HAIKU KAI REPORT
AUGUST 20, 2016
SUMMER MEETING

Attending

Jane Benson, Danielle Draper, Mary Fuchs, Mary Joyce, Sarah Paris, Joan, Janet Schroder, Karen Schlumpp and Mark Werlin.

Meeting

At the meeting, we returned to the practice of examining and revising "imperfect" haiku. Participants wrote one imperfect haiku on a 3x5 card and the cards were randomized and distributed around the table. As in the Spring session, we shared lively discussion and made small but effective changes to the submitted haiku. The point of the exercise (I believe) is not to become better editors of our own and others' haiku, but to notice how often we allow the habits and conventions of writing to get in the way of communicating direct experience.

Karen generously obtained copies for us of "India-Ink Drawings by the Famous Zen Priest SENGAI", a catalog of the exhibit originally shown at the Japan Cultural Fair in Oakland, California, 1956.

At the Fall meeting on November 19, please bring one or more old photographs of a place, object, person or scene to share as prompts for the writing exercise. The images may be mysterious, evocative, incomplete, or otherwise open to interpretation. Imperfect snapshots, broken things, candid captures of people are all excellent to spur the imagination. If you don't have any old photographs, images from magazines or news photos will work too.

Upcoming Meetings

Nov 19, 2016  Theme: Flying Things

Jan 28, 2017   Theme: White

Summer Haiku

Some haiku shared at the August 20 meeting: