Deborah P Kolodji - Poetry Scrapbook and Random Musings

Deborah P Kolodji, Nancy Ellis Taylor, Kendall Evans, W. Gregory Stewart


Today's poetry panel at Loscon was a fantastic session of speculative poetry, despite the fact one of our panelists, Denise Dumars, was unable to attend. Fortunately, Nancy Ellis Taylor was available to step in.

After a blurb about the Science Fiction Poetry Association, we started with a quick round of introductions. Each of us talked a little about why we wrote speculative poetry and read one of our poems. I read "Lake Vostok" from Mythic Delirium. Greg read "in requieum "Turdius magatorious propinquus," Nancy recited "Zombie Girl in Love" from Star*Line and another short poem, and Kendall read "In Wicked Hollows on Darkling Plains," a collaboration with David C. Kopaska-Merkel from Asimov's Science Fiction and the 2007 Rhysling Anthology.

Then, we had a poetry writing exercise that riffed off the convention theme - "But wait...there's more!"

Together with audience participants, we generated a list of things we thought might complete a sentence which started with the theme. I took an idea from the local haiku workshop and had everyone close their eyes as I read this back to them:

But wait, there's more spaceships,
more asteroids,
more alien languages.
But wait, there's more unexpected flashes of light,
more things falling in the swamp,
more vines creeping out,
more gremlins in the bushes.
But wait, there's more ways to go to Mars,
more zombies,
more sequined bat wings.

We gave everyone fifteen minutes to write a poem using one or more of the elements we came up with. It was fun to hear what everyone came up with! I urged everyone to polish them a bit and send them out. This led into a discussion of speculative poetry markets, including questions on submission procedures, how to find markets, etc. We also fielded questions about poetry critique groups and workshops, and talked about some of our the Southland Poets of the Fantastic workshops.

Before we knew it, Loscon volunteers were holding up a "5 minute" warning sign in the back of the room and our time was up.

Each Thanksgiving Weekend, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) throws a Science Fiction Convention called Loscon.

Poetry programming has always been a bit of a struggle to arrange, mostly because the convention committee members don't see it as a big audience-filler.

This year, we do have a poetry panel on Saturday, November 28th, called "Writing SF Poetry." Denise Dumars, Kendall Evans, and W. Gregory Stewart are the other panelists. Nancy Ellis Taylor has told me she will also be there.

I'd like to see as many people as possible in the audience. If you're attending Loscon and would like to see more poetry programming, please come!

Each month the Southern California Haiku Study Group meets at the Pacific Asia Museum for a haiku workshop and kukai.

This month we did something a little different. We had a haibun workshop and were so pleased to have Margaret Chula, visiting from Portland, Oregon, to lead it.





We filled the Blue Room at the museum with poets as Maggie talked about various approaches to haibun, using her own work as examples. She gave us a list of Japanese haiku to use as a starting prompt. The idea was to choose a haiku and then link and shift away from it to write a haibun.

We all found our own place to write for 20 minutes.



Naia finds the garden inspiring



I selected Shiki from the list of haiku Maggie provided:

after killing the spider
a lonely
cold night

- Shiki

This poem inspired me to write a haibun about my daughter and bathroom spiders.

Afterwards, we gathered back in the Blue Room to share what we'd written. For many members of the group, this was their first haibun. Genie Nakano was so inspired she wrote six! It is amazing what people can write in 20 minutes!

The fun didn't stop here. The entire group came home with me for Thai food and a wonderful evening punctuated with laughter and the joy of sharing a bit of our lives together.

So this is the way the night tastes
one at a time
not early or late...

- W.S. Merwin, "Blueberries After Dark"
from The Shadow of Sirius, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

It was semi-dark in the courtyard of the Hammer Museum two weeks ago when I arrived, after bravely journeying across Los Angeles in the middle of rush hour, too late for the beginning of W.S. Merwin's poetry reading.

