Seabeck Haiku Getaway 2010

2010 Haiku Northwest Retreat

Haiku, haiku, and more haiku . . . and maybe a wee bit of socializing! Join the Haiku Northwest group on the weekend of November 4, 5, 6, and 7, 2010 (Thursday through Sunday), at the Seabeck Conference Center by the water on Washington State’s Kitsap Peninsula. Speakers to be announced. Only $199 for a long weekend of meals, accommodations, and all the haiku you can carry! Enjoy the lagoon, waterfront, woods, mountain views, stimulating presentations, and fine haiku camaraderie. Early registration deadline: Postmarked by September 30, 2010.

Registration Form

Click here for the 2010 retreat registration form (numerous options available, including day rates with no accommodations). Registration opens September 1, 2010, and closes October 29, 2010, with the discounted early registration deadline (postmarked) by September 30, 2010. [Registration is now FULL—please email us to join our waiting list. If you've already emailed us to say you are coming, we may already be saving a room for you, but please email before mailing in your registration. If you have not already emailed us, you can still register at the day rate, and you may be able to find your own accommodations at the nearby town of Silverdale—please let us know if you might be interested in this option.]

Photos and More

Click here to see photos of Seabeck conference facilities and nearby attractions. For photos of our 2008 retreat (held October 10, 11, and 12), click here. For photos of our 2009 retreat (held October 16, 17, and 18), click here. To see Debbie Kolodji's pictures of the 2009 retreat, click here. To see a delightful short video of 2009 attendees reading their haiku, click here. And read Penny Harter's report of attending the 2009 retreat (with links to additional photos and reports of the retreat), in which she says "The Seabeck Haiku Getaway was among the most enjoyable haiku events I’ve attended." And see a photo and description of the three publications produced to commemorate the 2009 retreat.

Schedule

Events will include anonymous workshops, haiku walks, discussions, presentations, slideshows, a repeat of the popular haiku show and tell session and the favorite haiku session, haiku and renku writing time, and more! Click here to see the 2010 retreat schedule.

Conference Center Location

The Seabeck Conference Center is a warm and rustic getaway retreat center located at 13395 Seabeck Highway NW, in Seabeck, Washington. The wooded conference grounds are next to a lagoon and a marina on Hood Canal, with lovely views across the tidal water to the Olympic Mountains. Many of the facility’s accommodations are historic or relocated heritage houses. Traveling from Seattle to Seabeck takes about 90 minutes (about 80 miles) via Tacoma (toll to cross the bridge southbound only), nearly two hours if you take the Seattle-to-Bremerton ferry (about 33 driving miles), or 90 minutes if you take the Seattle-to-Bainbridge ferry (about 40 driving miles). For our haiku retreat, we’ll be staying at The Firs and Hemlock, which will house our main accommodations, and at Madrona House, our overflow accommodations. We'll be meeting in the Colman building (a new facility for us in 2010, which can hold 80 people and also has its own bathrooms) as well as in The Firs. For more information about the conference center, visit www.seabeck.org. Also, http://www.seabeck.org/campus%20map.html shows a map of the conference center. If it’s necessary for you to contact the conference center, their phone number is 360-830-5010, but please note that the conference center does not handle our retreat reservations.

Accommodations

We'll be staying primarily in The Firs and Hemlock, with overflow in Madrona. These three houses are right next to each other beside the Historic Inn and our dining hall. Our meeting hall, the Colman building, is just up the hill (photo above). Previously, we stayed in Reeser House, and although we won't be using it for 2010, it's typical of accommodations at the conference center (see photos here or see cushy interior photos here). Click to see layout maps of The Firs, Hemlock, and Madrona. If necessary for additional overflow, we should be able to arrange other housing facilities on the conference grounds with more beds. Click to see photos of our accommodations (scroll down), or click to see an interactive campus map.

What to Bring

All bed linens and towels are provided (supplied once for the whole weekend). Please bring clothes for both warm and rainy weather. We’ve planned to have perfectly sunny skies, but you never know if you might need an umbrella and a rain jacket for one of our haiku walks. Please bring haiku for round-robin readings. Please also bring your haiku notebook and lots of creativity and enthusiasm. And while you’re at it, bring some poet friends, too!

Meals

All meals are served family-style at the Seabeck Conference Center dining hall. Vegetarian and nonvegetarian options are available at every meal, and in 2009 they started a superb new salad bar. If you have additional dietary or allergy concerns, please let us know when you register.

