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Report on the Bindii Meeting, June 1 2025

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  Julia Wakefield, Subha Goonaratne, Radhika DeSilva, and Lynette Arden met on Sunday, June 1, at 3:00 p.m. via Zoom. Apologies were received from Maeve Archibald, Ewan Rourke, Udara Thambapanni, Stella Damarjati and Maureen Sexton, who sent us some haiku to use in the session. The rest of us had all brought some haiku on the two themes of technology and birds, as arranged at the previous meeting. Image by Subha Goonaratne: Lynette Arden, Subha Goonaratne, Julia Wakefield and Radhika DeSilva Subha gave a very professional presentation outlining the principles of the renga, followed by an introduction to the rengay, which was invented by Gary Gay in 1912. We then completed two rengay, with three people taking part in each of them. Subha remained an encouraging observer. We incorporated Maureen’s haiku in the second rengay, as Radhika had to leave early. We all agreed that it was a very enjoyable session, enabling us to be a little freer than we usually are with the haiku form. It wa...
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Report on the Bindii Meeting April 26 2025

  Report on the Bindii Meeting April 26 2025 Julia Wakefield, Maeve Archibald, Subha Goonaratne, and Lynette Arden met on Saturday April 26 at 3pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton, Ewan Rourke, Stella Damarjati and Maureen Watson. We began with sharing news of members’ successes. Maeve mentioned that Friendly Street Poets are becoming more receptive to publishing haiku in their anthologies, and she has had several poems including haiku published in their 50 th anniversary publication. We then discussed ways we are finding to bring haiku to the attention of the general public. Subha is planning a youth workshop in Sydney, with support from Leanne. Maeve is giving a poetry workshop at Sophia Adelaide https://sophia.org.au in the near future, which will feature a section on haiku. Julia is running a haiku workshop at Norton Summit on June 19, as part of the Adelaide Hills Winter Words Festival. We then workshopped our haiku. Julia mentioned the concepts ...
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Report on the Bindii Meeting November 17 2024

  Report on the Bindii Meeting November 17 2024 Julia Wakefield, Maeve Archibald, Subha Goonaratne, Ewan Rourke and Lynette Arden met on Saturday November 17 at 3pm, using Zoom. We also welcomed two new members based in Sri Lanka: Udara and Radhika. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton, Steve Wigg and Kirsten Johnson. We workshopped our haiku, some of which were inspired by the topic of Sound. There was general agreement that by focusing on that particular topic we found that we became more aware of the way a haiku can evoke the sensation of synaesthesia. Our next scheduled meeting will be a Ginko at the new Victoria Park Wetlands, on Sunday January 19. Those who live interstate, out of town or overseas are welcome to join us via Zoom or Googlemeet. If it is too hot we will have to postpone the meeting or resort to a Zoom meeting instead. We will meet at a designated point, then go exploring for an hour before we reconvene and compare the haiku that emerge from the ex...
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Report on the Bindii Meeting September 29 2024

  Julia Wakefield, Maeve Archibald, Steve Wigg, Subha Goonaratne, Ewan Rourke and Lynette Arden met on Saturday September 27 at 3pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton and Kirsten Johnson. We workshopped our haiku and a few tanka. We also discussed the Kyoka poetry form. https://poemanalysis.com/poetic-form/kyoka/ This is Jane Reichold’s definition: kyoka (QUE'YOE-KAH) - a mad poem - The tone and feel of a limerick written in tanka form and just as bawdy. Often the subject is about poets or the writing of poems which makes fun of both. Some good examples of this form can be found here: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/1802 https://prunejuicesenryu.com/category/form/kyoka/page/4/   Our next scheduled meeting is on Sunday November 17, at 3pm . We will be using Zoom. We will workshop haiku, tanka and haibun written around the topic of Sound, as well as any other topic we have written about. Maybe a kyoka or two?   ...
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Report on the Bindii Meeting August 31 2024

Julia Wakefield, Maeve Archibald, Steve Wigg, Stella Damarjati, Kirsten Johnston, and Lynette Arden met on Saturday, July 27, at 3pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton, Ewan Rourke and Subha Goonaratne. Maureen and Ewan sent their haiku for critique, but we sent them individual feedback afterwards. We workshopped our haiku and a few tanka that we had produced in response to the Haiku Down Under conference, which we all agreed was a splendid source of inspiration. Our next scheduled meeting is on Saturday, September 28, at 3 p.m. We will use  Zoom. No topic has been set yet.     Julia Wakefield  
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Report on the Bindii Meeting July 27 2024

  Report on the Bindii Meeting July 27 2024 Julia Wakefield, Maureen Sexton, Maeve Archibald, Ewan Rourke, Subha Goonaratne, Kirsten Johnston and Lynette Arden met on Saturday July 27 at 3pm, using Google Meet. Apologies were received from Steve Wigg and Stella Damarjati. We workshopped our haiku, some of which we were preparing for the ‘sensory journey’ competition that was part of the Haiku Down Under conference which took place over August 16-18. We discussed the perennial topic of what makes a good haiku, paying attention to the specific qualities of a one liner, and the necessity for clarity without being too specific. Our next scheduled meeting is on Saturday August 31, at 3pm . We will be using Zoom. It’s likely we’ll be reviewing the many topics that were raised in the Haiku Down Under conference. Julia Wakefield 
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Report on the Bindii Meeting June 29 2024

Julia Wakefield, Jake Dennis, Steve Wigg, Stella Damarjati, Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne and Lynette Arden met on Saturday June 29 at 3pm, using Google Meet. Apologies were received from Ewan Rourke and Maeve Archibald.   We workshopped our haiku, some of which addressed the the topic for this meeting, which was ‘creepy crawlies’. We also commented on some of the winning and shortlisted entries for the Touchstone Awards, https://thehaikufoundation.org/2023-touchstone-awards-for-individual-poems-awarded/ https://thehaikufoundation.org/2023-touchstone-awards-for-individual-poems-long-list/ in the context of the techniques that Jane Reichhold listed on her website. Many of the winning poems paid little attention to any of the rules, which was a lesson to us all about the danger of falling into a conventional trap, whereby you strive for orthodoxy rather than authentic poetic expression. On the other hand, it’s also easy to become too obscure or ‘clever’ for a general audie...
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