Report on the Bindii Meeting 28 January 2024

 Report on the Bindii Meeting 28 January 2024

Five members of the Bindii Group met up at 2pm for a Ginko at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens: Steve Wigg, Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati, Maeve Archibald and Lynette Arden. We managed to coordinate a Google Meet with Subha Goonaratne and Maureen Sexton using Julia’s iPad.

It was a perfect day for the occasion, even though the temperature was a little too warm for any strenuous walking. The café we arranged to meet at after an hour’s wandering proved too noisy, so we adjourned to a small summerhouse nearby.



We were all surprised at how many haiku we all produced in such a short space of time. Many of them were inspired not just by the natural beauty but also by the behaviour of human beings – the park was crowded with people relaxing and enjoying the balmy weather. Subha and Maureen had some haiku that were similar in theme, and we all found that many of our haiku had subject matter in common. We felt the standard of work was impressively high, and we all agreed that setting ourselves a task such as this one, in an outdoor environment, was much easier than trying to conjure up a haiku at an online meeting. We found it helpful to write our haiku on slips of paper and hand them around for others to add their comments.

We briefly discussed the value of concrete haiku based on two examples that Steve brought along and concluded that both of his haiku worked well in their concrete form.

We will hold our next meeting online using Google Meet, on Saturday February 24 at 3pm. We will critique each other’s haiku, no set theme, and if we have time we’ll revive our understanding of how to write a renku. 

Julia Wakefield 

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