I had made great time at first, but traffic came to almost a dead stop a few miles before the 110 freeway.

Sunset bathed a mackerel sky with otherworldly color. I saw dark shadows of migrating birds, all heading south against the clouds. Planes were circling above and around to line up for the landing queue at LAX. KUSC played "The Skywalker Symphony."

My estimated arrival in Westwood shifted from "probably early" to "probably late" but I was in a surreal time-warp where time stood still and birds were traveling far faster than I was.

Eventually, I gave up on the 10 and just starting driving along Pico Boulevard, arriving at the Hammer Museum too late to make it inside where Wendy Wright's purse sat on the empty chair meant for me.

Yet, as I entered the courtyard, Merwin's melodious voice filled the air with poetry. Perhaps 50 people sat quietly around the bamboo and maple-filled courtyard, in the semi-dark with eyes closed, listening. Another 230 people were inside.

Poetry is alive and doing well in Los Angeles.

Inside this pocket of nature, framed by the skyscrapers of Westwood, I heard Merwin read from The Shadow of Sirius.

From "The Nomad Flute" --do you still hear me/does your air/remember you...

And, yes, Merwin, I still hear you, the way your voice sounds as I sit among bamboo and contemplate skyscrapers. I remember how the night tastes - cool, refreshing and full of poetry.



Deborah P Kolodji, W.S. Merwin
photo by Taoli-Ambika Talwar

(Note: Every cloud has a silver lining - by being outside the actual reading and listening from the courtyard, I was one of the first in the book signing line.)

I live near Fantasy Island.

The Queen Anne’s cottage in the opening credits of the old TV show is actually physically located in the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, California. This is just a short car ride from my home.

Because I’m a member of the Arboretum, I sometimes spend a few hours walking there after Mass on Sunday mornings. I’ve always enjoyed the path to the lagoon through the Jungle Garden. Even if you’ve never been to Arcadia, you know this place.

It’s where the Tarzan movies were filmed. If you’ve ever seen Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in leech-infested waters in "The African Queen," watched "Anaconda," or the 1998 Disney version of “The Jungle Book,” or any of another hundred movies or TV episodes, you’ve been there.

Down by the water, there’s a palm tree that grows in an upward arc over the water. At this spot, you almost always see a black-crowned night heron.

Or two of them.

Sunday was no exception. As I sat on the base of the palm tree and fellow poet Lindy Hill sat on a tree stump, we watched a night heron for about ten minutes, including about five minutes where it toyed with its fish.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkolodji/sets/72157622656116715/show/

fantasy island
the fish almost too big
for a night heron

Yesterday the Southern California Haiku Study Group went on a ginko walk (a haiku walk) to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Ten poets accepted the challenge for a morning of wildlife adventure - Peggy Castro, Margaret Hehman-Smith, G. Murray Thomas, Kathabela Wilson, Rick Wilson, Sharon Hawley, Genie Nakano, Christine Moore, Wendy Wright, and myself.

Upon our arrival at Bolsa Chica, there was immediate pelican action.



buzzed
by low flying pelicans
I shrink

The los Amigos de Bolsa Chica volunteer organization hosts a free first Saturday "tour." This consists of five stations on or near the bridge covering birds of Bolsa Chica, endangered species of Bolsa Chica, ecology of Bolsa Chica, history of Bolsa Chica, and restoration efforts of Bolsa Chica. There was a ten minute talk at each station. We decided to listen to the first three volunteers and then proceed on our walk. We became immediately famous because when Phil Smith, the first volunteer, asked us why we were at Bolsa Chica, I told him we were there to write haiku. This was a first for them. He quickly notified the other stations so that when we arrived, they would ask "Are you the poets?"

( Read more... )

Just a few notes this morning:

Science Fiction Poetry Association

- Karen Romanko posted a report on the progress of the SFPA message board, and cross-posted it to spec_poetry.

