March 17, 2012 Workshop

Greg Longenecker, Amir Sapir, Susan Rogers, Kimberly Esser,
Marcia Behar, Genie Nakano, Michael Rehling, Deborah P Kolodji

It was a rainy, cold California day, much colder than Michigan, where our unexpected guest, Michael Rehling hails from. After a read-around of haiku by the eight poets present, we held a kukai based upon a selection of 22 haiku from the March 2012 issue of The Heron's Nest. These haiku were read anonymously, each author revealed after the vote.

Although the editor's choices for the issue received votes from our members, the winning haiku from our kukai was "catch and release" by Jim Kacian. One poet had never fished and didn't realize the poem was about fly fishing, instead envisioning a person catching and releasing moths. We were all delighted to realize the poem worked for that situation, too. One of the wonderful things about haiku is that a haiku can become a dialog between the poet and the reader. The white space in the poem is filled in from the reader's own experiences.

After the kukai, we discussed why we voted for the poems, their strengths and weaknesses. This was followed by an anonymous haiku workshop conducted by Deborah P. Kolodji.

Poets present were Marcia Behar, Amir Sapir, Greg Longenecker, Kimberly Esser, Genie Nakano, Susan Rogers, Deborah P Kolodji, and Michael Rehling. Afterwards, we gathered at Tender Greens for dinner.