translated by David Landis Barnhill.

The following people attended: Greg Longenecker, Naia, Debbie Kolodji, Phyllis Collins, D’Ellen Hutchens, Elva Lauter, Marcy Del Clements, Ashley Baldon, Billie Dee, Don Baird, Adam Marshall, Robert Fluom, Marcia Behar, Genie Nakano, James Won, Amir Sapir, Liz Goetz, Keiko Amano, Susan Rogers, Wendy Wright and Kathabela Wilson.

The Southern California Haiku Study Group will be meeting today at the Pacific Asia Museum.



Naia will be our featured reader. Naia is the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and long-time member of the Southern California Haiku Study Group. Her work has appeared in haijinx, Modern Haiku, frogpond, The Heron's Nest, LYNX, Acorn, SxSE, Redmoon Anthologies, Contemporary Haibun Online, Simply Haiku, Ribbons, Yuki Teikei Anthologies, Haiku Headlines, Tidepools, Other Voices International Project Volume 20, Tempes Libre, the HNA 2009 Anthology Into Our Words, Words & Pictures, Southern CA Haiku Study Group Anthologies, Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, WHCReview, Cordite Poetry Review, HSA Anthologies, American Haibun & Haiga Volume 3 (2002), Hermitage 2005 and Hermitage 2006, 2001 Basho Festival Anthology (Japan), 2001 Shiki Anthology by the Ehime Culture Foundation in Japan, Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthologies, and "Raku Teapot: Haiku" a Book/CD compilation of poets' haiku recorded in their own voices.


Greg Longenecker will be presenting a program, "Basho, His Life and Haiku". Long interested in haiku, Greg first began writing his own haiku in the mid-1990's. This led to a greater study of haiku in order to improve his writing. Joining the Haiku Society of America in the early 1999 and, later, the Southern California Haiku Study Group, he began publishing haiku in 2002. Basho, of course, has always been of interest to him. Greg's work has appeared in Frogpond, Acorn, Mariposa, Geppo, and various Haiku Society of America, Yuki Teikei, and Southern California Haiku Study Group anthologies.





Bring a haiku to share. The meeting starts at 2 pm. The museum is located at 46 N. Los Robles, Pasadena.

January 28, 2012 - Haiku Desert Walk - Coachella Valley Preserve

back (l to r): Greg Longenecker, Marcyn del Clements, Sean Kolodji, Deborah P Kolodji, Billie Dee, Consuelo Marshall, Brosnan Rhodes, Jie Tian, An Xiao, Ashley Baldon, Patrick Gallagher, Joann Frey

front (l to r): Peggy Castro, Cindy Rinne, Ruth Nolan, Olga Garcia, Julie Brossy

not shown: Genie Nakano, Susan Rogers, Wendy Wright

Ruth Nolan and Deborah P Kolodji led a haiku walk on January 28, 2012 at the Coachella Valley Preserve.

It was a lovely day for a walk - the sky was blue, the Gambel's quail were plentiful, and cactus wrens sang in raspy voices from the tops of fan palms. We walked from the visitor's center in the Thousand Palm Oasis, one of the largest groves of desert fan palms (Washingtonia filifera) in California to the McCallum Oasis, crossing the San Andreas earthquake fault and a desert wash during our two mile adventure.

We saw smoke trees, dye weed, indigo bush, cattle spinach, alkali goldenbush, sandpaper plant, palo verde, creosote, honey mesquite, and an octotillo in bloom. We also saw a black phoebe and a Northern Flicker, among other birds.

Some fabulous haiku was written by the 20 people who travelled to the Coachella Valley from a wide variety of places, ranging from the border of Mexico to San Francisco!