Haiku Bindii

Julia Wakefield, Lynette Arden, Subha Goonaratne, Udara Dikkumbura, and Nicholas O’Connor met on Thursday, June 25, at 7pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Stella Damarjati, Radhika de Silva, Maureen Sexton, Maeve Archibald and Ewan Rourke. We attempted two Rengay from scratch, using two haiku supplied by Julia and Udara. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, August 13, at 7pm Adelaide time. We will attempt a renku if people would like to bring haiku for that purpose. Rules for a renku are attached to this email. No theme is needed.   Julia Wakefield 

  Report on the Bindii Meeting Sunday, April 12, 2026 Julia Wakefield, Lynette Arden and Maeve Archibald met on Sunday, April 12, at 3 pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Stella Damarjati, Radhika de Silva, Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne and Ewan Rourke. The attendees brought some haiku for review, and Radhika and Ewan both sent haiku in spite of their absence. Lynette explained that Echidna Tracks has gone international. We were all encouraged to contribute to the April callout. We discussed ways to increase our group membership, and Maeve and Julia proposed running some workshops at Friendly Street and other venues to attract new members. Maeve will talk to Nigel about the possibilities. We agreed to send Radhika and Ewan our separate thoughts on their haiku. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, June 25, at 7pm Adelaide time. We are trying a weekday evening to see if that suits more people. We might attempt a rengay if people would like to bring haiku ...

  Julia Wakefield, Maureen Sexton, Ewan Rourke and Maeve Archibald met on Sunday September 28 at 4 pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Lynette Arden, Stella Damarjati and Radhika de Silva. The attendees brought some haiku for review and Radhika sent her haiku in spite of her absence. Maeve reported that one of her poems (not haiku) had been featured in a Friendly Street publication. Ewan reported that one of his haiku had won a competition run by My Haiku Pond https://www.facebook.com/MyHaikuPond. We had been asked to bring haiku with a coastal theme, with or without a reference to the algal bloom that has recently brought so much devastation to the marine life in the St Vincent and Spencer Gulfs. We reviewed everyone’s haiku, then proceeded to group them into two sequences. Everyone was happy to alter or even delete a line from their haiku in order to help the flow of the sequence. It was an enjoyable, if slightly humbling, experience to share our opinions about how a...

  Julia Wakefield, Lynette Arden, Ewan Rourke and Maeve Archibald met on Sunday, September 28, at 4 pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne, Stella Damarjati and Radhika de Silva. The attendees brought some haiku for review, and Subha sent her haiku in spite of her absence. Maeve reported on the poetry event she had been invited to present at, at the Poetry Lab, where she discussed haiku forms, focusing on Basho and Issa, and compared their work with that of modern English-language haiku poets. Ewan reported on his mentorship with Rob Scott, remarking that it has been extremely valuable so far. He described how Rob encouraged him to do much more self-editing and to move away from a cerebral approach to something more immediate. We all commented that his current haiku are definitely improving in this regard. We looked at all our haiku with the ‘immediate’ approach in mind, and this helped us to understand how to improve them. We also discu...

Julia Wakefield, Subha Goonaratne, Stella Damarjati, Maeve Archibald, Ewan Rourke and Lynette Arden met on Sunday September 28 at 4.30pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton. The attendees all brought some haiku for review, some of which were on the theme of spring, as suggested previously. Maeve mentioned an upcoming poetry event she had been invited to present at, at the Poetry Lab, where she planned to discuss haiku forms, focusing on Basho and Issa, with plans to include an Australian haiku artist for comparison. Lynette reported on the Haiku Musings discussion on the Australian Haiku Society website, expressing concern about low participation and suggesting an open discussion format might encourage more contributions. Ewan shared his success in being selected for a haiku mentoring program with Rob Scott, which will consist of weekly Zoom sessions until the end of the year, providing opportunities for in-depth haiku discussions. We discussed the use of perso...

  Julia Wakefield, Subha Goonaratne, Radhika DeSilva, Udara Thambapanni, Stella Damarjati and Lynette Arden met on Saturday July 12 at 3.30pm, using Zoom. Apologies were received from Maeve Archibald, Ewan Rourke and Maureen Sexton. The attendees all brought some haiku on the two themes of winter and water, as arranged previously. Subha reported on her beginners’ haiku workshop, which was outstandingly successful. She presented it in Sydney in partnership with Leanne Mumford, and they had over 20 attendees. Subha mentioned that she felt the large number of participants was directly due to advertising on social media as well as putting flyers in local libraries, and she was delighted to see that the students consisted of all age groups and many different ethnic backgrounds. She will try to encourage some of the students to join our Zoom group. Lyn also suggested that she direct them to our Haiku Bindii blogspot https://haiku-bindii.blogspot.com to get some idea of what we do. Lyn...

  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...

  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 ...

  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...

  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?   ...

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  

  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 

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...

