Thursday, June 15, 2006

The Three Estates Renga

Saturday the 17thJune 2006 sees the first of the 6 'Three Estates Renga - 100 verses for three estates' take place. Little Onion has been invited to be Master Poet for the piece. Not a walk but renga at 6 different locations through the 3 Estates across the 4 seasons from late Spring 2006 to early Spring 2007.

I find 'ren' / 'connection' between this piece and the Crossover UK Renewability project that Tomomi Iguchi is organising. An exploration, a kind of mapping of environments through the process of art of engagement.


CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE THREE ESTATES RENGA

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

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

Poets by the river. Haiku walk

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

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Saturday, June 03, 2006

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.com

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Friday, June 02, 2006

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 PAGE

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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 Walk
Australia

coarse 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 Summers2006

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