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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Herefordshire Haiku: poems on the move



Library van image by Alan Summers; Emma & myself image by Simon Holroyd.

I met Emma Stevens, Library Learning Officer at Hereford Station, and met up with the mobile library van at Fownhope to start my one day library van haiku poet-in-residence. Here are the five places we visited:



Herefordshire's lovely countryside replete with crows & rooks:


carrion crow call
refracted river-ripples
on the horsechestnut


mist haze -
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial


2 haiku by Alan Summers

on a leafless branch
a crow comes to nest -
autumn nightfall


Basho (1644 - 1694) trans. Haruo Shirane

harusame no
dobei hi tomaru
karasu


mud wall perch
in the spring rain
a crow


Shiki Masaoka (1890-1902) English version trans Alan Summers.

The people:

picture by Simon Holroyd
Mrs Hulbert, who paid us a visit, (and helps out at Age Concern), is an artist who was interested in the tradition of combining pictures with haiku known as haiga in Japan.


(Please click onto the pictures for a larger image)
Mrs Hulbert deservedly is awarded a haiku detective badge!
photo by Alan Summers (selfie)


Mrs Slade was the second of my home visits to people unable to get out and visit the library van. Mrs Slade will be 100 in June this year. We also visited Mrs Oxley, in her nineties, who was also great fun, despite her fragility.









Simon Holroyd, the library van driver. It was a shame it was a very wet day, but the visitors we did have made it all worthwhile.

I left some of our haiku detective badges to encourage many more haiku being written at local libraries and with Simon Holroyd on his library van so I hope even more haiku get written.

8 comments:

extraspecialbitter said...

how much birch did you see in Much Birch? I shouldn't joke - I live in Cochituate.

Area 17 said...

The place name I loved, which we passed by alas, was Much Marcle: www.wyenot.com/muchmarcle.htm

Now that ancient yew tree seat would be a fantastic mini haiku workshop! ;-)

Area 17 said...

"John McDonald said...

I can't get the comments on area 17 to come up so let me say here Mrs Hulbert's haiga are brilliant - john

March 23, 2008 2:35 PM"

John writes bi-lingual haiku (Scots & English) and his blog is at: http://zenspeug.blogspot.com/

Roswila said...

Same here, trouble with the comment function. I really enjoyed this post and the haiga.

Coincidentally, I have moved cross-country from New York city to southern California where I'm living in a senior residence. I'm 64 and considered a "kid." Many of the folk I'm befriending -- and talking about haiku with, and exposing to scifaiku and dreamku -- are old enough to be my parents. But all radiate eternal youth. :-) Like Mrs. Hubert's smile. (I will probably eventually get some sort of haiku writing group going.)

Dru Marland said...

whoops, late in the day here.... the expedition sounds like it was a lot of fun. Much Marcle is, of course, also the home of Weston's Cider (and perry...)

Raven said...

What a great idea. Mrs. Hulbert's art is exquisite. Nice haiku all around.

iamnasra said...

Not just great, Im amazed you could have haiku van ..so proud to be here to hear all about it

Borut said...

Great ideas! 'Moving' haiku!:) Some day, maybe, I too will become a Borut Van Haijin!:)

Best wishes!

Borut