Ellen Compton, Jeanne Emrich, and Dr. Angelee Deodhar at breakfast
Some of the best times to be had at the HNA conference are had over dinner with your fellow haiku poets. You get to learn what kind of lives they lead and what else they do with their time besides write haiku.
From left to right in the photograph above . . .
Ellen Compton is a haiku poet, a founding member of towpath (a haiku group in the Washington D.C. area), and a member of the editorial board of the Red Moon Anthology, an annual haiku anthology from Red Moon Press (Jim Kacian, editor in chief).
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missing the turn sign —Ellen Compton |
Jeanne Emrich is a haiku poet and a haiga artist. She is the editor of Haiga Online, a website devoted to haiga.
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poets' corner —Jeanne Emrich |
Dr. Angelee Deodhar, an eye surgeon, writes haiku that reflect her life in Chandigarh, India. In the essay that she presented at the HNA 2001 conference, Angelee quoted Ezra Pound's definition of image—"an emotional and intellectual complex in an instant of time"—and compared it to the response we have to a good haiku. She also talked about the healing qualities of haiku, for both the poet and the reader. Angelee used the visual arts and writing in her own healing after a serious illness.
I asked Angelee for a haiga, and with her typical generosity, she sent me this one for a haiku of mine:
