North Carolina Haiku Society

Meetings & Events

Ginkos (haiku walks)(next date to be announced)

Haiku Holiday Saturday April 28

Haiku Society of America Meeting Winston-Salem, Saturday Decemeber 15 to Sunday December 16

At Regency Park.
Photo by Dave Russo.

Regular Meetings

The North Carolina Haiku Society holds meetings every two months on the dates announced below. The meetings are open to anyone with an interest in haiku, beginner or advanced.

The main event of most meetings will be a workshop in that we discuss haiku that we have written. As you might guess from our web site, the focus of the meetings will be on literary haiku rather than "joke haiku" about spam, computer error messages, and the like. Please see Meeting Format below for details.

Date of Next Meeting

Saturday May 19, 2012

Time

12 noon to 3:00

City or Town

We announce the meeting location to our mailing list. You can also Contact Us.

Meeting Format:

In general, we'll begin by giving people a chance to ask questions or make comments. Someone might give a brief presentation about haiku or related forms. Then we will move on to the main event: a workshop in that we discuss haiku that we have written.

If you are a free spirit and just want to come and see what happens, welcome!

If you'd like to know a little more about contemporary haiku in English, you could read the topic What's a haiku?, then read the poems on a well-edited haiku site, such as The Heron's Nest or the Harold G. Henderson Memorial Award Collection on the Haiku Society of America web site.

Hope to see you at the meeting!

Ginkos (haiku walks)

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), one of the "Big Four" of the Japanese haiku masters, thought that haiku poets should practice shasei—"sketching from life"—in order to develop their powers of observation and description. A traditional way to develop these skills is to participate in a ginko, a haiku walk.

NCHS ginkos tend to be informal and democratic. We gather at a location, usually a scenic or historic place, and walk about. We jot down notes about what we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste—as well as thoughts and feelings that arise. After the walk, we turn our notes into haiku and read some of them aloud to the rest of the group. The goal is not to "impress" but to respond to what is around us.

Again: if you are a free spirit and just want to come and see what happens, welcome!

About the 5-7-5 syllable count: For the purpose of our ginko, please feel free to keep the familiar 5-7-5 syllable count or adopt the freer form that is typically published in literary journals that focus on haiku written in English, such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron's Nest, and others. Since the early years of the 20th century, many poets in Japan and elsewhere have de-emphasized the 5-7-5 pattern in order to focus on other elements of haiku form and tradition. Other poets have broken with tradition in order to seek new possibilities in haiku. For details, see What's a haiku?

Date of Next NCHS Ginko

To be announced

Time

Place

Details will be sent to our email list and will also be published in local newspapers. If you are not on the list, you can contact us and ask for directions. See our Contact Us page.

Overview

Come celebrate the 33rd annual Haiku Holiday with the North Carolina Haiku Society on Saturday, April 28, 2012. Experienced haiku teachers and poets conduct workshops, talks and walks. The event is open to anyone with an interest in haiku, beginner or advanced. This year we'll celebrate the release of The Stone House, an anthology of haiku inspired by Bolin Brook Farm. Please see the following link for pictures of the book and ordering information: The Stone House.

Our first Haiku Holiday took place at Bolin Brook Farm near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the United States of America on January 26, 1980. Since then, all of our annual meetings have been held at Bolin Brook Farm—thanks to our gracious host and member since the beginning, Jean Earnhardt. Our Galleries section has a few pictures from past Haiku Holidays. Our Archives page has schedules from those events.

If you are going to participate in a workshop, bring previously written, unpublished haiku—or you can dash one off after the ginko (haiku walk). Membership in the North Carolina Haiku Society is encouraged but not required. There is no membership or registration fee, but small donations will be gratefully accepted at the workshop.

Please:

Bring a bag lunch.
Check the weather and dress accordingly. Haiku Holiday is held rain or shine.

Bring One Favorite Haiku on a 3 x 5 Card

Please consider bringing one favorite haiku on a 3 x 5 card. The haiku should be by someone other than yourself. Be sure to include the poet's name on the card, if you know it. The haiku can be on any subject. We'll post these cards around Jean's house for people to read during the day. Here are some photos of haiku from last year: Haiku Holiday 2011: Haiku.

Contact

The main contact for this meeting is Dave Russo. See the Contact Us page for my contact information. Feel free to contact me with any questions about the meeting.

