Archive: Haiku Holiday
April 26, 2008

• Overview
• Contact
• Presenters
• Our Hosts
• Directions to Bolin Brook Farm
• Schedule

Overview

Come celebrate the 29th annual Haiku Holiday with the North Carolina Haiku Society on Saturday April 26, 2008. Experienced haiku teachers and poets will conduct workshops, talks and walks. The event is open to anyone with an interest in haiku, beginner or advanced.

Our first Haiku Holiday took place at Bolin Brook Farm near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the United States of America on January 26, 1980. Since then, all of our annual meetings have been held at Bolin Brook Farm—thanks to our gracious host and member since the beginning, Jean Earnhardt. Our Galleries section has a few pictures from past Haiku Holidays.

If you are going to participate in a workshop, bring previously written, unpublished haiku—or you can dash one off after the ginko (haiku walk). Membership in the North Carolina Haiku Society is encouraged but not required. There is no membership or registration fee, but small donations will be gratefully accepted at the workshop. Please bring a bag lunch.

Contact

The main contact for this meeting is Dave Russo. See the Contact Us page for my contact information. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about the meeting.

Presenters

We are finalizing the details about our presenters. Here is what we know so far . . .

Fleur-de-Lisa, an acappella group from Durham, North Carolina, will give an acapella performance of haiku. While both haiku and a cappella music may seem simple on the surface, both present the challenge of distilling complex expressions into accessible forms. These two art forms make a natural pairing. Sylvia Freeman, Andie Piddington, Sarah Shunk & Deborah Stewart are the members of Fleur-de-Lisa. The group recently recorded Willow Songs, a CD of songs based on haiku from Beneath the Willow Tree, an anthology of haiku by members of the North Carolina Haiku Society.

Roberta Beary will read from her recent haiku collection, The Unworn Necklace, which won the Snapshot Press Haiku Collection Competition. Her senryu won first prize in the 2006 Gerald Brady competition that is sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. She is one of 10 haiku poets featured in the Shiki online discussion list's tenth anniversary haiku anthology. She is a member of towpath, Haiku Ireland, Haiku International, and the Haiku Society of America. Update: The Unworn Necklace was one of two finalists for the William Carlos Williams Award given by the Poetry Society of America. See Roberta Beary a Finalist . . .

A number of NCHS members will read from Beneath the Willow Tree, the recent anthology of haiku by members of the North Carolina Haiku Society. We produced this anthology to commemorate the Haiku North America 2007 conference in Winston-Salem. The book presents previously-unpublished work by Philip Bizzarri, L. Teresa Church, Curtis Dunlap, Richard Kraweic, Kate MacQueen, Lenard D. Moore, Bob Moyer, Dave Russo, Charlie Smith, and Richard Straw. Lenard D. Moore, Executive Chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society, edited the anthology. Diane Katz of Rosenberry Books created the illustrations. See Photos of the Standard Edition of Beneath the Willow Tree. Beneath the Willow Tree is available from the Book In Hand section of the Rosenberry Books Wesbite.

Lenard D. Moore will read a selection of Richard Wright's haiku in honor of the Richard Wright Centennial. Wright wrote over 4000 haiku in the last 18 months of his life. A selection of these haiku are available in Haiku, This Other World, by Richard Wright (Arcade Publishing, 1998).

Lenard and Dave Russo will lead the haiku workshops in the afternoon.

Lenard is the Executive Chairman of the North Carolina Haiku Society and the President of the Haiku Society of America. He is the first Southerner and the first African American to be elected as President of the HSA. Lenard is the haiku editor for Simply Haiku, and he is the founder of the Carolina African American Writers' Collective (CAAWC). He recently won the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award for his contribution to the fine arts of North Carolina.

Dave's haiku have appeared in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Acorn, and other journals. He is included in big sky: The Red Moon Anthology 2006 (Red Moon Press, 2007) and the latest New Resonance anthology from Red Moon Press. Russo is the Webmaster for Haiku North America, the North Carolina Haiku Society, and Red Moon Press.

Our Hosts

Jean and John Earnhardt . . . Jean retired in 1995 after 20 years as a hospital PR/marketing director. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Carolina in 1952 and a Masters in Liberal Studies from Duke forty years later. While raising two sons she sold freelance features and photographs to newspapers and tried her hand at short stories and poetry. She and her husband John, also a UNC graduate, live on an old farmstead which has been in Jean's family for 12 generations. Bolin Brook has hosted the Haiku Holiday since its inception in 1980.

Directions to Bolin Brook Farm

Bolin Brook Farm is a beautiful place, but you may need a little help in finding it. Here is Jean's address and contact information:

Jean Earnhardt
600 Bolin Brook Farm Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-929-4884
jjearn@bellsouth.net

Click this link to see a map to Bolin Brook Farm.

Click this link to see a photo of the sign you'll see on the side of the road: Photos from Haiku Holiday 2002.

Schedule for Haiku Holiday on Saturday April 26, 2008