tonight!
February 14, 2023
This evening, Tuesday, February 14, 2023, at 7:30pm Pacific, join Cobalt Poets online as they present Michael Dylan Welch plus an open reading (that’s you!). Cobalt Poets is a Facebook group organized by Rick Lupert, who is also the mastermind behind Poetry Super Highway. Here’s the event and here’s the Zoom. Bring your Valentine!
NaHaiWriMo!
February 2, 2023
It’s February, the shortest month, and that means it’s National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo). Get your haiku on. Learn more at the NaHaiWriMo website and find daily prompts by NaHaiWriMo founder Michael Dylan Welch on the NaHaiWriMo Facebook page, where you can also share yours.
Redmond celebrates
November 30, 2022
In Redmond, Washington, the holiday season literally comes to light with the month-long celebration of art and light known as Redmond Lights. Redmond’s Downtown Park is illuminated every night from 5:00pm to 11:00pm, December 1, 2022, through January 4, 2023, accompanied by a variety of gatherings, parades, festivities, and contests.
Art/light installations by sixteen artists are featured in the downtown display, including “Holiday Haiku” by Michael Dylan Welch, shown above in pre-event test mode. The five-minute video of Welch’s haiku will be projected on the Buoyant Pavilion stage throughout each evening’s celebration. See the light, starting tomorrow.
poetry in person!
September 13, 2022
Another sign of hope for poetry in Cascadia: after two-and-a-half years, Soul Food Poetry Night returns to in-person programming this Thursday, September 15, 2022. Same place — SoulFood CoffeeHouse in Redmond, Washington — with a new start time — 6:00pm.
The evening’s featured poets will be Katerina Canyon and Kibibi Monié and, as always, there will be an open mic. Here’s a link to the Facebook event.
Join host Michael Dylan Welch and the SoulFood audience in welcoming these two dynamic poets for live, in-person poetry at last.
meanwhile, in the other Washington
April 6, 2022
In the heart of the Washington, DC, central business district, known as the Golden Triangle, signs of spring are everywhere. The annual Golden Haiku contest, which this year attracted more than 2,900 original haiku submissions from around the world, has placed more than 200 haiku placards around the neighborhood. They will remain on view into early May. Learn more about the contest and preview the haiku that are on display. You may find some familiar names (including Sheila Sondik, above, Carole MacRury, and Michael Dylan Welch).
coming soon…
January 29, 2022
Although still deep winter, February holds hope that spring will arrive once again. The snowdrops pop up and National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo) settles in for its 28-day extravaganza.
If you’re haiku-curious, check out this guest post by Michael Dylan Welch, browse the many offerings on the NaHaiWriMo site, find daily prompts on the NaHaiWriMo Facebook group, view daily haiku selections in the English edition of The Mainichi, the oldest daily newspaper in Japan, and for more, more, more visit the haiku archives at Captain Haiku’s Secret Hideout.
Further resources:
And if you’re ready to try your hand, the Golden Haiku Poetry Contest is open for submissions of original, self-authored haiku on the theme “Reboot and Rebloom” through Sunday, February 6, 2022. (We’ve mentioned this one before.)
It’s back!
May 29, 2021
The park may look a little more like your computer monitor than usual, but don’t let that fool you: Poets in the Park is back for a rollicking weekend of readings, performances, workshops, and open mics. It’s all happening on Zoom next weekend, Saturday, June 5, and Sunday, June 6, 2021, and it’s all FREE as long as you register.
Michael Dylan Welch has lined up an impressive schedule, with a pretty dazzling array of events and participants.
Have a look, sign up now, then prep your picnic and your poems and enjoy Poets in the Park right in your own back yard.
NaHaiWriMo
February 6, 2021
It’s already February 6, but if you haven’t started your haiku-a-day for National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), it’s not too late to catch up!
First, go to NaHaiWriMo and have a look at the mind-bending number of options Michael Dylan Welch has provided there. If you’re overwhelmed, and not already a haiku pro, the Haiku Checklist offers a good introduction.
If you’re looking for prompts, Michael provides this month’s daily prompts on this Facebook page and you’re encouraged to share your haiku on the main NaHaiWriMo Facebook page (simply Create Post, type in your haiku, and click Post). (By the way, daily prompts are a year-round thing, with guest prompters each month. Many of the prompts from previous years have been archived on the Daily Prompts page and the remainder will be added, Michael assures us, eventually.)
Also note that there will be two global NaHaiWriMo poetry readings: Saturday, February 27, 2021, 6:00pm Pacific, and Sunday, February 28, 9:00am Pacific.
For more inspiration, listen in to Tom Maxedon’s NaHaiWriMo radio interview with Natalie Goldberg and Michael Dylan Welch talking about haiku.
Happy haiku-ing!
Seabeck Haiku Getaway this weekend!
October 27, 2020
Haiku Northwest’s Seabeck Haiku Getaway celebrates its thirteenth annual retreat Friday, October 30, to Sunday, November 1, 2020, this year via Zoom, all free. More than 200 attendees have already registered, but it’s still possible to sign up and participate. (No previous haiku experience required!)
Activities include multimedia readings, workshops, and presentations by Kelly Sauvage Angel, Susan Antolin, Chandra Bales, Roberta Beary (Ireland), Brad Bennett, David Berger, Maxianne Berger (Quebec), Melinda Brottem, Nicholas Klacsanzky, Yvette Nicole Kolodji, Annette Makino, Dorothy Matthews, Tanya McDonald, Tom Painting, Sally Penley, Kala Ramesh (India), Bob Redmond, Mike Rehling, Ron Swanson, Cathy Tashiro, Julie Warther, and Lew Watts. Michael Dylan Welch is serving as retreat director.
For more information, including the schedule, registration link, and list of attendees, visit the Haiku Northwest Seabeck Haiku Getaway page.
. . . . .
Thanks to Michael Dylan Welch for the info!
and meanwhile in L.A.
September 30, 2020
Whatever you may think of the 5-7-5 rule of haiku, it’s nonetheless gratifying to see that poetry is getting marquee treatment at the Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Read the story in Variety, including the list of featured poets through the end of 2020, and, while you’re at it, read Michael Dylan Welch’s essay on the urban myth of 5-7-5.
(Here’s a postscript courtesy of Michael Dylan Welch: a similar project was done some years ago in New York City and a book of postcards with photos of the marquees was published in 2008, Haiku on 42nd St.: A Celebration of Urban Poetry and Art.)
The Poetry Department . . . aka The Boynton Blog 