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

no signature available on this carbon copy

letter from William J. Higginson, editor Haiku Handbook etc., Nov. 1982

 Typed letter from William J. Higginson, "haiku godfather" who edited seminal English language haiku books including The Haiku Handbook (McGraw-HIll) and Wind in the Long Grass (Simon & Schuster).

On From Here Press letterhead, Fanwood, New Jersey
4 November 82

Ah, Chris

Good to hear from you! And to have the books, and the info on yr
past", as they say. Sorry it's unlikely that we'll meet  in the States, but thoroughly understand.

I like to tell the p/r people
"The Air Force made me a poet." And in a way it's quite true. But
though I had a top-s clearance for most of the four years I worked
in USAF, I shortly had my pictures in FBI files for anti-war activi-
ties in the New Haven area, late sixties. I was a bloomin' campus radical,
and like many of the breed, a little older than most of the kids in
school then. Anyway, a friend of mine who had the audacity to declare
himself a C.O., - - with substantial corroboration from several ministers
of the cloth (he was really a classical religious C.O.) - - spent two
years in Ft. Leavenworth. Really a useful way to treat sane, talented
people.

Right now trying to dig in for the long haul, self-sufficiency in
suburbia, and all that. We've started gardening, Penny (Harter - - my
wife), and I. Organic. Just learning, and not enough time for all
that's to be done. But it's clear that we must stop the pillage of
mass farming, as big a threat to humankind and a lot of other kinds
as nuclear war, etc.  Ah, well, enough pontificating.

Listen, thanks so much for the books. Delighted to have them. I'm
enclosing a couple of things from this end for your perusal. I don't
think you have thistle brilliant morning, and sure few up there
have seen PATERSON PIECES, though Eric may have a copy.

Gonna get this off, as pressure's on for various projects and bed
too calls. But great to hear from you, and I do look forward to
a meeting, perhaps in the great north, north american homelike nation.

Be well!

Bill

p.s.(handwritten)
Do you get funding for readings at Libr? I'll  maybe have a book or so, with Canadian
distr. if that's a help. I can probably
put together something at U. Buffalo, on the way.    

1980s/90s correspondence to Haiku Canada archives

 
A major part of my donations to Haiku Canada will be correspondence. While searching through ancient boxes I found several folders full of old haiku letters, mags, flyers, posters, reviews, and even a few old haiku newsletters and assorted memorabilia. I think it's key to get this material into the archives asap, as these papers would likely be among the first to be recycled or even burned when I leave this sphere - sad, but true. My good friend and executor is a self-proclaimed redneck, without any interest or knowledge of their value in literary and haiku communities.  

To start the process I've been sorting the letters by the names of my correspondents, including both letters to and from me. As it's interesting to give a quick glance through my back pages while sorting, I hope to include occasional brief notes as I prepare items for mailing. As I begin this process, I hope to refine and simplify it as much as possible. This basic cataloguing should help professional library archivists if they chose to refine the cataloguing, and also to give some guidance to anyone interested in researching or just browsing. Pages paper clipped by correspondents.     

Marco Fraticelli: early/founding member of Haiku Canada; editor/publisher haiku friendly mag The Alchemist
2 letters from Marco to me and a card
2 letter from me to Marco
copy special haiku limited edition the Alchemist #47 of 100

Dorothy Howard: early/founding member HC, co-edited and  published early bilingual anthology with Andre Duhaime, edited/published  mag raw nervz, HC archivist, etc. etc.!    
approx. 10++ letters from both of us, including some still in envelopes

Hans Jongman: longtime membership secretary for HC
envelope with 2 cards

Michael Dudley: early/founding member HC
1 letter from me and card ad for his collection  Man in a Motel Room

Leroy Gorman: early/founding member HC; coordinator HC member broadsheets
1 letter from each of us

George Swede: founding member HC; too many roles and projects to list
2 letters from me; also includes 2 drafts of my review of Eric Amann's Cicada Voices: Selected Haiku of Eric Amann 1966 - 1979, edited by George Swede; for High/Coo Press

                                                                ~    ~    ~

Chris, it's fantastic that you have these early correspondences to donate!

