Twelve poets gathered in the bookshop on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning for an introductory haiku session, before moving out for a circular walk around Callander
L-R: Margaret Gillies Brown, Ian Blake, Andy Robson, Elizabeth Rimmer, Gerry Singh and his wife, Sally Evans, Colin Will, Christine England, Maureen Weldon, Sally James.
PHOTO BY Gerald England
Margaret Gillies Brown wrote:
I thought I kind of knew about haiku but discovered there were certain aspects about them I didn't know, and Gerald England made it all so clear.
Sally Evans' haiku:
A crowd on Main Street
ice-cream melts
happy dogs
Maureen Weldon's haiku
High steeple bell;
Hill makes many bells;
Prayer wheel in the sky
Eileen Carney Hulme's haiku
last day of summer
poets loiter with intent
a garden of words
Gerald's haiku
train halted
across the Firth of Forth
Fife lies
book launch
passing ice-cream eaters
pause to look in
prodigal daughter
barbecues aubergines
blue smoke
how many bells?
low walls and distant hills
echo back
Ben Ledi
ignored by Munro-baggers
low mist
the pavement
is at war with the trees
roots are winning
[Christine England]
ducks ripple
through an alder's reflection
babies follow
on the cobblestones
of the riverside path
a white feather
Colin Will's haiku church bells clang
in the busy street -
hills soften echoes the poet reads
lavender wafts
in the sunshine heat reflects
from wooden shed –
smell of old creosote spruce trees
on top of the crag
a plain blue sky hazy mountain -
a nearby tree
looks as high rose hips
getting redder
on the rail route
dead conifer
brown against green -
this very dry season level bowling green
a perfect square -
too hot to play Christmas Shop
summer decorations
sell like hot cakes tiny fish
all turn at once -
a hundred silver flashes duck wakes
make a temporary grid
on the river These can be linked to at POETRY SCOTLAND where they were originally posted. Take a look and see what's happening at this year's Callender Poetry Weekend 2nd to 4th of September 2006 and catch up on other poetry events in Scotland. Gerald England is an internationally aclaimed poet who won the Ted Slade Prize For Services To Poetry in 2006 and has published many books and journals. GERALDS HOME PAGE Colin Will is a Scottish poet and here is his Home Page Sally Evan's 'Bewick Walks to Scotland' LO HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE CROSSOVER UK
The Pilgrimage Tree
Here's a link to 'The Pilgrimage Tree' a haibun series written on the Thorpe Acre Trail, Loughborough, UK during as part of the World Haiku Festival 2000. The festival was organised by the World Haiku Club and the Chairman of the WHC Susumu Takiguchi attended and took part in the walk along with other haijin. Walking and writing haiku on walks is a geat tradition and such walks are called 'ginko'. THE PILGRIMAGE TREE(click to link)And Gerald England's page: Thorpe Acre Trail
We encourage you to walk and look and see and share back your walks here at Haiku Hike.Send your walks with pictures, videos if you have them too to:Little.Onion@ntlworld.comHAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGECROSSOVER UK
an 'almost-tanka' - from a walk in school grounds
Children taken for a walk not somewhere new but in their own school grounds the Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, London UK. Encouraged to look with 'haikai-eyes'. Here's a 10 year old's first refelections: sun shining on my eyes like a devil taking over my body like an ant getting eaten by a spider the blue sky glimmering in the sunlight video made in the classroom after walking in the school grounds before any really formal editing of the work - fresh reactions - not haiku but has haiku-like fragments and phrases - fresh and lively - maybe we can get even more connection by looking at it without the use of 'like' - a move to more of a show rather than tell - lets look... sun shining on my eyes a devil taking over my body an ant getting eaten by a spider the blue sky glimmering in the sunlight whichever - a powerful set of feelings evoked by a walk in the playground a familiar place seen with new eyes LO HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGECROSSOVER UK
The Crow Walk
Alan Summers has been inspired by 'haiku hike' to revisit, update and share a favourite walk of his made some time ago now. His memories of the walk 'renewed' and shared with us here. Thank you Alan.The Crow WalkAustraliacoarse grass curls round my walking shoes an ant enters my bag  the wind sways part of a woven hat once grass a dragonfly hovers round a leaf drops heavily through branches the day moves into that inbetween time fading last note torresian crow sounds the darkening sky woodfire flickering in the light distant horses now under a black black sky stars more bright than I've ever seen some seem to shift and move vibrate to suggest something more last sighting on this travel of Jupiter above Venus susurrus of moths round fire that flickers on like the night it's cold now 3a.m. brittle cutting cold the moon's no longer full this brutal simplicity of a night dark as a raven’s abode a thin trail to the stars woodsmoke & embers I see a lightening from dark to metal grey a quickening between trees becomes a hurt violet into morning 
early hours crow I invoke a prayer to its god and mine a red sunrise through pale blue trees rekindling the fire
The Crow Walk ©Alan Summers 2006
(different earlier versions of the haibun text published in ‘Paper Wasp’ haiku journal, Queensland, Australia 1997; ‘Azami haiku journal’, Osaka, Japan 1998; and ‘Blithe Spirit’ British Haiku Society journal, June 2004.)
Images©Alan Summers2006HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE
CROSSOVER UK
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