Presenters

Lenard D. Moore, the Executive Chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society, was Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for Eastern North Carolina from 2007 to 2009. He is a past President of the Haiku Society of America: the first Southerner and the first African American to be elected as President of the HSA. Lenard is the founder of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective (CAAWC). His latest collection of poems is A Temple Looming (WordTech Editions: 2008). Lenard will lead a panel discussion and a workshop. As of January 2012, Lenard has been writing haiku for 30 years.

L. Teresa Church is an independent scholar and archival consultant. Her interests include the documentation of local African American community history and exhibit installations. She also serves as archivist and membership chairperson for the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective. Her writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including Simply Haiku, Frogpond, and The Heron’s Nest.

Adrienne Christian earned her BA in English from the University of Michigan, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University in Oregon. Her poems have been featured in Falling Star, Alimentum, The Ante Review, The Barrier Islands Review, and many others. She was also recently accepted into the Cave Canem family of black poets. Mrs. Christian works as an Integrated Writing Specialist at Bennett College for Women. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her husband.

Dave Russo's haiku have appeared in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Acorn, and other journals. He is included in the New Resonance 5 anthology from Red Moon Press. Dave organizes events for the North Carolina Haiku Society and is on the board of directors for The Haiku Foundation. He will participate in a panel discussion and will lead a workshop.

Our Host

Jean Earnhardt retired in 1995 after 20 years as a hospital PR/marketing director. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Carolina in 1952 and a Masters in Liberal Studies from Duke forty years later. While raising two sons she sold freelance features and photographs to newspapers and tried her hand at short stories and poetry. She lives on Bolin Brook Farm, an old farmstead that has been in Jean's family for 12 generations.

Directions to Bolin Brook Farm

Bolin Brook Farm is a beautiful place, but you may need a little help in finding it. Here is Jean's address and contact information:

Jean Earnhardt
600 Bolin Brook Farm Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-929-4884
jjearn@bellsouth.net

Click this link to see a Google Map.

Click this link to see a photo of the sign you'll see on the side of the road: Photos from Haiku Holiday 2002.

Schedule for Haiku Holiday on Saturday April 28, 2012

Updated: April 24, 2012

All schedules are tentative, of course, due to weather, whims, and twists of fate.

8:45: 9:25 AM	Registration, coffee, tea and pastry
9:30 to 9:45	Opening Remarks by Jean Earnhardt and Lenard D. Moore.
9:45: to 10:30	Launch of The Stone House This year we'll celebrate the release of The Stone House, an anthology of haiku inspired by Bolin Brook Farm. Please see the following link for pictures of the book and ordering information: The Stone House. As part of the celebration, we'll have an open reading of haiku by NCHS members. You don't have to be in The Stone House to read a haiku in appreciation of Jean's hospitality for all of these years! Any haiku that is appropriate for a spring morning at Bolin Book Farm would be fine.
10:30 to 12:00	Self-guided ginko (haiku walk) and Other Activities. Some of us will follow the usual trail for the ginko as we have done in the past. Visit our book display, featuring Rosenberry Books. Take the opportunity to talk with NCHS members about haiku.
12: 00 to 1:15	Lunch Please bring a bag lunch. Drinks will be provided.
1:15 to 1:45	What Impact Has Haiku Had on Free Verse (and Vice Versa) We'll explore the impact that haiku has had on free verse, and the impact that free verse has had on haiku. A panel discussion led by Lenard D. Moore. With L. Teresa Church, Adrienne Christian, and Dave Russo.
1:45 to 3:30	Workshops Haiku workshops led by Lenard D. Moore and Dave Russo. You can workshop a haiku that you wrote today, or you can bring previously-written work to discuss.
Around 3:30	Meeting adjourns

Haiku Society of America Meeting: Sat Dec 15 to Sun Dec 16

The North Carolina Haiku Society will host the 4th Quarterly Meeting of the Haiku Society of America, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1968 to promote the writing and appreciation of haiku in English. The meeting will be held in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. More details closer to the event. Here are some photos from the HSA meetings we hosted in 2006 and 2008.

Email List & Facebook Fan Page

We have a low-traffic NCHS email list that we use for meeting announcements and haiku news. This is a one-way list: only the webmaster can post messages. If you would like to join the list, use our NCHS Email List Sign-Up Form.

We have a Facebook fan page as well.

See also Curtis Dunlap's blog, Blogging Along Tobacco Road. Curtis is an NCHS member.