Best wishes for 2023 to all!

Vicki
(Head archivist Haiku Canada)

Haiku Canada outsiders and insiders

 
Chris, it was really my own curiosity, asking about Eric Amann's memoir -- in case I, a slow reader, might actually be able to read it in a visit to Special Collections. So, no worries about not including that level of detail.

From what I can tell, Eric and Anna Vakar were both rather 'outsiders,' which is why they clicked on some level, if only for a short time.

                                                                                                          ~    ~    ~
Hi Again Vicki,

It's quite a slight volume, and I'm sure you could read it in an hour or two in a relaxing afternoon in the archives  ;  )

Yes, I'm sure Eric thought of himself as an outsider. While cleaning dinner dishes, I did some further reminiscing about Eric and his involvement with haiku. In his memoir The House on Fountain Street the reader can see why this would be so - he was raised by "rough", working class New Canadians, and he would have stuck out like a sore thumb in that group. He was an intellectual swan in a flock of very supportive adult ducks. My image of his early editorship of Haiku mag is of a lonely, highly intelligent and deeply philosophical person looking for soul connections in the strange universe of NYC. The uniqueness of haiku, its esoteric nature in the still staid Amerikan culture of the early 1960s, would explain its appeal to the young med student/doctor.

It's always dangerous describing someone's looks, but Eric was noticeably different looking. When I finally met him at what I consider the founding meeting of HC circa 1977/78, I thought he looked gnomish or elvin. I bet he was teased a lot in his youth for his immigrant background, his high intelligence, sensitivity and his unusual looks. Definitely the makings of an "outsider" personality.

Regarding the Haiku Society of Canada and it's morphing into Haiku Canada, I can see a profound difference in the personalities of Eric and George Swede and their styles of leadership. Eric the quiet, self-effacing outsider who seemed to want our haiku community to be low key and casually social and individualist. After the initial meeting in Eric's apartment near The Danforth in Toronto, our next gatherings were casual restaurant dinners and get-togethers. I think of George Swede as the flip side of Eric's casualness - the corporate and promotional leader. Of course it took both aspects and the contributions of many, many other haijin to form HC. It bugs me that the founding of HC is described in its online home page as consisting of Eric, George and Betty Drevniok. There were a LOT of other haijin involved! I suspect that the major personality differences between Eric and George caused Eric to move on from George's "corporate" version of HC. After a lot of initial commitment to developing HC, I also became absorbed in my own poetry and writing projects, including founding Unfinished Monument Press and coordinating the Main Street Library poetry readings. In the longer view it took both these competing styles of leadership, and it's likely that without George's more organized and formal leadership style, HC would probably not still exist some 45 years after its founding and we wouldn't be corresponding today about  archival projects!

my thread in Haiku Canada (and in English language haiku)

Former President of Haiku Canada Terry Ann Carter is in the process of writing and publishing a history of Haiku Canada. Over the years I've sent her a number of chapbooks from the early days, and also replied to her questions as best I can. Following is a recent email I sent her to try to clarify my role in and perspective on some history of Haiku Canada (as well as on English language haiku in general).
 
I'll take a few mins now to try to fill in a few gaps in my background and role in haiku for you, as you sound confused about Unfinished Monument Press and other activities about where and when I was active in the haiku community, and especially how my history may fit in with the greater picture you're trying to uncover. Of course what I'm writing will be a bit solipsistic, but that's the best I can do, and I have been active in writing and publishing haiku from 1967 onward (now over half a century!)

You've also given me a great excuse NOT to go on the planned bitterly cold evening walk on the towpath by the Crowe, and I've poured a glass of chiraz to keep me inspired.

I was born in Hamilton (1948), but only lived there for a few months when I first returned to Canada in 1972 after living in a commune in London, UK and traveling around Europe. This story is told in my memoir "Eel Pie Dharma", first self-published with my Unfinished Monument Press in 1990 (one of the earliest English language book length haibun), and then republished with Tai Grove's Hidden Brook Press in a professional edition in 2012.

