If haiku expresses a “now moment,” can haiku be written about the past? I’m immersing myself in early Vancouver history today to see if some haiku emerge, and I’ll be sharing the resulting “historical haiku” Thursday evening at Chapters bookstore in downtown Vancouver as part of a larger celebration of poetry and music with the Vancouver Haiku Group. Everyone is welcome! (May 23, 7-9:30 pm, Robson St. Chapters store)
Needs some work, but here’s an example of what I’m working on:
(Main & 7th Ave about 1899 – I don’t remember where I got the photo from, so I hope I can be forgiven for not giving credit. It is probably from the Vancouver Archives, and I believe most of their old photos are in the public domain.)
Added after the event (in this photo James Mullin’s Asian flute accompanies Kozue Uzawa’s tanka reading):
The event was led by Angela J. Naccarato, founder and facilitator of the Vancouver Haiku Group, who read some of her own haiku and free verse. Other poets included Marianne Dupre, Rosemary Carter, Brenda Larsen, Vicki McCullough, Liam Blackstock, Ashok Bhargava, Alegria Imperial, Donna Farley, Kozue Uzawa, James Mullin, and myself, taking the audience on a journey that evoked colours, sounds, and emotions from childhood memories in India to a monsoon in China to swimming with turtles in Barbados to Vancouver’s past to cherry blossoms in Vancouver’s present.
(Here, Liam Blackstock entertains the audience with charismatic readings/performance of his free verse poetry)
wild ink 
May 22, 2013 at 1:00 am |
I think your example haiku is an excellent demonstration of how historical haiku can work well. Good luck with the event
May 22, 2013 at 10:14 am |
It all seems so fragile and hopeful at the same time… You’ve captured these early days so well! I look forward to reading more of these soon. All the best with your reading!
May 22, 2013 at 11:47 am |
Thanks, Juliet and Dominque! I appreciate the encouragement, as it’s a bit of an experiment and hard for me to be objective about whether it’s working.
June 7, 2013 at 2:45 pm |
Note: I’ve added a couple photos of the event and a brief recap, and apologize to the poets who participated for not doing a proper post about the event (maybe next year I’ll be more organized and also include some examples of the poetry shared)
February 5, 2017 at 2:46 pm |
[…] up to the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival. Last night, I was joined by other members of the Vancouver Haiku Group, as well as visiting poet Carole Glasser Langille, to kick off the month with a reading of prose, […]