Meetings & Events
At Regency Park.
Photo by Dave
Russo.
Monthly Meetings
The North Carolina Haiku Society holds monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of each month unless another date is announced. 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 | January 7 |
| Time | 7:00 to 9:00 Note the earlier time! |
| City or Town | Newcomers are welcome! Details about the location of the meeting will be sent to our email list. If you are not on the list, contact us and ask for directions. See our Contact Us page.
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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!
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.
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 | To be announced. |
| Place | To be announced. 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.
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Haiku Holiday
The next Haiku Holiday will be held on the last Saturday in April, April 25, 2009, at Bolin Brook Farm in Chapel Hill. This will be the 30th annual Haiku Holiday for the North Carolina Haiku Society! Experienced haiku teachers and poets will conduct workshops, talks and walks. The event will be open to anyone with an interest in haiku, beginner or advanced. More details closer to the event.
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 Haiku Holidays have been held at Bolin Brook Farm—thanks to our gracious host and member since the beginning, Jean Earnhardt. Our Galleries section has some pictures from past Haiku Holidays. Our Archives section has links to schedules from past Haiku Holidays.
Haiku Society of America Meeting: December 5-7, 2008
Overview
2008 is the 40th anniversary of the Haiku Society of America, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1968 by Harold G. Henderson and Leroy Kanterman to promote the writing and appreciation of haiku in English.
The North Carolina Haiku Society, the people who brought you the first Haiku North America conference in the South; the first feature-length film about haiku in English (Haiku: the Art of the Short Poem), and the first recording of a cappella haiku (Willow Songs) . . .
. . . the really nice people who host Blogging Along Tobacco Road and the North Carolina Haiku Society Blog . . . the people who have celebrated Haiku Holiday for almost 30 years . . . will host the winter quarterly meeting of the Haiku Society of America from Friday December 5 to Sunday December 7, 2008 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This will be the second time that the NCHS has hosted an HSA quarterly meeting. (The first time was in 2006.)
Saturday's events include an "indoor ginko" at Reynolda House and evening performances and readings at Associated Artists Gallery in downtown Winston-Salem. Check the Schedule for details.
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 you may have about the meeting.
The conference hotel is the Brookstown Inn at 200 Brookstown Avenue in Winston-Salem. The Brookstown Inn Web site says:
"The Brookstown Inn was built in 1837 as a textile mill and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Inn has the charm and ambiance of old-world architecture with all the conveniences of a modern conference facility. Its hallmarks of exposed brick walls and wooden beams enhance its Early American decor and help you escape to the charm of yesteryear. This historic setting is perfect for wedding receptions, reunions, business meetings & conferences, and other social gatherings."
The Brookstown is offering a conference rate of $89.00 a night. This includes a continental breakfast in the morning and wine and cheese in the evening. To get the conference rate, when you contact the hotel, be sure to say that you will be attending the Haiku Society of America conference in December (not just "HSA conference").
Please Note: To get the conference rate, make your room reservation at the Brookstown Inn before November 11, 2008.
Brookstown Inn
200 Brookstown Avenue
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Toll Free: 800.845.4262
Phone: 336.725.1120
Other accomodations within walking distance of the Brookstown Inn include:
- the Hawthone Inn on on 420 High Street (877-777-3099). At one time they offered a special rate of $72.00 a night. Tell them that Lauren Christmas offered this rate to folks coming to the "Haiku Society of America" meeting.
- The Henry F. Shaffner House, a bed and breakfast on South Marshall Street (800.952.2256)
The closest international airport is Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO). GSO is 30 minutes from Winston-Salem.
Please Note: If you let us know when you will arrive at GSO, we can pick you up. Contact Dave about your arrival time at the airport.
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(If you do have to hire a shuttle or cab, it should cost between $40.00 and $45.00. For details about transportation options, see the Transportation page on the GSO Web site. The conference hotel (the) does not have a private shuttle, so it is not listed on the airport's transportation page. Not to worry. You can hire a shuttle to take you there.)
Alternative International Airport (RDU)GSO would be the better choice for most people, but some of you might want to check Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU). RDU is about 2 hours from Winston-Salem, so it is not close. Of course you would have to rent a car.
AMTRAK or GreyhoundYou will want to come to the City Transfer Center at 100 West 5th Street, about 3/4 of a mile from the Brookstown Inn. Cabs are thick in that area; it is the main terminal for city buses and Greyhound buses.