I didn't meet the Hamilton haijin, or any other haiku poets in person, until that first founding gathering of what became Haiku Canada at Eric Amann's apartment in the late 1970s. This is where I connected with Margaret Saunders, and it was probably through her that I also connected with Herb and then Jeff.


college days,  anti-draft activism and intro to haiku and Eric:

My intro to haiku happened while sitting in the library at Miami-Dade Junior College in 1967 (now Miami-Dade College) and I found an ad in the Village Voice classifieds for "Haiku" magazine. I'd been writing short poems, and the editor of the M-D lit mag, "Southwind", told me they resembled haiku. So I wrote off for a copy of "Haiku", and this is how I connected with Eric. Eric was a med student or doing his early hospital residencies in NYC, and had discovered haiku as a lonely expat Canadian. (Have you read Eric's autobiography, "The House on Fountain Street" - Can't find my signed copy right now in the dark of my study)

"Haiku" duly arrived and I immediately identified with the haiku form. My family had moved back to Key Biscayne (island off Miami) after living in a suburb of Atlanta during my high school years. I'd mistakenly registered with the draft board in Atlanta, which cost me dearly when I became very active in opposing the Vietnam War. I organized a campus group to counsel against the draft, and also began applying for conscientious objector status. Jim Christy has a parallel background with opposing the war. As one of the highest profile anti-war activists in Miami, the draft board, way off in Atlanta, soon went after me.

I was extremely stressed in this period (circa 1967-69), and I began writing haiku as an outlet for the stress and began sending haiku to Eric. Eric rejected my first attempts, but soon started accepting them for publication in his influential mag. I also began practicing yoga and meditation at this time.

Eric's "Haiku" was a leader in the very small field of haiku practitioners and small mags and broadsheets. There were a handful of these, but Eric's mag was acknowledged to be at the forefront in developing a modern, English language version of haiku. In the 1960s almost all haiku were written in the rigid 5-7-5 form, but Eric bravely promoted a shorter, looser form. He was my mentor, and I did my best to write haiku which fit into his forward thinking views. My haiku were published in all the small North American mags and broadsheets. But . . . in June 1969 the draft board caught  up with me and sent 3 induction notices in one week. It was time for me to leave the U.S. I was a permanent resident (green card holder) from age 7 or 8 until I left just weeks before my 21st birthday. As a foreign national they would have deported me rather than jailed me anyway I assume  : )

hippie street life in a commune and first 2 haiku collections in 1969:

Rather than return to Canada, my father thought I should go to England, which was a horrible idea. I stayed with my snotty older cousin and his doctor wife for a month or so, and then they unceremoniously threw me out into the street. I ended up living in the nearby Eel Pie Island Hotel hippie squat for the next 1 1/2 years. With the last of my small savings I self-published two chapbooks of haiku (I sent you one of these, "Cricket Formations") in the summer of 1969. The haiku in CF were all non-standard haiku, and most of them have stood the test of time and half a century later they are as publishable now as they were then considered cutting-edge in the small haiku community of the late 1960s. Michael McClintock, who remains a staunch haijin, published a selection of my haiku in one of the Amerikan haiku mags, with a very nice bio note and intro. This would have been circa 1970, and "Southwind", the Miami-Dade lit mag, also did a full page feature of my haiku. All of this didn't mean as much to me as it might have, as I was literally scrambling to find enough food to eat and a blanket to keep me warm in small room in the abandoned Eel Pie Island Hotel.

Return to Canada and poetry:

After 3 years of hippie street life and wandering about Europe (all detailed in "Eel Pie Island Dharma: a memoir/haibun) I desperately needed to  change my life at age 24. I decided to visit Canada. After all, Canada couldn't be any less impoverishing or squalid than my young life had become in England. I enrolled at university, but after years of smoking hash and dropping acid, the academic life didn't suit me. I ended up joining The Canadian Liberation Movement, a Maoist/Stalinist sect that was anti-imperialist as well as staunchly pro-Canadian culture. Too much happened to write about here, but in CLM I met one of Canada's leading poets, GG winner Milton Acorn. Friendship with Milton encouraged me to return to writing poetry, which I've continued to do ever since.

