International Haiku Poetry Day was observed Monday, but nearly a dozen haiku enthusiasts from Arkansas and Louisiana gathered last Saturday to celebrate together a couple of days early at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa.
Encompassing Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, the haiku movement is strongest in Arkansas and Louisiana in the Haiku Society of America's South Region.
Leading the group in readings, games and other haiku-related discussions, June Rose Dowis, Haiku Society of America South Region coordinator, made the most of the intimate setting for the entire group to get to know one another better by letting everyone introduce themselves.
"I had a poor experience with poetry through high school," Victor Ellsworth who drove down from Little Rock for the meeting, said. "I had no sense of poetry other than the Beat Generation."
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Ellsworth was in an Alzheimer's support group over Zoom when he was encouraged to find something in the arts he had never done before. In school, he struggled with poetry, but decided to give haiku a try.
"I raised my hand in the Zoom thing," he said. "And I know myself well enough that if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna try it. And I thought, 'I'll say this out loud: I'm going to learn to write poetry. And not only that, I'm going to learn to write haiku poetry.'"
As Hot Springs has become a retirement mecca, the intersection of cultures creates a healthy environment for the art form. Some participants had lived all over the United States, as far as Hawaii and New York City.
While each person has their own relationship with the craft and reason for starting haiku, all participants agreed it has made a difference in their lives.
"I think it's something that you're always learning something new," said Dowis, who has written haiku for 13 years now. "And somebody's always inspiring you in a different direction, and you always see poets taking it to a different place."
The draw of the writing style has not gotten old for Dowis or for Howard Lee Kilby, president of the Arkansas Haiku Society, who was in attendance. The two encouraged participants to join HSA and take part in future events, like Hot Springs Haiku, a conference that takes place every November at the Arlington.
For more information about HSA, visit https://www.hsa-haiku.org/index.htm.
Haiku Society of America South Region Coordinator June Rose Dowis of Shreveport, Louisiana, leads the Haiku Day meeting at the Arlington Resort Hotel and Spa last Saturday. - Photo by Lance Brownfield of The Sentinel-Record
A haiku by Howard Lee Kilby reads: "evening swim/sing brother moon/long road." The poem was made during a haiku game using fridge magnets. - Photo by Lance Brownfield of The Sentinel-Record