The Society conducted its second tanka workshop. The Tanka Revision Workshop, November 3, enhanced the participants skills and insights into how to write and revise tanka. The workshop showed each poet how to study her or his tanka for emotional content, form, organization, vocabulary, sound, and grammar. Details are here.
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society poets were featured in a broadcast from KUSP, Santa Cruz. The poets read one haiku by each author in Wild Violets, the Society’s 2011 members’ anthology. They also described many projects of the Society, including the Geppo newsletter, the monthly meetings, the annual retreat at Asilomar, the annual Tokutomi haiku contest, and on-going intensive studies of haiku season words and haiku form. You can listen to the podcast of the broadcast here.Asilomar Retreat 2011
September 8 through 11, members and friends of the Society enjoyed their 2011 annual Retreat at the Asilomar State Beach and Conference Center. The retreat began with a wildlife safari by boat on Elkhorn Slough. The participants had close-up views of plentiful sea lions and sea otters and over 30 species of birds, and enjoyed the nature lore related by the guide on board. That evening Society President Alison Woolpert led an introductory round of haiku reading, then each participant related how he or she had come to the art of haiku writing. Christopher Herold, featured presenter, introduced his theme for the retreat, Feathering the Moment, encouraging the poets to acutely observe and incorporate in their poetry what is around them at any time.
On Friday morning Anne Homan described the Society’s recent publication, San Francisco Bay Area Nature Guide and Saijiki, and encouraged the attendees to write haiku to expand its collection of poems. Later in the morning the poets participated in a ginko on the grounds and beach, and returned to the conference room to share their poems. Just before lunch Joan Zimmerman provided the attendees with the treat of seeing their copy of Wild Violets, the Society’s 2011 members’ anthology.
Friday afternoon Linda Papanicolaou led the poets in a craft workshop. Linda described and provided examples of artist’s cards, hand-made trading-card size graphics which artists create and trade. In the workshop each participant produced a set of cards with a graphic image and a haiku on each, and used them in trade to acquire others cards. Friday evening events started with a flute concert by Elaine Whitman, using a variety of her collection of indigenous flutes. Deborah Kolodji, the 2011 Tokutomi Memorial Contest chair, presented the roster of winners. The winning poets present read their poems.
We were fortunate to have present during all our sessions the esteemed Tokyo haiku poet and translator Emiko Miyashita, through the generous sponsorship of the Japan Foundation. Emiko and Paul Watsky, co-translators of a book of haiku by the 20th century down-and-out poet and failed-monk Taneda Santoka, presented readings of Santoka’s poems and related the major phases of his life.
On Saturday morning Emiko Miyashita conducted a kukai in the manner of the haiku group she belongs to in Japan, Teni, led by Dr. Akito Arima. After lunch and free time for writing, we convened again and Emiko gave us each a gift from Japan Airlines, a collection of children’s haiku and art from around the world. We took turns reading from the book. At the close of the afternoon Christopher Herold led us in an exercise in which we made manifold observations and wrote them down in fragments that could be expanded into haiku. Which observations we were happy to write and share.
Saturday evening the poets enjoyed the traditional renku writing party. Newcomers had the chance to see and participate in the excitement of renku. During the evening Billy Dee provided a tea party featuring selected exotic teas to the writers. On Sunday morning the renku were read aloud, each poet reading the verses they had contributed. The formal closing of the Retreat acknowledged the contributions of those who helped plan and conduct the retreat and provided thanks to them. For those poets that cared to stay on through Sunday afternoon, Patricia Machmiller provided a workshop to allow discussion of poems written at the Retreat.
2011 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Contest Prize-Winning Haiku
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The winners of the 2011 Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi Contest were announced at the annual autumn Yuki Teikei Haiku Retreat at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California. Sakuo Nakamura of Tokyo, Japan painted the haiga above for the winning haiku.
