Past Meetings

2006

At our May 13 meeting, held at the home of Jerome Cushman, we were treated to learning some rudimentary ikebana and took part in a tea house
ceremony conducted by Jerome.

At our June 11 meeting, Co-Founder and Coordinator  Jerome Cushman recommended Deanna Tiefenthal as the new group Coordinator. She was unanimously approved by the members.

Our July 9 meeting was held at the home of Carolyn Coit Dancy 29 Hunters Pointe, Pittsford, NY, 381-5369. Members went on a tour of woods that now belong to the town of Brighton, took photos, and wrote poems inspired by the walk.

Jerome Cushman, Deanna Tiefenthal, Carolyn Dancy and Frank Judge assumed editorial responsibilities for the RAHG chapbook/anthology.

Our August 13 meeting featured a discussion of senryu, conparing and contrasting the form with haiku, by Deanna Tiefenthal.

September 10, 2 pm, B&N
Workshop & meeting hosted by Jerome Cushman

The workshop will have two purposes. Members will bring a favorite haiku by a master or one of our favorite poets. We'll each read our haiku and analyze it, explaining why we consider it a good haiku and then read the poem again. Then the floor will be open to questions and comments concerning work.

We will also work on and practice the reading we will be doing the following week on

Sunday, September 17
Japanese Garden, Sonnenberg Gardens
Canandaigua, NY

Carolyn Dancy will be coordinating readers for the afternoon. The day will also feature a tea ceremony in the Japanese tea house, a guided tour of the garden, ikebana demonstrations, bonsai displays, ornamental gardening tips, and more.

The day will also include a haiku contest, with a $50 award for the best haiku turned in that day. All members are invited to participate. The winner will be announced on

Sunday, October 8
Haiku and Ikebana Event
10 am - 4 pm
Barnes & Noble, Pittsford

We will be co-hosting this event with the Rochester Ikebana  Group, which will doing demonstrations and displaying arrangements by selected member, some of them inspired by haiku by RAHG members.
In addition, RAHG will be doing readings at 10:30 am and at 2 pm.

For a poster announcing the Sonnenberg event & contest, please click here. We hope you can post copies at your favorite bagel/coffee shop and other places that have community bulletin boards.

2007

February 11, 2007

We had a very pleasant time at our February Rochester Area Haiku Group (RAHG) meeting at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes & Noble. Here are a few highlights

RAHG Mission Statement approved

We voted on and approved the following Mission Statement for RAHG. While we feel strongly that RAHG should remain an informal organization, it’s time to put some structure around it to facilitate future events and projects.

RAHG Mission Statement

Rochester Area Haiku Group (RAHG) is an organization in the Rochester NY areaWhich seeks to help each other grow as haiku poets and to increase the general public's awareness and appreciation for this deceptively simple poetic form

• Which will offer to do haiku readings or workshops for interested groups or schools

• Which may produce various publications, such as chapbooks

• Which holds regular meetings, approximately monthly

• Which has an "Executive Committee" of officers, initially, Coordinator, Vice Coordinator, Funds-Keeper, Publications Manager, Special Projects Organizer

• Which maintains a membership list consisting of those who have paid nominal dues ($10/year,­ waived for full-time students) to be deposited in a separate RAHG bank account to cover organizational expenses such as copying costs and seed money for future chapbooks.
   

Program

Carolyn Dancy and Catherine Nowaski introduced us to two fascinating 20^th century authors, who happen to be Afro-American and who happen to have written haiku – Richard Wright and Lenard D. Moore.

Wright is most famous for his novels Native Son and Black Boy, but in 1959-60, the last year of his life, he wrote over 4000 haiku poems. Of these, 817 of these he deemed publishable, which they were in 1998 in Haiku: This Other World.  He was born on a farm in Mississippi, but spent most of his adult life in France in “self-imposed exile”

Moore’s father was also a farmer. While in the Army, Lenard started writing poetry and later won awards for his haiku and published several books, including one of haiku, The Open Eye.  He teaches at various secondary schools and universities and chairs the North Carolina Haiku Society.

We also heard some examples of their haiku, and wanted to hear more!  Maybe another time...

Workshop

We spent the rest of our time sharing some of our own recent poems with each other, with much learning and affirmations.

Upcoming meetings
 
NOTE: some of these dates are the 2^nd Sunday of the month and some the 3^rd. Mark them on your calendar

• March 11, Barnes & Noble

• April 15, Barnes & Noble

• May 20, Tour of a Japanese Rock Garden?

• June 10, Barnes & Noble

• July 15, ginkgo at BANC with Carolyn Dancy

• August 12, Barnes & Noble

• September 14-16, HSA Quarterly meeting in Rochester

• October 14, Barnes & Noble

• November 11, Barnes & Noble

• December 9, location TBD

Haiku Society of America Annual Meeting
Saturday, September 15, 2007

Schedule

Friday, September 14

7 pm: Get together in O'Malley's Lounge, Airport Holiday Inn, 911 Brooks Avenue

Saturday, September 15

8:30-9:00 am: RAHG will provide transportation from the Holiday Inn to Barnes & Noble, Pittsford Plaza, where most of the activities will occur.

9:30- 10:00 am: Registration in the Community Room, 2nd floor, B&N

9:30-11:00 am: HSA Executive Meeting in the B&N Cafe.

10:00-11 am: Programs in the Community Room: A display of Bonsai, Viewing Stones, Ikebana arrangements and some photos of Japanese Gardens.

A panel discussion of how the essence of these arts are related to haiku. We can share haiku which use these arts as their topics. The panel includes, Mark Arpag, Dennis Burns, Wil Herbert, Yasuko Spence, and Karen Napoli.

11:00 am-Noon: Workshop conducted by Pamela Miller Ness Participants are asked to read her article on prosody in haiku from Modern Haiku  (Summer 2006, 37:2). A PDF copy can be downloaded by right-clicking on the following link: ARTICLE and selecting Save Target As from the options. If your computer doesn't already have Adobe's free Reader program, you can download a copy HERE.

Bring some of your own haiku to work on.

Noon-1:30 pm: Lunch at nearby restaurants.

1:30-2:15 pm: HSA Business Meeting.

2:15-2:45 pm: Book Share.

3:00-4:30 pm: Public Performance by members of the Route 9 Poets, John Stevenson, Yu Chang, Hillary Tann, and Tom Clausen.

5:00-7:00 pm: Dinner at a local restaurant.

7:00-9:00 pm: Public reading featuring RAHG and HSA members, open mic and a discussion period if time permits.

Rides back to the Holiday Inn

Sunday, September 16: 9:30-Noon: Ginkgo with Tom Painting in historic Mt. Hope Cemetery

Rides back to the Holiday Inn and lunch on your own

For more details contact Jerome Cushman at jercush@aol.com

 

Our July 15 meeting was our annual gingko, this year it was be held at The Burroughs Audubon Nature Club (BANC), which has a 30-acre nature sanctuary with trails and a clubhouse on Railroad Mills Road in Pittsford. BANC is dedicated to promoting the natural sciences, ecology, and conservation through regular programs and field trips.

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