I did a variety of jobs to survive, including working as a steelworker/union organizer in Guelph and then a cook at the Univ. of Toronto. I even got chef's papers through George Brown College, but my calling continued to be poetry, including haiku.

I managed to get a few of my politikal poems published in leftwing papers and mags like "Alive" in Guelph and "the Red Menace" in Toronto. Around this time, 1976-77, I met Toronto poet Ted Plantos through a mutual friend, Tom Clement. Tom was working as manager with the remains of the publishing arm of the CLM after it disbanded circa 1975, and it was through Steel Rail Press publishing and meetingTed that I realized I could start my own small press, as Ted had done with his Old Nun Press.

Unfinished Monument Press and The Main Street Library Poetry Series:
Following Ted's example, I self-published a collection of my poetry, "Dominion Day in Jail", by founding Unfinished Monument Press in 1978. The monument referred to is a memorial to two of the martyrs in the 1838 Rebellion, a holdover from CLM days.

There was a burgeoning poetry scene in Toronto and other poets asked to share my Unfinished Monument imprint. Sometimes the poets did all the work themselves, and sometimes I did most of it. UMP published first collections by such prestigious poets as Robert Priest ("The Visible Man"), my friend Tom Clement ("Superman"), Jim Deahl's first work ("Real Poetry"), Margaret Saunder's first ((haiku "A Flock of Blackbirds"), Lynne Kositsky's first ("PCB Jam"), Bruce Hunter's first ("Selected Canadian Rifles") etc. etc. . UMP published quite a Who's Who of the Toronto poetry scene from its founding until I gave it to poet Jim Deahl in the early 1990s.

Ted Plantos had also coordinated a poetry series at a Cabbagetown branch of Toronto Libraries. He had recently folded the series, and as there was only one other ongoing poetry venue in Toronto at the time, The Axle-Tree Readings, I decided to again follow Ted's example and in 1979 I started the monthly Main Street Library Poetry Series at my local branch of Toronto Public Library (TPL).

By accident I had become a bit of an amateur impresario on the Toronto poetry scene, and I was able to first publish poets, or discover unpublished poets through the readings, and then feature them. I was also able to wrangle a job as a low paid desk clerk at the library through my volunteer work as the poetry series organizer. As the series was successful, I was further able to encourage many of my house poets by getting them onto the Canada Council list of sponsored readings (e.g. they could get paid to travel and do a few readings a year).

back to haiku:

So it was during this creative period of publishing poetry with UMP and featuring poets at the readings that Dr. Eric Amann and George Swede decided to hold an informal meeting of other haiku writers. As the founder of both UMP and the reading series, I was able to give various haiku poets the ability to publish and to perform their work.

On Oct. 21, 1981 I featured George Swede and the Haiku Workshop. Reading the signed guest book under flashlight, I can find George's name, Keith Southward (he was the original editor of HC's mag/newsletter "Inkstone), Denise Coney (she and Keith were a 'power haiku' couple for a while), Irene Mcguire, Jan Dawson, Nancy Prasad, Shaunt Basmajian, and myself of course. Probably others whose names I can't read or remember.

Many other major and minor poets read at the series, and there would have been features of other haiku poets. The series ran for 6 years and 62 readings. The readings played an important role in introducing poets to each other, and among the featured poets at a glance I see Milton Acorn, jones, Herb Barrett, Jeff Seffinga, Margaret Saunders. In total over 100 poets, and much of the creativity, the plotting, building and destruction of poetic empires, occurred at various pubs after the readings.


Phewww

Terry, I don't know if the above babble is going to help or confuse you!  Writing a history, even my own perhaps, will always have an element of revisionism. The complex intertwining of personal stories, serendipitous meetings, and a pint or two of lubrication makes the task of accurately documenting history, even as ephemeral a one as Haiku Canada's, an almost impossible task.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Chris/cricket

    

        

brief history of haiku/haibun

Hi Marvin,
The forthcoming reprint is of my 1990 book, EEL PIE ISLAND: a memoir/haibun. Haibun is considered a form of poetry. Actually haibun is prose, interspersed with haiku. The prose gives the haiku context, something which is generally missing when poets/haijin publish individual haiku.

