Seabeck Haiku Getaway 2025 Schedule

Thursday, October 23, 2025

4:00 p.m.                Check-in starts at the Historic Inn

6:00 p.m.                Dinner

7:00 p.m.                Welcome by Michael Dylan Welch

7:30 p.m.                Kristen Lindquist: “From My Coast to Yours: An Illustrated Reading”

Kristen Lindquist reads from her prize-winning collection, Island, while sharing images that offer a virtual tour of Monhegan, a remote island ten miles off the Maine coast that has long been an artists’ colony and a birding hotspot. She has been spending time there for almost 30 years as a birder and poet and now lives there for four months each summer working for the Monhegan Museum of Art & History. Her reading of haiku and haibun touches on the themes of birds, inspiration, and art.

7:50 p.m.                 Write Now (quick writing prompt)

8:00 p.m.                 Break

8:10 p.m.                 Weekend Activity Announcements:

Dorothy Matthews: “Waypoints” ekphrastic writing contest

Luke Brannon: “completeTheHaiga” challenge

Dianne Garcia: hand-bind your own book

Origami cranes (make a crane and decorate it with a bird haiku—all weekend)

8:25 p.m.                 “Haiku Tag” round of haiku reading

Share a haiku of your own and then tag someone to read their poem next, with mood-matching guitar improvisations by Jacob D. Salzer.

9:00 p.m.                 Anonymous Workshop, led by Captain Haiku

Contribute an anonymous poem into either of two hats, one for folks who have never done this before, the other for everyone else.

Friday, October 24, 2025

8:00 a.m.                 Breakfast

9:00 a.m.                 Kristen Lindquist: “The Thing with Feathers: Birds in Haiku”

A longtime, avid birder and birding guide, Kristen Lindquist shares her amateur bird photography and discusses how birds capture our attention as poets, how birds can inspire and inform our haiku, and how we can find value in paying close attention to and learning more about birds. Includes a writing exercise.

9:50 a.m.                 Forest Bird Walk led by Kristen Lindquist and Tanya McDonald

(rain or shine)

11:00 a.m.               “Is Haiku a Shared Moment?” panel discussion led by Paul Miller, 

 with Tanya McDonald, Ce Rosenow, John Stevenson, and Michael Dylan Welch.

With the rise of literature advocating for a new haiku (sometimes called “gendai,” “Haiku 21 haiku,” “postku,” and so on) as well as more publishing opportunities for such haiku, a kind of haiku has emerged that seems to resist the idea of a shared “moment.” This discussion asks what we are trying to share—if we are. If sharing isn’t a requirement of the new haiku, is a writer even needed?

12:00 noon             Lunch

1:00 p.m.                Katy Gilmore: “72 Seasons: A Northwest Year in Image and Word”

Adapting the micro-seasonal structure of the traditional Japanese calendar to a year in the Pacific Northwest, Katy Gilmore has created a series of “pages” in image and word that celebrate all 72 seasons in five-day increments. She discusses the inspiration for her project, her process, and insight gained from her practice. After the presentation, we are invited to write haiku in response to the work. See her website.

1:50 p.m.                 Break

2:00 p.m.                 Dion O’Reilly: “Learning from Emily Dickinson’s Nature Poems”

Poets love to write about nature, but often descriptions of nature and our strong feelings about nature do not make a strong poem. This presentation studies how cleverly and profoundly Emily Dickinson wrote about nature. What elements of her craft might we bring into our haiku writing?

2:50 p.m.                 Break

3:00 p.m.                 Write Now (quick writing prompt)

3:10 p.m.                 Richard Tice: “Let’s Go Birding in Japanese Haiku”

Birds were a favorite subject of haikai poets. The cuckoo (hototogisu), bush warbler (uguisu), lark (hibari), and crow (karasu) feature prominently in Japanese haiku, but other species attracted the attention of poets too. Bird song and sounds, bird sightings, and bird activities were all fair “game.” Let’s go on a jaunt through four hundred years of Japanese bird haiku.

4:00 p.m.                 Break

4:10 p.m.                 Readings (10 minutes each)

Jacob D. Salzer (from A Lost Prophet and Sea Wind)

Sarah Paris (from For the Birds)

Dion O’Reilly (haibun)

Paul Miller (from Magnolia Diary)

4:50 p.m.                 Break

5:00 p.m.                 Shiva Bhusal: “Programming Lessons from Japanese Poetry”

A brief introduction to haiku, its poetic ideals, and how it resonates with ideas presented in the Zen of Python, a book about computer programming and design by Tim Peters. This includes minimalism in writing code and objectivity in collaboration, which are helpful not just in Python programming and software engineering design but also in how we approach problems in general—and haiku.

5:25 pm.                  Kukai reminder

Submit up to two haiku anonymously, on index cards (provided).

5:30 p.m.                 Social break

6:00 p.m.                 Kukai submissions due

6:00 p.m.                 Dinner

7:00 p.m.                 2025 Seabeck Kukai, plus silent auction and bookfair breaks

Vote on your favorite anonymous haiku. Wooden flute music provided by [to be announced].

9:00 p.m.                 Rengay Riot, led by Michael Dylan Welch

Saturday, October 25, 2025

8:00 a.m.                 Breakfast

9:00 a.m.                 Welcome by Michael Dylan Welch

9:10 a.m.                 Haiku Read-Around (one haiku each, for video recording)

9:30 a.m.                 Kristen Lindquist: “Everybody’s Bird: Crow Haiku from Bashō to Now”

With species all over the globe, crows are one of the few birds almost everyone knows. And everyone writes about them. Kristen Lindquist’s obsession with corvids in her own haiku made her start noticing others’ crow ku, which ultimately led her to write an essay on crows in haiku that appeared in Modern Haiku. Kristen presents highlights from this essay alongside crow haiku from Bashō to now and some fun facts about the natural history of the American crow. She also shares a series of crow-centric haiga created for a poetry festival with noted Maine photographer Anna Strickland.

10:20 a.m.               Break

10:30 a.m.               Dion O’Reilly: “Mystery versus Obfuscation”

Do we want, as is so often said in poetry workshops, “to let our readers in?” This craft talk looks at how poets navigate the spectrum between confusion and mystery and how to apply these thoughts to haiku.

10:55 a.m.               Break

11:00 a.m.               Write Now (quick writing prompt)

11:10 a.m.               “Haiku from Canada,” coordinated by John S Green

Seabeck welcomes Canadian haiku poets for a special Zoom reading.

12:00 noon             “Waypoints” ekphrastic writing contest entries due

12:00 noon             Lunch

1:00 p.m.                 2025 Porad Awards announced by contest coordinator, Luke Brannon, judged and announced by Jacquie Pearce, with music by [to be announced]

1:30 p.m.                “Birds of a Feather” breakout rooms

Separate into smaller groups to explore common interests relating to haiku. Room topics to be announced.

2:20 p.m.                 Break

2:30 p.m.                 Kevin Eyer, vice-president of the Kitsap Audubon Society: “Feathers and Foliage: Autumn Birds in the Pacific Northwest”

Find inspiration in the flight of autumnal birds! Share the excitement for the fall migration, followed by a walk along the lagoon and shoreline to look and listen for birds and to take in the variety of habitats Seabeck provides to our flighted visitors.

Kevin Eyer is vice president and past president of the Kitsap Audubon Society. He is a longtime resident of Kitsap County and lives in Poulsbo, Washington. Kevin has his Master’s in biology and teaches biology at North Kitsap High School where he also serves as advisor to the A.W.E. Club, a student club focused on learning and experiencing astronomy, wildlife, and engineering in the outdoors.

3:20 p.m.                 Group Photo (plus individuals/small groups)

3:50 p.m.                 Shore Bird Walk, led by Kevin Eyer (rain or shine)

5:00 p.m.                 Three Short Presentations by Michael Dylan Welch:

• 5:00 p.m.        “Summer Musing: The First Haibun in English”

Historical overview of “A Month in Summer,” by Carolyn Kizer, most likely the first haibun ever published in English. It dates from 1962, coming two years before "Paris," by Jack Cain, which had previously been touted as the first haibun in English.

• 5:30 p.m.        “Moonlight in Vermont: A Haiku Song”

A bon-bon presentation and discussion of a song from 1944 comprised of unrhyming lyrics in the manner of haiku.

• 5:45 p.m.        “Five Favorites: Kristen Lindquist”

An appreciation of five haiku from Kristen Lindquist's book, Island, published in 2023.

6:00 p.m.                 Dinner

7:00 p.m.                 Silent auction wrap-up

7:30 p.m.                 “Haiku Lightning Talks,” coordinated by Luke Brannon

Ten five-minute haiku talks in TED-style format. This isn’t a reading—each talk explores a facet of haiku, from little-known insights to playful discoveries, inviting fellow poets to learn, celebrate, and engage. Send your presentation idea through this form and Luke will contact you if your talk is selected.

8:30 p.m.                 Seabeck Celebration: An Evening Together

“Waypoints” ekphrastic writing contest winner announced

Origami Cranes (make more, decorated with bird haiku, and read your creations)

Ruth Yarrow’s Bird Calls

Music by Jacob D. Salzer, Nicholas Klacsanzky, and others

Seabeck Memories

Open-Mic (poetry and music)

Paper Towel Awards

Sunday, October 26, 2025

8:00 a.m.         Breakfast

9:00 a.m. Write Now

9:10 a.m. Kristen Lindquist: “Birds + Haiku + Trivia = Good Fun!”

Kristen Lindquist emcees a trivia contest focused on birds of the Pacific Northwest along with bird haiku by well-known haiku poets. Prizes! There might be prizes!

9:50 a.m. Break

10:00 a.m. Read-Around and Weekend Highlights

   (gratitude, discussion, and sharing)

11:00 a.m.       Clean-up (we must be completely cleaned out of the room by noon)

12:00 noon     Lunch

1:00 p.m.         Check-out time! (all room keys must be turned in by 1:00 p.m.)

1:30 p.m.         Afternoon activity (optional, to be announced, if anything)

See you at Seabeck!