A workshop that will change what you think you know about haiku
Join Claudia Radmore on November 23rd for a workshop entitled The Real Art of Writing Haiku.
You have probably heard of haiku, even tried to write some. If you have, what may come to mind are ‘syllables’. What you will find in this workshop is that haiku has nothing to do with counting syllables, unless you are a Japanese poet trained in historical tradition. Outside Japan, the form has little to do with counting, and more to do with breathing.
Registration through Tickets Please
Overview
In this workshop, participants will explore why this is so and discover its essence in the work of contemporary poets in North America. Your facilitator Claudia will guide participants to writing modern haiku using a sneaky approach which will make haiku accessible, and more important, ‘writeable’.
The worst thing you can do before coming to the workshop is to Google haiku, as in Claudia's experience 98% of what you will find has nothing to do with non-Japanese haiku.
What will we do in this workshop?
First of all, participants will have fun finding out why the syllable myth is still prevalent, especially online, and why it is seldom makes good haiku outside of Japan.
Learn a few Japanese concepts that are helpful in the understanding and writing of haiku.
Begin to make your own judgements about haiku, and share them, based on provided materials. The process will build your confidence.
The fun will continue as you write your own haiku based on prompts. Find out how to use a prompt so that your haiku is unique, expressing only what your beautiful individual mind can produce!
Use your new understanding in a fascinating way in an exercise called ‘Anonymous Workshop’.
No promises, as this is not the easiest form to write well, but you will leave with information about what to read, both in book form and online, and perhaps with some poems you are happy with!
Most importantly, you will understand why!
Who is this workshop for?
Anyone at all who is even vaguely interested; children over ten (10) through to adults with little to no experience, or anyone who feels drawn to poetry at any level of experience.
About the instructor:
Claudia Radmore began a long teaching career in Montreal and continues to do so in various parts of the world because she loves it.
An artist and writer, she has been creating both lyric and Japanese-form poetry for nearly thirty years.
Several full poetry collections and chapbooks have been published, and hundreds of her poems can be found in major journals across Canada and internationally.
Claudia has been trying to write a really good haiku since 1998.
She is the past President of both Kado, Ottawa’s haiku group, and Haiku Canada, the national group for Japanese-form poets.
She has edited anthologies and collections.
Every year she gives workshops or readings at The Haiku Canada Weekend, which takes place in a different part of Canada each year, from the Yukon to Newfoundland.
Her haiku collection the business of isness was published in 2017, and her latest Japanese-form collection, fish spine picked clean, was published in 2018.
She has also published several collections of lyric poetry, the lasts of which are Park Ex Girl, and rabbit, both in 2021.
This workshop is presented with partial funding from the Municipality of Mississippi Mills, and in community partnership with the Mississippi Mills Public Library.