- The Sept/Oct issue of Star*Line will be picked up from the printers in the next day or so, and mailed as soon as possible thereafter.


Southern California Haiku Study Group

- We will be having a ginko walk at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve on Saturday morning. We will meet at the bridge at 10 am and have lunch, writing, and haiku sharing at Wendy Wright's afterwards. Please e-mail me if you are interested in joining us. Carpools are being organized from the San Gabriel Valley Area and Long Beach.

- Margaret Chula will be leading a haibun workshop at the November 21st SCHSG meeting at the Pacific Asia Museum.

Other Haiku Notes

- Michael Dylan Welch has posted his photos of the Seabeck Haiku Getaway:
http://picasaweb.google.com/MichaeDylanWelch/SeabeckHaikuGetaway2009

--Penny Harter has blogged her memories of her week in the Pacific Northwest:
http://penhart.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/memories-of-my-week-in-the-pacific-northwest-october-15th-22nd-2009/

--Once more the deadline for origa's Calico Cat Contest slipped by. I seem to be deadline challenged lately.

On my way to breakfast, I paused by the water to admire the reflection of the Seabeck General Store. Once more I had overslept too much to make Christopher's 7:00 a.m. silent centering.

morning reflection
the world so upside down
or is it me?



The seasons are subtle in Southern California, so it was refreshing to experience a place where autumn manifests itself more fully. The images keep coming and I keep writing. I think I will be writing about Seabeck for a long time.

wet leaves underfoot
I tuck my notebook
in a new jacket

( Read more... )



Michael Dylan Welch, Ce Rosenow, Naia, Deborah P Kolodji

I can't wait to go back!

Seabeck was glorious in the morning. Red and yellow maple leaves. Apple trees with ripening fruit. A quaint waterfront within view of lodging and dining hall. It was haiku poet's dream. But I found it difficult to make it to breakfast, scheduled from 8:00-8:45.

Full of excitement and poetic inspiration, Naia, Genie, and I had talked for hours in our room at "The Firs," long after the anonymous haiku workshop ended.

rustle of dry leaves
the coffee mug
still empty


“The Firs” at Seabeck Christian Conference Center, Seabeck, Washington

( Read more... )

I've posted more photos of the Seabeck Conference on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkolodji/sets/72157622519709971/show/

Having used up all my vacation days this year for the Ottawa/Montreal trip, I worked a half day before driving to LAX to start my haiku weekend adventure. It was a low-budget weekend getaway, which meant I was flying out of LAX via Southwest, but returning to Ontario via Alaska Airlines.

itinerary complications...
I watch pelicans fly
in a line

Genie Nakano was leaving LAX at the same time but arriving in Seattle an hour and a half earlier, due to my plane change in Sacramento. But, the plane had a flat tire! So, I quickly switched to an earlier flight but didn't know there was only one plane to Seattle from Sacramento.

the wait
for connection passengers
feathered clouds

Genie was waiting at the gate, we picked up her rental car and began the rainy drive to Seabeck. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to drive there from SeaTac. Genie's GPS directed us through a back entrance which made it ridiculously difficult to find the conference center. Once on the grounds, we were christened with Pacific Northwest rain as we tried to find the right retreat group.

It was like coming home. So many of my favorite haiku poets were there - Naia and Billie Dee from Southern California, Penny Harter from New Jersey, Susan Constable and Vicki McCullough from Canada, and all the wonderful Washington Haiku poets...Michael Dylan Welch, Christopher Herold, Karma Tenzing Wangchuk, Tanya McDonald, Alice Frampton, Carole MacRury, and many, many more. Even more poets were due to arrive the next day.

We arrived in time for the "favorite haiku" session. Each participant was to bring a favorite haiku and be preparied to explain why we selected it. I sat next to Christopher Herold and coincidentally planned to talk about his "foghorn" haiku, which can be found online in Christopher's Three Questions interview on Blogging Along Tobacco Road.