Name Tags

Be creative in making your own name tag. No vote or prize on the best ones this year, but please do make your own name tag in a creative way. To see the first of many photos showing our 2009 retreat name tags, click here. Top these!

Silent Auction

If you’re willing to donate items for our silent auction, you’ll help us raise money to offset expenses. Books are welcome, but you don’t need to limit yourself to books (items don’t have to be haiku-related, either, but do make them of interest to fellow haiku poets).

Book Fair

Have haiku books for sale or trade? If so, please bring them to sell on our book table. Please price your books and indicate who should be paid for purchases.

Haiku Sheets

As a special way to commemorate the weekend, we invite you to create a trifold haiku sheet (or something similar) with a selection of your haiku or senryu, whether recent poems or best-of selections. Please make up to 30 copies to share with everyone present. For 2010, we'll plan to have a special reading from these sheets.

Show and Tell

Remember show-and-tell from grade school? Back by popular demand, we’ll have another haiku show-and-tell session! If you want to participate (it’s optional), bring anything related to haiku to show and describe to the group. You could read a long poem that relates to haiku, or show a favorite book or photograph. A haiga? A doormat with a haiku printed on it? Something odd or amusing? Use your creativity and imagination to bring something (or several things!) to stimulate our thinking about haiku.

Favorite Haiku Session

Returning again for 2010 is our "Favorite Haiku" session. If you want to participate (it's optional), please select a favorite haiku or senryu written by someone else, and come prepared to read that poem and speak appreciatively for two or three minutes about why the poem works for you. You could write out your remarks and read them to the group, or talk extemporaneously—it's up to you! We hope this session will engage everyone, stimulate some critical thinking, and introduce us to new poems, whether classics that are good to be reminded of or highly personal poems that few of us know.

Retreat Anthology

A big hit for our 2009 retreat was the publication of three collections to commemorate the weekend, including two hand-sewn chapbooks. We'll do at least one anthology for our 2010 retreat, collecting poems written or shared at the retreat. Click here for a description of our 2009 retreat publications (shown above).

Haiga Exhibit (new for 2010)

To take advantage of our larger meeting space, please bring copies of any haiga or photo-haiga (framed or unframed) that you'd like to display. Please note that we cannot hang them on the walls, but can place them flat on tables for easy viewing. If there's enough interest, we could also do a slide show of haiga using a digital projector (if you want to bring some of your haiga in electronic form on a USB flash drive, CD, or in another format, please let us know). For more information about haiga, click here.

Shuttle

If you need transportation from the Seattle airport to the conference center, please let us know. Or contact www.kitsapairporter.com for shuttle details (phone 360-876-1737 or 800-562-7948). Contact Kitsap Airporter for prices.

Arrival

Upon your arrival on Thursday or Friday, please register with Tanya or Michael either at The Firs or in the lobby of the Historic Inn (see interactive campus map). On Saturday or Sunday, please register at the Colman building. Please arrive by the following times, depending on the day:

• Thursday, November 4: Please arrive and register before dinner, which starts at 6:00 p.m.

• Friday, November 5: Please arrive and register before dinner, which starts at 6:30 p.m. (half an hour later than usual on Friday only)

• Saturday, November 6: For day visitors, please arrive and register at 9:00 a.m. (Colman building). If you can't arrive by 9:00 a.m., please join us when you can.

• Sunday, November 7:  For day visitors, please arrive and register at 9:00 a.m. (Colman building).

Questions

If you have questions, please contact the conference organizers or visit the following websites:

• Michael Dylan Welch: welchm@aol.com / 206-240-0871 or 425-836-8875

• Tanya McDonald: haikunw1988@gmail.com / 541-740-2467

• Seabeck Conference Center: www.seabeck.org

• Seabeck Conference Center map: http://www.seabeck.org/campus%20map.html

• Firs House layout map: http://www.seabeck.org/Firshousing.pdf

• Hemlock House layout map: http://www.seabeck.org/Hemlockhousing.pdf

• Madrona House layout map: www.seabeck.org/Madronahousing.pdf

• Seabeck Weather Report: www.weather.com/outlook/recreation/ski/local/98380

Seabeck Haiku Retreat Registration Form

Click here for the registration form.

See you in Seabeck!