Basho, the wandering Japanese poet priest, created the haibun form. His classic is THE NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH. Sometimes this title is interpreted as THE NARROW ROAD TO THE INTERIOR, which gives a better sense that Basho's journeys were as much internal as external.

The English language haiku movement began in the 1950s, when many Americans stationed in Japan during post WW2 reconstruction learned of the form and attempted to both describe and imitate it. The classic works on this are by RH Blythe.

(The book I recently finished reading, JAPANESE PILGRIMAGE, was also written by one of these Americans stationed in Japan after WW2.)

Early English language haiku were almost always written in imitation of the Japanese form, which decreed a strict syllable count of 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the concluding line. Thus these early haiku have been nicknamed 5-7-5s.

Canadian medical doctor Eric Amann founded a very crucial haiku magazine, titled appropriately, if not very creatively, HAIKU. I believe he founded HAIKU while pursuing medical studies in New York City in the early to mid 1960s. Eric was an early proponent of writing a shorter, more concise style of English language haiku. The rationale for this is the Japanese definition of syllables. Apparently the Japanese language has a different method of labelling syllables than English, and individual letters such as "m" and "n" are counted as syllables. Thus English language attempts to write in 5-7-5 form were much longer and wordier than Japanese haiku.

Eric and others intuited that to be truer to the spirit and essence of Japanese haiku, English language haiku should be written in a more concise form. Eric promoted this with his HAIKU magazine, and over time these shorter haiku have become the established form of English language haiku. This has become true to such an extent that the old 5-7-5 haiku are often not even considered haiku anymore.

I was fortunate in discovering Eric, and his magazine, and Eric's insistence on this shorter format around 1966/67. Poems I had submitted to the college litmag were rejected, but the editor informed me that my brief poems reminded him of haiku. In the back of a copy of THE VILLAGE VOICE in the college library I found a classified ad for HAIKU magazine and wrote for a subscription.

Thus began a mentorship between Eric and myself, prob. for around 2 or 3 years. I was 18 or 19 years old when I began writing haiku, and I am among the first English language haijin (haiku poets/masters) to literally grow up writing (and spiritually living) the form.

Although Basho, the creator of the haiku, wrote haibun, most English language haijin haven't written in this format until quite recently. My EEL PIE DHARMA, published in 1990, is among the first English language haibun. An old friend from my hippie days, Weed, published EEL PIE DHARMA online about a decade ago, and it's one of my 'brags' that EPD is likely the most widely read English language haibun so far.

(Of course Jack Kerouac's books contain haiku, and perhaps Kerouac should be considered the earliest, and most popular, writer of English language haibun.)

I tell most of this background in my introduction to the reprint. I've heard the claim that haiku/haibun has become the most quickly growing genre in English language literature.This is largely due to the success of the internet in providing access and examples of the form (e.g. my EEL PIE DHARMA).

So the reprint of EEL PIE DHARMA (as EEL PIE ISLAND DHARMA) should help establish it as the definitive literary landmark it is, especially in Canadian literature and Canadian haiku.

I'll send you a copy as soon as it's off the presses  :  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris ... and Chase  wrfffffffffffffffffffffffff! and MacDuff wffffffffffffffffffff (Sylvia's cairn terrier who is hanging out with Chase and me for a week or so)

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

Hi Chris,
   Thanks so much for your quick response.  And thank you for your
elucidation, explanation, and history.  I now have a better
understanding and grasp of the subject.  You certainly played a
prominent role in the field.   I did grow up enjoying Basho's
evocative thoughts and beautiful imagery.  I will be honoured to pass
a copy of your reprint on to the Univ. of  Calgary Library.
     I will keep in touch.
     Regards to Chase and MacDuff.    Wrrrroof.
     I shout love.
     Marvin (Orbach)

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~



 

first Canadian haiku collections 1969 (?)