This made for an interesting discussion. I talked about what I was doing when I read the haiku for the first time (I was on the Bremerton/Seattle ferry), my experiences with kayaking, and how I think a foghorn sounds ancient and lonely and scary. How I see a foghorn as a metaphor for fear. How lowering a kayak into the sound of that fear evokes a sense of embracing my fears, of gathering the courage to face them. Christopher spoke after me and thought it was interesting that I got the "embracing your fears" angle from the haiku, because it was actually there in its genesis. He talked about a particular kayak trip he took with his wife, who was afraid at the time of being on the water in a kayak. How she came to love it and afterwards they bought a kayak and continued to take kayak trips together. How he came to write that haiku.

Next, Carole MacRury gave a slide show of her photographs and then Michael Dylan Welch and Tanya McDonald conducted an anonymous haiku workshop that went into the wee hours of the morning. It was a wonderful way to start a great haiku getaway weekend.

As the SFPA grows, there is a lot more work to be done. A few months ago I asked for volunteers and received a generous reponse from members. However, I've had some difficulty finding ample time to match up what really needs to be done with the talents of people willing to help out.

The SFPA Constitution allows the President to appoint as many "assistants" as necessary to get the job done and I've decided to take advantage of this, to increase the overall efficiency of the organization.

So, without further ado, I'd like to announce that I've appointed Karen A. Romanko as Vice-President to help me organize volunteer duties, match them with willing volunteers, and increase the efficiency of our day-to-day processes. If a volunteer is waiting for an answer from me, waiting on another volunteer, needs an assistant, or has somehow reached a stumbling block in their volunteer position, Karen will be a resource to help the volunteer get whatever help they might need to complete the task.

Karen A. Romanko served as SFPA Website Director from 2003 to 2007. Working with Erin Donahoe Kelley and Mike Allen, she helped to establish SFPA's official website at sfpoetry.com. She continued development of the website with Liz Bennefeld, instituting many of the features we have today, such as the annual Halloween Poetry Reading, the Speculative Poetry News page, and the Star*Line Editor's picks. Karen also served as Coordinator for the first online Poetry Contest.

In the writing realm, Karen has seen over 100 of her poems and short stories published in venues such as Strange Horizons, Aberrant Dreams, Ideomancer, and Lone Star Stories. When she switches literary hats, she edits and publishes speculative fiction and poetry anthologies under the Raven Electrick Ink imprint, such as the recently released Cinema Spec: Tales of Hollywood and Fantasy. She is a member of Broad Universe and The Horror Writers Association.

Please join me in thanking Karen for her willingness to take on this task. I am looking forward to working with her in this capacity.

Deborah P Kolodji
SFPA President

Today Wendy Wright and I went to hear B.H. Fairchild read from his latest book of poetry Usher at the dA Center for the Arts. He also read poems from earlier books, The Art of the Lathe and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest.

The title poem for the latter is online. It was a wonderful afternoon of poetry, although I was disappointed that none of his books were available for purchase. I would have bought at least one - I enjoyed his reading that much.

An open mic followed but Wendy and I didn't participate. I've never seen a venue charge poets to read at the open mic before. I don't always get paid for the readings I do, although I have on occasion. But the idea of paying someone so I can read a poem bothers me a lot.

I would have gladly spent $25 for a copy of Usher, but $6 to read my own poem? No.

After I left Wendy's house, I walked around nearby Bolsa Chica and watched the pelicans...the perfect way to end the day.

a fish jumps
in sunset-splashed wetlands...
the pelican sees it, too

What do haiku poets do at 1:00am? Well, among other things, debating heron sounds.

And I must admit, the later it gets, the sillier I feel. But all silliness aside, it was a wonderful workshop - well worth staying up all night!

The next day after the conference ended, I took the ferry from Southworth to Fauntleroy. It stops at Vashon Island, and guess what I saw out the window while I was waiting?





The heron ignored us. We didn't hear an awk or a gaak or a kraak out of him.

only the sound of gulls
this afternoon
ferry crossing

My plane just landed an hour an a half ago and it turns out that Dejah Leger has already posted the haiku reading video she filmed at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway:

Well, it's been two months since I got back from Canada, and I only have two more blog posts to finish writing it all up. In the meantime....

Last week, I discovered to my surprise that I came in second place in the Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Haiku Contest with this haiku:

so still, so quiet...
to sit alone with daydreams
and blue damselflies

The judges were Naoki Kishimoto and Yoko Senda. Yoko Senda wrote the following in the prize brochure:

Silence, solitude, daydreams, and blue damselflies. What a beautiful combination! As if to console the lonely poet or to generate fantasies, fairylike damselflies are around him or her. Imagination is an origin of poetry and it starts in silence. I wonder what kind of daydreams the poet is having and what kind of poems will be born. The blue damselflies will surely celebrate the birth of marvelous poems.

Roberta Beary won first place, Jerry Ball won third. Southern California Haiku Study Group member Margaret Hehman-Smith was one of the honorable mentions (along with Jerry and myself, who also had HM's).

On Sunday, I went tidepooling with seajules and Deborah Flores and somehow our cell phones, all from different providers, thought we were in Mexico! This happened when we were dangling our feet off the sandstone at Point Loma, still north of downtown San Diego! So I don't know if this was a flash-forward situation or we were starring in our own twilight zone episode.

pelicans skim
sandstone cliffs...
we could be in Mexico
or a place
only the sea knows

Tonight I came home from the Charles Harper Webb reading to find a large mysterious box from North Carolina, sheltered from the rain under the eaves of my porch. This turned out to be a case of gourmet pickles from the Mount Olive Pickle Company.

empty jar
of bread and butter chips
October rain

On Monday, I woke up very relaxed. All the presentations I’d come to Canada to do were over. I had no appointments or deadlines. So I made my way back to the Palais des Congres, grabbed a bagel, and did some schmoozing in the hospitality suite.

Monday morning
my weekend over,
still on vacation

There was a huge line for tickets to the Neil Gaiman signing they added at 4:30 p.m. This is what the line looked like seconds before they stopped giving out tickets.



Then about an hour later, I ran across him in the hall. I happened to have a copy of the anniversary issue of Mythic Delirium with me, the one with my name and his on the cover. No one was around him so I walked up and pointed to my name and said “I’m Deborah, would you mind signing this for me?” I felt a bit like a groupie, but he was so gracious that I quickly got over the embarrassment.




Neil Gaiman, Deborah P Kolodji

Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of a Sandman graphic novel on hand. My daughter was hoping I’d get one signed.

At this point, I was getting anxious to take a lunch river cruise on the St. Lawrence but realized I had a few more speculative poetry people that I wanted to see before I left, so I looked for Richard Chwedyk:


Deborah P Kolodji, Richard Chwedyk

and Elissa Malcoln:


Deborah P Kolodji, Elissa Malcoln

Then one more time around the Dealer Room where I picked up a copy of Jo Walton’s book of poetry, “Sibyls and Spaceships” and said goodbye to Sandra and Brett.


Brett Savory, Sandra Kasturi

This left just enough time to walk down to the Old Port and get on the 1:30 cruise.

biosphere view
all the tourists on one side
of the boat

It was hard to leave Ottawa. Somehow the suitcase/laptop case/backpack/purse had become a heavier suitcase/laptop case/backpack/purse/tote bag/HNA bag combo. I started looking ahead to how I was going to get all this stuff on the plane and felt overwhelmed.

Then Amal El-Mohtar breezed into the lobby of the Crown Plaza with her dazzling smile and youthful energy. I felt my own years fall away….I was going to WorldCon!

unexpected grin
before my first cup of coffee
summer dawn

Amal’s mother drove and her aunt brought a bag of homemade yummy snacks. Amal, her friend Caitlyn, and I squeezed into the backseat and we all chatted. The two hour drive to Montreal was over before I knew it.


