Haiku Chronicles

A celebration of poetry, dance, music and cherry blossoms. This video podcast features classic Japanese poetry, cultural demonstrations, and performances at Branch Brook Park, New Jersey.

A review and discussion of Makoto Ueda's book of senryu, "Light Verse from the Floating World" with hosts Donna Beaver and Alan Pizzarelli.

Kobayashi Issa, Japan's most beloved haiku poet is put under a microscope in order to distinguish and delineate three basic directions his poems take. Written and narrated by Anita Virgil.

The complete essay of, "Issa: The Uses of Adversity" is available in the Haiku Chronicles Reading Room at: www.haikuchronicles.com

An invaluable guide to renku composition with renku master, Kris Moon Kondo. Al and Donna join guest poets Henry Brann, Robin Palley, Penny Harter to write the collaborative poetic form Renku.

Read the final Kasen Renku (36 stanzas) by poets and learn more on the Haiku Chronicles Blog page:

http://haikuchronicles.com/2010/10/e15_thundermoon/

Buson’s Two Candles” is a very private interpretation/expansion of appreciation for this poet’s breadth of subject matter and his variety of “styles" of writing. Anita Virgil, an artist by training, viewed Buson’s original artwork at Asia House in NYC.

The complete essay of, “Buson’s Two Candles” by Anita Virgil is available in the Haiku Chronicles, Reading Room at: www.haikuchronicles.com

Special guests Hiroaki Sato, Yuko Otomo and Steve Dalachinsky join us in a round-table discussion of the Tanka poetry and modern Women Tanka Poets.

Undoubtedly a controversial piece, these excerpts from "The Narrow Thread" by Anita Virgil trace an innermost theme in Basho's poetry. In 2004 Ray Bradbury wrote to Virgil calling it "fascinating."

The complete essay of "The Narrow Thread" is available in the Haiku Chronicles, Reading Room at: www.haikuchronicles.com

Q&A episode with the Global Haiku Students from Millikin University.

Thanks to Professor Randy Brooks and the students from Millikin for their insightful questions. Special thanks to our Haiku Chronicles panelist, poet Anita Virgil for her participation and input on questions in this episode.

The Haiku related form HAIBUN is the focus of this episode, including readings of contemporary haibun by Cor van den Heuvel, Anita Virgil, Alan Pizzarelli, and Donna Beaver.

If you thought haiku was just a 17 syllable nature poem, you have another think coming! Important insights and distinctions are discussed by Anita Virgil. And she discloses her letter from Harold G. Henderson stating why he wanted haiku re-defined. The final definitions he approved are all here.

Credits:

Books referenced, One Potato Two Potato Etc., Peaks Press, copyright 1991 by Anita Virgil; A Haiku Path, The Haiku Society of America 1968-1988, copyright 1994 by The Haiku Society of America, Inc.