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.