Evergreen Haiku Study Group September meeting
Sat, September 25, 2021 12:00 PM - Sat, September 25, 2021 2:00 PM at Online
The 2021-22 edition of the Evergreen Haiku Study Group, led by Michele Root-Bernstein, is taking place virtually. No matter your experience, you're invited to attend any or all of these monthly gatherings to explore and expand your knowledge of haiku in all its forms.
Monthly study group activities include read-arounds, aesthetic explorations, craft exercises, writing time, anonymous kukai, collaborative play, and other forms of shared appreciation for one of the smallest poetic forms on the planet. Over the course of the year we plan to bring in a haiku poet or two for readings and workshops and to explore related haiku arts such as haibun (prose/poem), haiga (picture/poem), and book-making. All are welcome regardless of experience level.
To request the Zoom information and to learn more, e-mail evergreenhaiku@gmail.com
The September meeting includes an appearance by guest poet Michael Dylan Welch who will talk about some haiku basics. Michael prefers to think of haiku as having targets rather than rules, which he'll talk about, starting with a "Count the Syllables" activity and discussion. He'll also perform sequences of his haiku with PowerPoint animations.
Michael has been writing haiku since 1976 and has published thousands of haiku and longer poems and many hundreds of essays and reviews. He founded National Haiku Writing Month in 2010 and the Tanka Society of America in 2000. He co-founded Haiku North America in 1991, the American Haiku Archives in 1996, and the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2008. Michael currently edits First Frost and used to edit Woodnotes, Tundra, and Cascade. He's president of the Redmond Association of Spokenword, curator of SoulFood Poetry Night, and former poet laureate for Redmond, Washington, near where he lives in Sammamish, Washington.
About Michele Root-Bernstein: Michele Root-Bernstein took her first stab at haiku in the late 1990s, but it was not until 2005, the year she joined the Haiku Society of America (HSA) that she began to study the form seriously and to publish in haiku journals and anthologies. A selection of her poetry appeared in A New Resonance 6 in 2009. In recent years she has placed in haiku and haibun contests, winning second prize in the HSA Haibun Awards competition in 2012, and first prize in the same HSA competition in 2015. She occasionally presents a haiku-dance workshop developed in association with the Kennedy Center partners in Education program. She served as associate editor of Frogpond, the journal of the HSA, from 2012 through 2015. In her other life, Michele is an independent scholar in creativity studies associated with Michigan State University, co-author of Sparks of Genius, The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People, and author of Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences.