Red Kelpie Haiku Group Ginko & Meeting #2
We skipped a Winter meeting, due to long-awaited surgery on my feet, and planned a Spring meeting, for group members only, this time. Our second meeting was held on Sunday 26th October in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. The dramatic thunderstorms were postponed until around 1am on the 27th , the swans were parading their big, dove-grey cygnets, the eels were getting under their paddling feet, the air was scented with all sorts of delicious perfumes from flowering plants and trees and we were blessed and lucky with a fine, warm day, full attendance and great enthusiasm. An Eastern Water Dragon approached our table at the Terrace and seemed to take a special liking to Marisa, staring at her boldly and making her feel nervous enough to take off her lace earrings. The resident Purple Swamp Hen strutted busily between the Terrace and his reedy hideout by the lake.
After coffee and catching up on each other’s haiku efforts and publications since last time, we each read out a contemporary haiku by someone we didn’t know that we’d previously selected to bring along and discussed the basic issue of the cut (kire) and how it worked in each of the haiku presented. For the next hour, we went off in various directions for the silent, ginko walking, hoping for inspiration and taking notes or writing draft haiku, then met again back at the Terrace for lunch, the reading out of our drafts and more haiku talk. The next step will be follow-up process of completing up to three haiku from the day and submitting them for commentary & critique from each group member.
Apologies to the two guests we intended to invite to our next meeting/ ginko and please be assured that invitations to our January meeting will be forthcoming.
The Red Kelpie Haiku Group are currently: Robyn Cairns, Marisa Fazio, Lorin Ford, Jayashree Maniyil, Jennifer Sutherland and Rodney Williams.
Enquiries from haiku writers in the Melbourne area who might like to join the group or be invited along as guests and who have at least three haiku published in edited, English-language haiku journals should be directed to Lorin Ford via haikugourds at gmail dot com, with ‘Red Kelpie Haiku Group’ in the email subject bar.
— Lorin Ford
Melbourne, October 2014