the familiar cough
munitions worker
staggering home from the pub— dark billowing cloud
persimmon fabric finding her letter
The judges were Toru Kiuchi, a haiku poet, editor, and professor of English at Nihon University in Chibo, Japan, and kris moon, the regional director for Japan of the International Academy of Poetry Therapy and founder of Chestnut Cottage in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
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2012 Society Events
| Date/Time | Event |
| January 1 | Yuki Teikei Haiku Society membership dues are payable. |
| Saturday, January 14 1:30 pm until 4:00 pm | Meeting; newcomers and guests welcome, at the Hotel, History Center, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose. A ginko on New Year season words and a kukai . Please, no peanuts or peanut content in snacks you might bring. Directions to History Center. |
| Saturday, February 11, 1:30 pm until 4:30 pm | Meeting; newcomers and guests welcome, at Cantor Art Center, Stanford, CA. View the works on display in Style and Process: Japonisme on Paper in the Robert Mondavi Family Gallery and other art on exhibition. Write haiku, meet in the cafe and share. Directions to the Cantor here. |
| Saturday, March 10, 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm. | Meeting; newcomers and guests welcome, at the Hotel, History Center, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose. Haiga (haiku with art) workshop. Materials for collage, painting, and sumi-e will be available; donations will be accepted for their use. Come with haiku, a bag lunch, and any art supplies that you would like play with while creating haiga. Please bring a peanut-free dish to share. Directions to History Center. |
| Saturday, April 14, 1:30 pm until 4:30 pm | Picnic lunch, ginko and poem sharing, Hakone Gardens, Saratoga. Bring your own food and libation and something to share; newcomers and guests welcome. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in the picnic food. |
| Saturday, May 12, 10:00 am to 4:30 pm | Haiku in the Tea House, San Jose Japanese Friendship Garden Tea House, 1490 Senter Road, San Jose. Sponsored by YTHS, Poetry Center San Jose, and San Jose Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services.10:00 to noon – Garden walking tour and haiku workshop.1:30 to 4:30 p.m.—Featured readers, poets Naia, Neal Whitman, Susan Antolin, and Bev Momoi, followed by an open-microphone haiku reading. Light refreshments will be available. |
| Saturday, June 9, see announcement for times | Children’s haiku class and park tour with picnic lunch at the San Jose Prusch Farm Park (bring your own lunch and something to share); newcomers and guests welcome. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in the picnic food. Members are invited to arrive at 10:45 a.m. to assist with a Children’s Haiku Class scheduled from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (The program will be based on the Feathering the Moment exercise introduced to us by Christopher Herold.) Enroll children in the class through Dennis Bolger at (408) 794-6265; there is a $15 fee. The Yuki Teikei general meeting will include a tour of the park guided by Dennis Bolger; meet at 1:30 p.m. The class and meeting will be centered at the Park’s white two-story farmhouse, see directions. |
| Saturday, July 14, 6:00 pm | Tanabata Celebration at the home of Anne and Don Homan above Livermore, newcomers and guests welcome. Please bring a dish for a pot-luck dinner. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in the dish. Call for directions – 925-443-9440 |
| Wednesday, September 5 through Sunday September 9 | Haiku Pacific Rim Conference at Asilomar Conference Center, Monterey Peninsula. Newcomers welcome. As details are available they will be provided here. |
| Saturday October 27, 4:00 pm | Moon Viewing Party with pot-luck dinner, at the home of home of Jean Hale, San Jose; newcomers and guests welcome. Features a special reading by tanka poet Mariko Kitakubo. Please bring a dish for a pot-luck dinner. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in the dish. |
| Saturday, November 10, 11:00 am | Board 2013 Planning Meeting; Markham House, History Center, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in snacks you might bring. |
| Saturday, November 10, 1:30 pm until 5:00 pm | Meeting, Markham House, History Center, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose. Program, ginko (nature-walk and haiku writing), and sharing of poems. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in snacks you might bring. Directions to History Center. |
| Saturday, December 8, 6:00 pm | Holiday Party, newcomers and partners welcome, at the home of Alison Woolpert, Santa Cruz. Bring a dish for the holiday table. Please, no peanuts or peanut content in the dish. It is a tradition of this annual party that the poets exchange a holiday card haiga with the other poets. Thirty copies of the haiga card are likely to be enough for the exchange. |
2012 Tokutomi Contest Announcement
Memorial Haiku Contest
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society
- Haiku in English of 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern
- Each haiku must use one kigo, and only one kigo, taken from the contest list
- Haiku with more than one recognized kigo will be disqualified
- New Year: first reading, year of the dragon
- Spring: swallows return, lengthening days
- Summer: ants, summer’s end
- Autumn: harvest moon, autumn sea
- Winter: frost, bean soup
Yuki Teikei Haiku Society 