Caitlyn Paxson, Amal El-Mohtar, Deborah P Kolodji

First on my agenda was the speculative haiku panel, “The Universe in Three Lines.” I was the moderator and Janet McNaughton and Anne Whiston Spirn were the two other panelists.


Janet McNaughton, Deborah P Kolodji, Anne Whiston Spirn

I started off by handing out Josh Gage’s brochure and gave an overview of haiku with both mainstream and speculative examples. Janet talked about researching haiku when writing The Raintree Rebellion and about a haiku workshop she took with Emiko Miyashita in Newfoundland. Anne, a landscape architect, presented some slides of her designs and talked about how she uses haiku to help visualize the landscapes. This led to a fascinating discussion about how haiku could be used by fantasy and science fiction writers to help better visualize the landscapes of the worlds they create.

After sitting in on part of Catherynne Valente’s panel and eating lunch with Amal and Caitlyn it was time for the Rhysling Award presentation:

http://dkolodji.livejournal.com/294702.html

Unfortunately, most of the SFPA members had conflicts, so we didn’t draw the crowd I was hoping for. Former Rhysling Award winner Joe Haldeman, for example, had a coffee klatch two doors down the hall from us.


Joe Haldeman, Deborah P Kolodji
(Note: Joe is currently in the ICU at a hospital in Cincinnati. Please pray for him)

Afterwards, I had tea with Carolyn Clink, her brother and fellow poet David Clink, and Geoff Landis.


Deborah P Kolodji, David Clink, Carolyn Clink, Geoff Landis

I walked through the Dealer’s Room where I met Sandra Kasturi, who had published me years and years ago in ChiZine. This was so long ago that the archives are no longer even online. It was great to finally meet in person.

So many books and so many authors. So little room in my carry on baggage.

a favorite author
shows me his pens
August autograph

Time slipped away and soon it was time to meet up with Amal, Caitlyn, Catherynne, et al, for dinner on a rooftop in Old Montreal. At the time, I didn’t even notice the poetic coincidence in the name of the restaurant since the menu logo was written like this:

VER
SES
SKY

and I didn’t connect the dots.

no wings
in my smoked duck salad
sky terrace

On Saturday, Naia and I were determined to make one more trip to the Scone Witch before venturing over to the Archives for what was to be my final day at Haiku North America.

My first stop after scone heaven was a workshop by Roberta Beary and Lenard Moore: Navigating Crosscurrents in the Craft of Haiku: Reality in the Haiku Mind. Roberta handed out brightly colored pieces of paper and we all were asked to write a haiku we were having some trouble with. I am having so much trouble with mine that I don’t even remember what I wrote.

hot pinks and greens
a sheaf of papers
all blank


Roberta Beary

Roberta and Lenard picked haiku from our offerings for anonymous critique and discussion, and it was fun working through some of the haiku submitted, trying to make them better.

Next, I attended Margot Gallant’s presentation “Beauty, Poetry and Despair: The Crosscurrents of Big Trout Lake.” Big Trout Lake (Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug ) is part of Canada’s Aboriginal reserve system and Gallant worked there for two years as a teacher. She did a presentation of images from the First Nations community accompanied by haiku, tanka, and haibun.

I dropped in for the first half of Maggie Chula’s haibun workshop, but reluctantly left early to attend David Lanoue’s presentation on surrealistic and post-modern haiku, “Reading the New Haiku.”

One of David’s first examples was Fay Aogayi’s “red toy piano” haiku (which can be found in an essay of David’s at the Modern Haiku website. David said this haiku “pops” in an unexpected way and there was a big discussion as to what was meant by “ants out of a hole” and how it related to the red toy piano.


