Every Wednesday, Issa's Untidy Hut posts a few new haiku. Today, one of the featured poets is Cleveland's (and Cleveland Poetics's) own Geoffrey Landis.
Past issues have included Cleveland poets Dianne Borsenik and Dan Smith.
With all the great potential for haiku in Cleveland, the only question that remains is where are YOUR haiku?
5 comments:
Cleveland really is a hotbed for haiku. And haiku deathmatch champion Ray McNiece hasn't even weighted in yet~
I have, for years now, been advocating for a haiku group, either online or face-to-face, but can't seem to get the funding together to start such an enterprise. :::pout::: Any multi-thousandairres out there willing to fund a new poetry writing/study group?
I think the problem (if there is one) is that poetry is often a solitary experience. Other than by attendance at readings, how would anyone know who is actively writing? My wife writes haiku (has a small book that's sold well (talking poetry here!). She contributes regularly to Asahi.com. Like me, she's at public readings sporadically, but that doesn't mean we are indifferent or inactive. (My poetry book, "The Immigrant's House", is fairly invisible. It only came out this summer, but it has been permanently cataloged in the Library of Congress.) I'm only saying that it might not take a lot of dollars to establish something that is alive and well. (We just don't know the depth of our own art.)
Hm-- might be fun to set up a haiku reading at the Botanical garden.
Rob: The way I envision this group working would be to meet every 4-6 weeks, to study haiku texts (this is where the money comes in) and critique each other's haiku. The issue that I have with a lot the haiku happening in Cleveland is that it's very wordy, and very stuck on the 5-7-5 trap, which shows that the authors haven't done the necessary scholarship. I would hope that a group like this, possibly meeting at a library (that might make the book cost less expensive, but I assume we'd still have to order half a dozen and donate to the library each month) would further haiku and what's currently happening with haiku in the Cleveland area. We could then gain members to the HSA, create a Cleveland/NEOH saijiki, and possibly host a quarterly meeting or even an HNA event! =) Cleveland is a pretty incestuous poetry scene, and if folks attend readings, they soon learn who everybody is. Furthermore, there are a few key figures in the scene that run and organize the readings, and if you meet and greet with them, you'll get nods to other readings.
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