Updated: December 3, 2008
| Fri Dec 5 | Event | Location |
Any time |
Out-of-town guests arrive in Winston-Salem. If you tell us when you are arriving, we'll pick you up from the airport. |
Various |
6:30 to 7:30 PM |
Wine and cheese tasting. |
Brookstown Inn at 200 Brookstown Avenue |
7:45 or so |
Dinner at a local restaurant afterwards. |
Local restaurant within walking distance of the Brookstown Inn |
| Sat Dec 6 | Event | Location |
9:00 to 9:30 AM |
Register for the day’s events in the lobby of the Brookstown Inn. |
Brookstown Inn |
9:30 to 9:45 |
Meet in the lobby of the Brookstown Inn, then move to the parking lot for a brief ride to Reynolda House. |
Brookstown Inn |
10:00 to 10:15 |
Opening remarks by HSA President Lenard D. Moore. HSA business and initiatives will be discussed. |
Reynolda House on 2250 Reynolda Road |
10:15 to 12:00 |
Your choice of an “inside ginko” at Reynolda House or wander the grounds outside. |
Reynolda House |
12:00 to 1:30 |
Lunch on our own. | Reynolda Village, by Reynolda House |
1:30 to 1:45 |
Meet outside Reynolda, then move to the parking lot for a brief ride to the Brookstown Inn or another location TBA. | Reynolda House |
2:00 to 3:00 |
From Haiku to Poem and Back Again, a workshop led by Richard Kraweic. Often haiku writers don't work with longer poetic forms. Often free verse poets don't know how to write a haiku. But some haiku particularly lend themselves to poetic expansion, while some longer poems would be more effective if one section were removed and then focused and compressed into a haiku. This workshop will explore how to take a haiku and expand it into a longer poem, and how to take a longer poem and compress it back into a haiku. Facilitator Richard Krawiec will share models from his own writing. Participants are encouraged to bring samples of their haiku and longer poems with them to the workshop. |
Winston-Salem Visitor's Center at 200 Brookstown Avenue |
3:00 to 4:00 |
Haiku and the Unconscious, a workshop led by Roberta Beary. Through discussion of haiku submitted by participants we will look at the ways our unconscious can be tapped in writing haiku. We will concentrate on revising our haiku to eliminate extraneous words while retaining the underlying image and feelings it evokes. Poets will be encouraged to examine their haiku and those of other participants with an eye to the interplay of emotion and memory. The discussion will begin with presenters reading examples of their own and others' haiku which exemplify haiku and the unconscious. |
Winston-Salem Visitor's Center |
| 4:30 to 6:30 | On our own for dinner. | |
6:30 to 9:30 |
Haiku readings and performances as described in this Press Release.
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Associated Artists Gallery at 301 West Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem |
| Sun Dec 7 | Event | Location |
Morning or thereabouts |
Out-of-town guests depart from Winston-Salem. If you tell us when you are leaving, we'll take you to the airport. |
Brookstown Inn |
Roberta Beary is one of 10 haiku poets featured in the Shiki online discussion list's tenth anniversary haiku anthology. She is a member of towpath, Haiku Ireland, Haiku International, and the Haiku Society of America. Her senryu won first prize in the 2006 Gerald Brady competition that is sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. She will lead a workshop and read from her recent haiku collection, The Unworn Necklace (Snapshot Press: 2007) which was one of two finalists for the William Carlos Williams Award given by the Poetry Society of America. See Roberta Beary a Finalist . . .
Richard Krawiec is the editor of Taboo Haiku (Avisson Press: 2006) and author of the free verse chapbook Breakdown (Main Street Rag: 2008). His haiku appears in Modern Haiku, Heron's Nest, Frogpond, acorn, Hermitage and elsewhere. His free verse poetry appears in sou'wester, Many Mountains, Moving, Artful Dodge, Negative Capability and other literary magazines.
Fleur-de-Lisa might be the first a cappella group to compose and sing songs based on haiku in English. By turns simple, playful, and beautiful, the a cappella form is a perfect complement to haiku. Sylvia Freeman, Andie Piddington, Sarah Shunk & Deborah Stewart are the members of Fleur-de-Lisa. The group recently recorded Willow Songs, a CD of songs based on haiku from Beneath the Willow Tree (Rosenberry Books, Book In Hand Editions: 2007) an anthology of haiku by members of the North Carolina Haiku Society. The group continues to write new songs, focusing on Japanese death poems and on haiku by Roberta Beary.
Lenard D. Moore is the Executive Chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society and the President of the Haiku Society of America. He is the first Southerner and the first African American to be elected as President of the HSA. Lenard is the haiku editor for Simply Haiku, and he is the founder of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective (CAAWC). He recently won the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award for his contribution to the fine arts of North Carolina. Lenard will read a selection of Richard Wright's haiku in honor of the Richard Wright Centennial. Wright wrote over 4000 haiku in the last 18 months of his life. A selection of these haiku are available in Haiku, This Other World, by Richard Wright (Arcade Publishing, 1998).
Email List & Blog
We post haiku-related news items on the NCHS blog.
We have a low-traffic NCHS email list that
we use for meeting announcements. This is a one-way list: only the webmaster
can post messages. If you would like to be on the NCHS email list, see
the Contact Us page.
Japanese Cultural Events
Calendar of Japan-Related Cultural Events in the South east... a calendar of events that is maintained by the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta, Georgia. This regional calendar usually includes a number of events in North Carolina. Look for events that reference NC.