Subject: my 2 1969 booklets: first chapbook collections of Canadian haiku (?)
email Sept. 9/12

Hi Marvin,
Great to hear from you - you sound well & in good spirits  :  )

As always, I'm pleased that you are finding a good, permanent home for all these poetry-related items and ongoing communications. I'm trying to be selective in the emails I copy you on; I don't want to send anything which would compromise another writer's privacy, & yet I want to give future readers & literary historians an inside view of the day-to-day life of Canadian poets and how we interact among ourselves, our publishers, our non-literary friends, and of course the readers (who of course are mostly other poets and academics anyway).
                                                          
                                                                            ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


I'm pleased with your request for copies of my two 1969 chapbooks, CRICKET FORMATIONS and GUEST IN A GARDEN (or I AM A GUEST IN A BEAUTIFUL GARDEN). I self-published these two collections in the late summer and fall, months after I had moved to England to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War.

Both these chapbooks are quite seminal in the world of English language haiku, and they are very seminal for Canadian haiku. They are possibly the first collections of haiku by any Canadian haiku poet (haijin)

Eric Amann is generally acknowledged in the haiku world as one of the godfathers of modern English language haiku, and as Eric is Canadian, he is most definitely the  godfather of Canadian haiku. In the mid-1960s it was Eric's magazine, Haiku, which promoted the form (and to a lesser degree the content) of modern English language haiku.

I've told the story of Eric's long distance mentorship and encouragement of my haiku elsewhere, including in my memoir, EEL PIE ISLAND DHARMA (about to be reprinted).
After several initial rejections of my first attempts at haiku, Eric began publishing my work in "Haiku". This was circa 1967/68, and I was in my late teens.  

The style of haiku I was writing back then with Eric's encouragement, and which I continue to write to this day, has become the dominant and established style and content for modern English language haiku. This wasn't necessarily true back in 1969 when I published my two haiku collections, when many or most haiku poets were still writing stiff and formulaic haiku, often in the strict 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. None of my haiku were (or are) 5-7-5s. Inspired and encouraged by Eric I worked hard to shorten the haiku form and content to better reflect what I believed to be the spirit of the Zen-inspired Japanese haiku masters.

Unfortunately I do feel to some extent the primacy of my early haiku work and publications has been overlooked among my fellow Canadian haijin, or more accurately, perhaps, strongly downplayed. The existence of my two early haiku publications, and their creation by an individual writer and haiku poet, perhaps runs counter to another version of the development of 'Canadian' haiku. This version of Canadian haiku might be described as group oriented  - that first came Haiku Canada (originally THE HAIKU SOCIETY OF CANADA - founded in the late 1970s), and that out of this organization modern English (and French language) Canadian haiku developed.

The problem with this Haiku Canada historical narrative is that I had already - a decade earlier - published these two slim collections.

As you note, they are extremely rare. I'm not sure if I have even one copy of GUEST, but I'm sure I can find a copy of CRICKET FORMATIONS to add to the Univ. of Calgary special literary collections.

Thanks again for all you do for CanPo ...  :  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris/cricket and Chase ... wrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff!

p.s. I have donated a copy of CRICKET FORMATIONS and some other haiku materials to the Special Haiku collections at a Univ. in California


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
  
On 2012-09-06, at 9:23 AM, marvin orbach wrote:

Howdy Chris,
  Just a short note to say hello.   I trust that  all is well with
you and that the  reprint  of your memoir is coming along fine.
  I continue to receive copies of your recent e-mails.  About a week
ago I sent off  3 packages to the Promised Land.   These include all
your recent contributions, plus correspondence.  They will be
preserved for posterity.
  I must say that I enjoy reading Katherine Gordon's new poems that
appear in your blog.  She certainly is a talented poet.
  I wanted to ask you about your first two publications that you did
in England.  I assume these contain poems.  I checked Amicus, the
online catalogue that lists the holdings of thousands of Canadian
libraries.  I couldn't find any listing of these two  books. That
means no Canadian library has these two titles.   If you have spare
copies, I would be happy to deposit them in my collection at the
University of Calgary, if they contain poetry.
   The weather here is still unseasonably warm. I don't remember
such a hot   summer.
    I imagine Chase is doing well.
   I must go now. Looking forward to your response.
   I shout love.
   Marvin.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



