April 2019 Meeting

Post date: Apr 22, 2019 5:19:24 PM

Our April 2019 Haiku Northwest meeting was held on Thursday, April 11 at the Bellevue Library, with the following members in attendance: David Berger, Dianne Garcia, Connie Hutchison, Curtis Manley, Tanya McDonald, Michelle Schaefer, Angela Terry, Michael Dylan Welch, and Garry Wilson. Following quick introductions, Michael shared a few new haiku books, which he passed around for people to look at, and listed several haiku-related activities that he has coming up. Connie then gave us an update on the Haiku Northwest archive she is spearheading at the University of Washington. She described what she and the curator have been working on so far, and indicated she has a lot of the group’s history that can be incorporated into the archive (papers, photo albums, back issues of publications, and other materials). She will continue to give us updates as work progresses. Angie then led a short workshop on writing prompts using nonfiction. Everyone present was given five pages of prose (each by a different author) and given about five minutes per page to come up with found poems. With all of us having the same five sheets, it was interesting to see what people “found.” Not all of the poems were of publishable quality, though a few could be, but everyone found it a worthwhile exercise. It was interesting to see how some of the same phrases were used in different ways. After the writing workshop, we spent the last hour reading haiku we had brought to share.