Annual Haiku Reading
As autumn crept into the California central valley and surrounding hills, on Saturday, October 8th, 2011, the Central Valley Haiku Club held their annual English Language Haiku reading at the Gekkeikan Sake Factory, 1136 Sibley Street, Folsom, CA. This event, along with many other art activities, is held in conjunction with Folsom's yearly celebration of the arts.
Before an audience of around two dozen, and with the koi pond as backdrop, club members Yvonne Cabalona, Bill Owen, Mark Hollingsworth, Lana Campbell, and Leslie Rose, shared information about the various haiku forms and then read some of their poetry, while member Ricardo de Bernardi took pictures. To everyone's delight, at the end of the reading, some of the audience members shared their poetry as well.
When the reading was finished and the audience had departed, the Club held their next to the last meeting of the year.
The first item of discussion was the 2011 Jerry Kilbride Memorial English Language Haibun contest which closed on October 1st. Yvonne reported that the submissions have gone to the judges and we will be receiving notification of our winners before our next meeting in December. So, with this contest almost put to bed, it was decided that we should, even before this year ends, begin notifying poets of our next haibun contest, our ninth annual event, which will have a deadline of December 1st, 2012. We are hoping, with a full year to write, and with a later deadline, more writers will submit entries. Full information about the contest may be found at our website: www.blinkhaiku.blogspot.com
We had several celebrations. Yvonne has been invited to submit copies of her Chapbook, Down the Mermaid's Back, for consideration for the Touchstone Award. She also will have one of her poems published in the "Heron's Nest". And Leslie announced that one of her tanka's will be published in #5 of "Moonbathing".
As this meeting ended, the date of December 3rd was chosen for the last meeting of the year. We will again meet at the Eastern Empire Restaurant on Howe Avenue in Sacramento at 12:30 to share laughter, poems and good food.
The Jerry Kilbride Memorial 2012 English-Language Haibun Contest
