One Busy Month

Post date: Nov 16, 2015 8:51:31 PM

The last month has been a very busy one. After directing Haiku Northwest’s eighth annual Seabeck Haiku Getaway at the start of October, I then headed to upstate New York for the biennial Haiku North America conference (I’m one of the directors of the nonprofit corporation that runs this event)—it was the largest ever. I gave opening remarks, and closing remarks at the banquet (including the announcement of Santa Fe, New Mexico as the host for the 2017 HNA conference), and gave a presentation on spirituality in haiku, inspired by Wassily Kandinsky. In addition, I also led a reading of Fire in the Treetops, a special twenty-fifth anniversary anthology featuring 1,053 haiku and senryu from all past HNA conference anthologies (all of which I edited). This 416-page book was a huge undertaking, and also included an extensive introduction I wrote (which I plan to post to this website in due course), and thirteen additional essays by organizers of past conferences, celebrating poems selected from each conference. I also had my new book, Becoming a Haiku Poet, at the HNA book fair, along with numerous other books from my press, Press Here. I plan to build pages for both books on this website, too, including a list of all contributors to the HNA anthology (more than 500 poets). I hope to get my photos of Seabeck and Haiku North America online soon. Many other things to add to these pages, too, as soon as I can catch my breath!