  Report on the Bindii Meeting May 5 2024 Julia Wakefield, Jake Dennis, Steve Wigg, Stella Damarjati, and Lynette Arden met on Sunday, May 5, at 7 p.m. using Google Meet. Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne, Ewan Rourke, and Maeve Archibald apologised.   We workshopped some of our haiku and discussed possible topics for future meetings. We have decided to take a closer look at some of the techniques listed in Jane Reichhold’s book, Writing and Enjoying Haiku. The list can also be found on her website here: https://www.ahapoetry.com/haiartjr.htm In the above article, she makes some amusing comments on the reverence expressed towards ‘Zen’ haiku and gives a clear definition of the ‘desk haiku’ that so many of us often find ourselves struggling with. Although Subha could not attend the meeting, she reported that the launch of her new haiku collection went exceedingly well. We all look forward to reading it! Our next scheduled Google Meet is on Saturday, June 29, at 3pm. W...

Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati, Lynette Arden, Maureen Sexton, Subha Goonaratne and Maeve Archibald met on Monday 15 April at 7pm using Google Meet. Apologies were received from Ewan Rourke, Jake Dennis, Steve Wigg and Kirsten Johnston. We asked people to send in the haiku that they would like to have read at the AHS meeting scheduled for World Haiku Day, April 17.             We workshopped our haiku and between us we selected one from each submission that would be read at the AHS meeting. Three of us were subsequently able to attend the meeting: Lynette Arden, Maeve Archibald and Julia Wakefield. Maeve read the selected haiku, as Maureen was unable to attend.             We also shared our news: Maeve will be reading her poetry at the Club Acoustica at the Olive Branch Café in Balhannah in October. She will send us details.  An extract from Lynette’s poem about S...

Steve Wigg, Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati, Lynette Arden, Jake Dennis and Ewan Rourke joined the Google Meet meeting, and apologies were received from Subha Goonaratne, Maureen Sexton and Kirsten Johnston. Most people sent their haiku in advance, which made it easier for us to critique them.             We workshopped our haiku and then arranged to have our next meeting on Sunday April 14 at 3pm, before the AHS meeting that takes place on International Haiku Poetry Day on April 17.             There was general agreement that the ‘nature poem’ can be satisfying on its own without an obvious reference to the human condition, but our use of words to describe a natural scene can often evoke human associations. The less we directly refer to an emotional state, the more room there is for the reader to imagine a parallel human situation. We didn’t discuss the concept of ‘ma’...

We had a Google Meet meeting for the first time. Steve Wigg, Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati, Maeve Archibald, Subha Goonaratne, Maureen Sexton and Lynette Arden were joined by three new members: Kirsten Johnson, Jake Dennis and Ewan Rourke. Jake lives in WA as does Maureen, and Subha is based in Sydney, so Google Meet is a very handy way of bringing our group together. We all agreed it works just as well as Zoom.             Everyone brought some haiku for critique, and established members were very impressed with the standard of haiku submitted by our new members. A lively discussion began, focusing on the importance of reducing a haiku to one idea that can be interpreted in different ways according to each individual’s POV, rather than invoking a collection of ideas that pull the reader in too many directions at once. It’s always fascinating to see how many different responses a group of readers can have to one simple haiku. ...

  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 imp...

Five members of the Bindii Group gathered for a Zoom meeting at 3pm Australian Central Standard Time: Steve Wigg, Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati, Maureen Sexton and Lynette Arden. An apology was received from Maeve Archibald. We had set the theme of ‘celebrations’ for our haiku critiques, but that was not the only theme of our submissions. We are considering setting some topics for one or more members to prepare at future meetings. One topic we could begin with is the concept of ‘concrete’ poems. Another one is the idea of rhythm in haiku and tanka, as discussed in this article: https://haikupresence.org/essays/haiku-rhythm-and-the-arches-of-makudo However, our first meeting in 2024 will be a ginko, in the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide. Two dates are suggested: the 14 th or 28 th of January, depending on the weather. We plan to meet at 2pm, take a walk around the gardens and meet up at the café by the pond, to share our haiku. Please let us know which date(s) you can attend. ...

Report on the Bindii Meeting of 15 October 2023 Four members of the Bindii Group gathered for a Zoom meeting at approximately 2pm Australian Central Standard Time: Steve Wigg, Julia Wakefield, Stella Damarjati and Lynette Arden. Apologies were received from Maureen Sexton and Maeve Archibald. We had arranged to bring some haiku on the theme of ageing or time passing, but all of us had been over busy – how often people seem to say that these days! – so we had very little to show each other.  Stella, Lynette and Julia submitted their haiku that had already been accepted for Echidna Tracks, so there were no improvements offered, but the topics sparked a lively discussion about the images that were evoked. We hope that more of our members will be able to attend the next meeting, which is scheduled for Sunday November 19 at 3pm. The theme for our haiku will be Celebrations. We also discussed the idea of having a member prepare and present a topic at each meeting, starting next year. ...