On 2012-09-19, at 2:58 PM, marvin orbach wrote:

Hi Chris,
    Your copy of Cricket Formations, your first book, arrived safely
in this morning's mail.   Thank you very much.   What a little
treasure this booklet is.  I enjoyed reading the amazing haiku.  Was
it by accident that your name does not appear anywhere, or was this a
Zen way of minimizing your ego?  As far as I know the U. of C. Library
will be the first library in Canada to have this book. What an
honour!!    It will head west with my next shipment.
     I am looking forward to rereading Eel Pie Dharma when it is
reprinted. If you happen to have a spare copy of the first ed., and
you are wiling to part with it, I would be happy to deposit it into my
collection in Calgary.
     Aye, we are all flowers!!!
     I shout love.
     Marvin.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Hi Marvin,
I'm so pleased the copy of CRICKET FORMATIONS  arrived OK. It is a real rarity, both for my work and in the field of English language haiku.
And of course I'm very pleased you enjoyed reading it ...  Yes, it was youthful idealism, rather than youthful egotism or carelessness, which omitted my name from
the small booklet  :  ) ... and I'm glad I did it that way. There is so much overbearing egotism in the haiku/haibun world now, that it makes me pull
away from it most of the time.  (but from time to time I try to assert myself and what I feel is my rightful place in the development of English language
haiku/haibun - the blog is a great way to chest thump!)

I wish I had a copy of the original EEL PIE DHARMA to donate. I don't have a single complete copy myself, at least that I can find.

I borrowed the line from James Joyce, but of course,

Aye, for we are flowers, all!

peace & poetry power!
Chris/cricket ... and Chase ... and MacDuff    Wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrf!    Wrffffffffffff!   Wffffffffff!



You have asked several times for some new haiku/haibun from me, so you can take substantial credit for encouraging the following, composed a few hours ago: "dog day afternoon haibun".

* * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * *

Happy 35th Birthday for Haiku Canada!/memories of founding meeting/1969 haiku chapbook

This Victoria Day weekend Haiku Canada (founded as the Haiku Society of Canada) will mark our 35th anniversary. Some blurry memories of our founding meeting follow:

From: Chris Faiers [mailto:zenriver@sympatico.ca]
Sent: May-07-12 1:21 AM
To: Terry Ann Carter
Subject: donation for HC silent auction

Hi Terry,
Chris the cricket here. As a founding member & longtime supporter of HC I'd
like to make a donation for the silent auction at the upcoming 35th
anniversary ...

... & can it really be 35 years??? - I  remember the nervous excitement of
meeting other haiku poets for the first time in Eric Amann's small condo at
Broadview & Danforth - even think I remember where I parked. I lugged along
a 6-pack of Budweiser for protection, in case things got uncomfortable or
too stuffy. No worries - Eric, George Swede, Margaret Saunders and Marshall
Hryciuk were only to eager to share my liquid contribution  :  ) Memory has
faded a bit, as I'm sure a couple of other founders were there - some faces
have blurred - guess I can blame the Budweiser!

What I'd like to contribute is an 'illuminated' (illustrated with coloured
felt pens) copy of "ZenRiver: Poems & Haibun", & possibly a couple of other
spare author's copies - maybe "Crossing Lines" & "Tough Times: When the
money doesn't love us". I'll rummage thru some of my stacks & see what else
is there (oh yeah, prob. some Unfinished Monument chapbooks - I published
haiku by Marshall, maybe even a rare chapbook I published of Margaret's &
maaayyybeee even a Shaunt Basmajian book? ... be interesting to see what's
in the Unfinished Monument box!!!)

What I'm planning to do is ship the books to you for taking to the meeting.
I left TO 23 years ago, & have lost touch with most haiku people there.

Hope this is OK with you? (and congrats again on taking on the role of
Prez).