Donna Pohlmann, Eve Luckring, Naia, Angelee Deodhar
in the back: ?,?, Dina Cox, Guy Simser, ? , Garry Gay, Bruce Ross

Fay was in the room and was interested to hear the varied interpretations of her poem. She explained that “ants out of a hole” is an early spring kigo in Japan.

The next haiku we discussed was Peter Tchouhov’s “the dolls in the attic” haiku which can be found in a review of Ginyu #28 on Gerald England’s review website.

Because of the first line “night storm,” everyone seemed to get a sort of Twilight Zone “dolls in the attic” feel from this, even though a few people suggested that he could be talking about Japanese Dharma dolls or Russian nesting dolls.

Finally, there was a discussion of Keiji Minato’s “depleted uranium” haiku which can be found online in an essay of David’s at the Haiku Foundation. Although the initial image in most people’s mind was that of a suitcase dirty bomb, David skillfully manipulated the discussion to the summer sea. Not only does this suitcase contain depleted uranium, it also contains the summer sea. And what does this mean?

David was followed by Angelee Deodhar who spoke about the “Crosscurrents of Love in Traditional Japanese Poetry,” a talk which focused primarily on tanka.

I then moved to the auditorium for Charles Trumbull’s talk “Crosscurrents: East and West: Shiki and the Origins of Shasei.” He talked about “slice of life,” “poetic truth” and how Shiki felt a poet should only use imagination after developing a sufficient understanding of reality. He compared Shiki’s philosophy to John Ruskin’s art criticism, ending with one of Shiki’s haiku:

sketching from life –
eggplants are harder to do
than pumpkins

- Shiki (1902)

The final presentation of the day was Jim Kacian’s talk on “Haiku as Anti-story.” Jim declared that a haiku wasn’t the story but rather a “lightning strike across it.” He then said that the very best haiku cuts across the story and the reader can see the story on both sides of the cut. I thought that was an interesting way to think about haiku.

Then, it was a rush back to the hotel to get ready for the banquet at the top of the Crown Plaza where John Brandi was the keynote speaker.


John Brandi, Terry Ann Carter

Then, we did a quick change of clothes again and walked down to the Wellington Street dock for the boat cruise. We cruised the Ottawa River, watched the fireworks from Gatineau, had a poetry reading on board, and a dance! What more could a haiku poet ask for?


Michael Dylan Welch aka “Captain Haiku”

poems
on the river
summer evening

Ginko walks always jump-start my creativity. So, it's probably not coincidental that August 7th was the only day of Haiku North America I blogged about on the day it happened:

http://dkolodji.livejournal.com/294511.html

At 9:00 a.m., we met in the lobby of the Crown Plaza Hotel. Guy Simser was our fearless leader and tour guide.


Guy Simser

Since the speculative haiku presentation and the Bruce Ross haibun talk opposite it were the first scheduled events in the Library and Archives for that day, I thought briefly about just staying in the hotel and prepping. But, the lure of Ottawa was too great.

morning walk
afternoon stress disappears
before it arrives

Ottawa kept calling to my photographer’s eye, so my pen was quieter than usual. At one point, I was busy framing a shot of the Centre Block building as Guy was talking about the sights. He suddenly pointed to something behind me and suddenly everyone was looking at me. I couldn’t have planned it better.



DeVar Dahl’s Hawaiian shirt, Fay Aoyagi, Emiko Miyashita, Luce Pelletier, David Lanoue, Ian Marshall (profile behind David), ?, Guy Simser, Deb Koen, Gary Gay, Bill Pauley, top of Kaoru Fujimoto’s head, Charles Trumbull

As we waited for the ceremony to begin, Lenard Moore started to make room for new photos on his camera card. John Stevenson and I offered suggestions.


John Stevenson, Lenard Moore

changing of the guard
he asks me which photos
to delete.


Ian pointed out that the building has a face!

