Seabeck Memories

by David Berger

We gather between dark forest and fragrant saltwater. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together in a cavernous hall. We walk on grassy paths and watch deer nibble fallen apples.

We assemble at this place called ‘Seabeck’ and share thoughts and words about haiku. Seabeck: shorthand for short-form poetry discussed for one or two or three days, depending on your time, at a facility in this tiny burg named Seabeck on the edge of Hood Canal. An immersion into Japanese-inspired poetics, emerging refreshed with new poems, reawakened to our true purposes, and inspired by new ideas and friends.

What makes this community gathering of wordsmiths so unique? First there is the location among saltwater and trees, always in late October with the snow-dusted Olympic mountains in the distance and the woods taking on their red and yellow hues, and big-leaf maple leaves on the ground, kissed with morning frost.

Then there is always the guest speaker from somewhere else, a scholar or poet assigned to provide not one, not two, but many talks, and charged to be available throughout the weekend for follow-up. That’s an in-depth interaction. There are so many memories and inspirations from these special people. A single Seabeck overflows with content; remembering many is nearly overwhelming. In the Seabecks I’ve attended some of those people have included, working backwards, Crystal Simone Smith from North Carolina, helping us map our haiku journey and go a little beyond (2024); Jeff Hoagland reminding us to get on the ground and experience nature, and David Lasky with his charming haiku comics (2023); Cristina Rascon crossing borders into Latin American poetry at the 15th anniversary of the Seabeck Haiku Getaway (2022); Chuck Brickley and his charming evolution from a forest-surrounded cottage (2021); Adam Kern reveling in the often rowdy roots of haiku, and political aspects of its transformation to more lyrical poetry (2019); Abigail Friedman taking us on her journey as a haiku apprentice in Japan—I gave her a ride back to Seattle and we discussed irrational numbers and infinity as she has a math background (2018); Scott Mason pushing me to a state of wonder (2017); Sonja Arntzen illuminating Japanese literary aesthetics (2016); and, at what I think was my first full three-day Seabeck, Canadian haiku poet Marco Fraticelli taking us to a higher plane with his words and buoyant presence (2013).

And so many complementary activities: making and walking a spiral labyrinth in 2013 (“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home”—Matsuo Bashō. Quiz: what’s the diff between a labyrinth and a maze? Thank you Margaret McGee); creating a haiku blizzard book (thank you Dorothy Matthews, 2018); hearing accomplished poets read their works; and at one of my first Seabecks, and thereafter as a regular event, assembling with late-night rengay buds for late-night themes . . . (cashmere sweater / the accident of your breast / brushing my arm).

In the end it’s the people participating in Seabeck that provide much of the content, and this is Seabeck’s secret sauce: the people attending are the key contributors. Maybe it’s a report of a trip to Japan with attendant haiku (thank you, Jacquie Pearce) or readings from a book they wrote or a journal edited (thanks John Stevenson, Tanya McDonald, Curtis Manley, Nicholas Klacsanzky, Jacquie Pearce again, and many others). It’s the insights from Richard Tice on Japanese language and culture; the art of mothering honeybees from the fluidly literate Bob Redmond, taken from us at too young an age. And so many helpful “Write Now” exercises led by various and sundry, squeezing words out of us all. And the dips into more edgy themes, like the two programs organized by Terran Campbell, one about diversity and inclusion and including Aidan Castle and Michelle Schaefer, the other, “Altar for Ancestors,” with people placing objects on a table and sharing stories to honor and remember those who were important on their haiku journey. These brought a special sense of intimacy and emotional connection to Seabeck in 2022.

And Seabeck is all the small stuff in-between. The smell of evergreen trees. The silence by the water. An impromptu Japanese tea ceremony in the flurry of Seabeck goodbyes (thank you Ellen Ankenbrock); the flute music of James Rodriguez and the piano music of Jacob Salzer making everything go down easy; the art and words of Annette Makino and so many others, via books and handouts; the large Canadian contingent arriving and piling out of a vehicle like so many circus clowns; drinking small-batch whisky somewhere or another (do these poets never sleep?); and walking past the commercial mixing machine outside the dining hall, a hulking reliquary of yesteryear.

Among my own contributions I recall a mushroom presentation, including a walk in the woods, rich with fungi (2016); a talk about the local waters based on my razor clam book (Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest), introducing the Hood Canal octopus that prowls the Seabeck woods in October seeking mates, and perhaps your dreams, and remembering too that our haiku frolicking takes place just a few kilometers from the deadliest concentration of nuclear weapons in the world, the Bangor submarine base (2017), remembering poet Johnny Baranski here as well, with his political consciousness, a rarity in haiku, and the memorial reading (I think in 2018). I spoke about the world heritage site of Dunhuang in China, along the Silk Road, famed for its Buddhist art cave temples and manuscripts (2019). I presented on artist and poet Fumiko Kimura, memorializing her in 2023, drawing on the book she and I wrote that includes a dozen of my haiku inspired by her life journey. Leading a movement exercise based on tai chi. Participating as an artist every year with Puget Sound Sumi Artist’s Haiga Adventure group, showing haiga and other images to help inspire poets to put words to paper. And in 2024 being recognized as the first-prize winner of the Porad Award.

Seabeck. It’s a lot. And it’s more than fair to say that we all owe a great debt to Michael Dylan Welch, who cofounded the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2008 and has annually provided expertise, humor, and leadership. And there’s no doubt that he looks great as Captain Haiku in a cape.

Seabeck takes place in October, which is my birthday month. On not a few occasions my wife asks what I want for a birthday present and I say Seabeck. She and my stepson team up to pay my way and cover all the daily tasks in my absence so I can ditch the mundane, and sink into nature, words, and friends for three days. Have I ever had a better gift? It’s hard to think of one. So, a big thank you to all the organizers and participants who contribute so much and make Seabeck a lodestone in the Northwest firmament.