If it's OK to ship, are you still at the Stinson Ave. address?

Best wishes for a successful 35th! please give my regards to all ...

peace & poetry power!
Chris/cricket ... and Chase (still going strong at 12+ years) ...
wroooooooffffffffff!


footnote: I'll put in my 2-cents bid here for being one of the first Canadian haijin to publish  collections of haiku: in 1969 I self-published two chapbooks, Cricket Formations and Guest in a Garden. Hope they're in the Haiku Canada archives somewhere. If not, following is the text of Cricket Formations, as put online about a decade ago by webmaster Weed.

CRICKET FORMATIONS *********************************** Halloween     a young boy         in a skeleton suit Rain     gray doves         strung on a wire Mistletoe falling     slowly fading         shotgun blast *********************************** In this cove     waves stirring         palm frond reflections Slug pocked sign     rusting testimony to         a day's bad hunting Night wind     flapping         loose weatherproofing *********************************** Blue sea     bobbing red and white         lobster trap buoy Tree covered campus     is this the same park I dreamed         in childhood dreams? Light breeze     striding across campus         a thin professor *********************************** Christmas vacation     tame ducks starving         by the campus lake New Year's Eve     moon shining on tinsel         Christmas tree wake Spring sun     melting children's snow fort         tunnels *********************************** First spring rain     mudpuddles         crossing the road First green appearing     buds on the new stake hedge         and chameleons Bay wind blowing     Coconut Grove sailboats         tinkling rigging *********************************** Lobster antennas     waving from the twin caves         of a cement block The flower     of this old tree         a treehouse green garden hose     spouting         a rainbow *********************************** stone house     the roof demolished         wallpapers flowers sun Tropical gardens     in rough patio stones         gray sea fan fossils Cavern pool     tourists watching         blind fish *********************************** Easter Love-In     a longhaired child         handing out fruit Summer moonlight     rotting on our roof         a starfish Summer rented house     behind closed windows         a mummified frog *********************************** Yellow     butterflies, flowers         leaves Vine     leaves pressing         church window *********************************** T V A lake     beneath calm water         Almond City L S D     these clouds reveal too much         moon England     sheep grazing         among gravestones *********************************** Piccadilly Circus     Cupid's fountain spraying         hippies Mounted sailfish     lining the walls         of Nassau airport Luxembourg     black paint on pink brick         U.. A. *********************************** Brighton Beach sharp rocks     stumbling bather reveals         smooth round young breasts Channel marker     and perched birds         pointing home Night beach     lovers sharing         lifeguard stands *********************************** Western version "LSD" haiku LSD the writing on every wall messages growing on every tree and in a water crystal strung sky iconic clouds shift to clearly reveal                                                         the moon *********************************** Time for Peace Poems Ceremonial Smile of the Flower Children     glimpsed Shantih* lightens my mind     allswell allowing a smile     which remains without remembering why             * Shantih, the Peace Which                Passeth Understanding ***********************************                 Full Lotus Lethe, body resting the thin white stream released like spider strands (another of nature's soft ladders) climbing higher to its source         subtly      expanding                 Blossoms ***********************************            Eyes There is something between a flower and a gem            Eyes     something between love and fidelity            your eyes in mine eyes are both gem and flower part iris and part calcite smooth eyeball            and more the yearning pupil opens to the mind where we can see into the depths of each other like the many meanings in the multi-faceted crystal the black passage opens to the eternal living eons longer than doomed diamonds and brighter than short lived color reflecting flowers                Your eyes                Yon eyes            must be mine sometime                 Poetic Conclusion Aye, for we are flowers all Aye, for we are priests all Aye, for we are poets all Aye, for we are poet-priests all Aye, for we shall soon be gods   All ************************************** **************************************

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Chris Faiers (home)   |   biography & bibliography   |   Eel Pie Dharma

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"Cricket Formations" © Chris Faiers 1969
originally printed in England by C&O PTO, Richmond, Surrey
comments to weed@wussu.com
revised 4 December 2007
URL http://www.eelpie.org/cricket/cricket.htm