During the ceremony, one of the soldiers just fell over on the grass. No one else missed a step. The medics took him (or her) away so fast that if you looked away for a minute or two, you wouldn’t have seen it.

cloud shift
the young soldier
on a stretcher

Far too soon, it was time for me to grab some lunch, and go back to set up. So, I reluctantly left the group at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier.


Charles Trumbull

Naia has also posted a wonderful account of this day and my speculative haiku presentation:
http://naia01.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/aug-7-2009-hna-2009-in-ottawa-ontario-canada/

It was the first full day of Haiku North America. I stopped back by The Scone Witch for breakfast and it turned out that Charlie Trumbull had the same idea. So after a breakfast of haiku talk and the world’s best scones, I made it back to the Library and Archives Canada in time to join Naia for Emiko Miyashita’s talk “Feel the Word.”


Naia, Emiko Miyashita

Emiko talked about kigo and how much can be translated from culture to culture. She gave us handouts with a list of Japanese kigo and we were supposed to write down the appropriate season for each. It was surprising how many I didn’t get. She talked about kidaishumi, the art of writing haiku in the spirit of kigo, and I came away from her talk with a quote from Basho ringing in my head, “Every change in the universe is a seed of a poem.”

Next on my agenda was the Nick Virgilio panel, “Nick Virgilio: Crossing Currents of Form & Inspiration.”


Raffael de Gruttola, Kathleen O’ Toole, Michael Dylan Welch

Virgilio was described as the First Great American Haiku Poet, using the following definition:

1. Must write about the human condition
2. Must be aware of the state of letters
3. Must know craft
4. Must have shown vision over a period of many years
5. Must have an unique voice
6. Must have moved haiku forward

One of the highlights of this discussion for me was when Jerome Cushman got up and signed Virgilio’s famous lily poem in American Sign Language:

lily
out of the water
out of itself

- Nicholas A. Virgilio

After this panel, I headed straight for the bookroom and bought a copy of Virgilio’s Selected Haiku.



At lunch, I dashed off to the print shop to order the scifaiku brochures Josh Gage designed for me, so I'd have them the next day. Unfortunately, this meant I missed having lunch with Roberta Beary. I made it back in time to catch Rich Schnell’s presentation on “Train Haiku: Crosscurrents Along Iron Rails.”


Rick Schnell

Schnell presented a wonderful selection of train haiku ranging from Kerouac to Shiki to Richard Wright. There were haiku from Cor van den Heuvel’s Haiku Anthology and Tom Clausen’s website of train haiku.

It made me want to take another train trip so I can write some more train haiku of my own. I think I have only one published train haiku:

train ride home
the empty seat
next to me

from Brevities, September 2006

After the train haiku presentation, I caught the very end of Emiko’s “JAL Reading,” a reading from an anthology of children’s haiku from around the world sponsored by the Japanese Airlines Foundation.

This was followed by a presentation bu Michael Dylan Welch called “Fuyoh Observations: Seven Lessons we can learn from Japan.” Basically this was a presentation of the comparison of scale. The fact that there are 7-10 million poets writing haiku seriously in Japan. That Japanese haiku journals focus on poets and American haiku journals focus on poems. That haiku in Japanese journals are printed in a tighter space. That Japanese journals publish far more haiku than we do. After presenting all these facts, he asked the audience what we could learn from Japan and I was sort of flummoxed, completely overwhelmed by the difference in scale. I suspect this was probably the idea.

Next was Jerome Cushman’s “Haiku in Performance” presentation which he did with several members of the Rochester area haiku group. He exhibited a completely different way of presenting haiku – through haiku performance and short dramatizations. It was stunning. The whole day was stunning.


first row: Angelee Deodhar, Penny Harter, statues, kris kondo
second row: Angela Leuck, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Marilyn Hazelton, Sheila M. Ross
third row: Rick Black, Deborah P Kolodji, Henry’s wife, Henry Brann