1982 letter to Bill HIgginson re early Haiku Society of Canada meeting

 Oct. 29/82

Bill Higginson
From Here Press
Box 219
Fanwood, N.J.
07023 USA

Dear Bill,

              Delighted to hear from you!   Yes, it must be over a decade since
we corresponded, and it sounds as if a lot of water has passed under
both our bridges . . . hopefully our experiences can be incorporated
into our haiku and other poetry . . .

            It's funny but I never met a real, live haiku poet (other
than the occasional wanderer I pressed into authorship in my hippie
years) until 1979, when just for the hell of it I decided to attend
a meeting of "The Haiku Society of Canada" at Eric Amman's (sic) house.
I arrived with some trepidation and a 6-pack of beer, and surprise!
everyone present was a real, live writing haiku poet & even more
astounding - fairly normal human beings. I don't know if you have
ever met Eric, but he is a shy, self-effacing guy, sort of a
gnomish Woody Allen without the forced humour. George Swede was
a larger version of a hobbit (not as elfin as Eric - he's since
shaved his beard) - Margaret Saunders is everyone's aunt and granny
in one, Marshall Hryciuk is a big-bearded, big-bellied laughing
Buddha (too much acid? -) etc.  A very congenial group, esp. after
we polished off the beer, some saki, a few bottles of wine, etc.
Serious discourse was forced to give way to a round-robin haiku
reading, which eventually 'degenerated' into good natured bantering
about each other's occasional misadventures at authorship. No
blood was shed, the highest accolade I can give. Subsequent
meetings of the HSC and the more recent Toronto Haiku Workshop
have followed pretty well in this tradition.
               Anyway, a toast, welcome back to Haiku (for both of us)!

              The enclosed collections will  update you better (I hope)
than a long and boring letter about my life. Unfortunately, the most
recent work in the collections is about 2 years old, so as soon
as I gain access to a photocopier, I will inundate you with some
more current writing. If you have any available collections of your
work, let's swap!

            At his point I was dragged off to a Halloween Party in
my housing co-op - 3 or 4 beers and several hours later I'm back . .
you are of course most welcome to use any of my haiku in any projects
you have in mind .... I'll send you some more recent stuff here as well -
Thanks for the compliments about my haiku (you may have the only
extant copy of "Guest in a Garden", by the way) . . and thanks for the
offer to visit - it's inevitable that we meet - not sure of my status
regarding border crossings (haven't been in the States since '69) . .
I'll try to correspond more frequently than every decade in the future . .

POETRY POWER!!

Chris

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