My generation is the first in my family to not have a member serve in the armed forces (yet – who knows?). And ANZAC Day has a special resonance for me – my great uncle, who was also a poet, was the man blamed for the disaster that epitomizes the ANZAC legend: Gallipoli. General Sir …
Haiku Aotearoa 2008
Fascinating weekend. It was great to finally meet lots of people who I've heard of, or even corresponded with for years, but never met face to face before. With a very few exceptions, it was a who's who of New Zealand haiku literature. And on top of that, we had the launch of the third …
Haiku Aotearoa ’08 is go!
Woohoo! Just about time to head off to the opening event in the Haiku Aotearoa 2008 festival/conference/shindig. I'm quite looking forward to everything, although I'm nervous as hell about the bit that I'm running – Saturday, 1:30 to 3:30: "Introduction to Haibun". Not helped by the fact that Cyril Childs – who I consider one …
Poetry readings – the good and the unintelligable
I went to the fifth evening in the Canterbury Poets' autumn "Poetry in Performance" readings series last night. The guest readers were Sioban Harvey, Kerrin Sharpe and Jeffrey Harpeng. Interesting night. I haven't come across Sioban or Kerrin before, although I vaguely knew their names. Jeff's work I know quite well, and was entertaining, as …
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My new other blog
I've started playing with a second blog, devoted strictly to haibun. Partly as a result of the preparation I've been doing for my 'Haibun for Beginners' workshop at Haiku Aotearoa 2008. But also because I was having an idle flick through some of the kazillions (technical term) of photos we have from our three years …
A Dark Feathered Art 