Gerald England's Callander Haiku Hike

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'

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