A message from Penny Harter

Dear haiku friends,

As many of you know, tomorrow, October 11th, is the one-year anniversary of Bill’s death. It does not seem possible that it’s been a year already. And these past several weeks, as I’ve been remembering last summer and early fall, I’ve wanted to tell you that your many cards and notes during the two months of Bill’s illness helped keep us going. I shared every one of them with him in his hospital bed, and he was deeply moved by your outpouring of love and prayer.

And though I was dealing with so much at the time (including the weeks and months following Bill’s death when I was organizing his papers for Columbia, preparing to move, and moving) that I was not able to personally answer many of your written condolence notes, I was then, and continue to be, supported and comforted by the e-mail messages, notes, cards, and even little gifts that lovingly flowed my way in those first weeks. (I’ve kept them all.)

Those of you with whom I shared HNA Ottawa observed that by early August, I had come a good distance in my healing journey. It was wonderful to be there among you all! And I was doubly blessed by so many of you honoring Bill--sharing what knowing him had meant to you. Since Ottawa, I’ve enjoyed continuing a number of our renewed friendships via e-mail.

And though I feel somewhat subdued this weekend, I am simultaneously looking forward to renewing more haiku friendships (and finding some new ones) at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway next weekend. It is a rich community we share.

I have written a number of longer poems and haibun over the past months, working my way through grief, and half of them are already in print. If you’d like to keep up with what I’m doing, I invite you to visit my new blog at http://penhart.wordpress.com. I’ve been using it mostly for professional news, but the personal does sneak in now and then. (You can scroll down for my detailed HNA post :)).

Again, a bow of thanks to my haiku family for their ongoing love and support. May you and those dear to you have a healthy and happy autumn and winter.

Love,
Penny
penhart@2hweb.net
www.2hweb.net/penhart
http://www.shenaniganbooks.com/beastiebook.html

D. Claire Gallagher - Tribute

Carolyn Hall sent this bio of D. Claire Gallagher who passed away a few days ago:

D. CLAIRE GALLAGHER

1941 – 2009

D. Claire Gallagher, a woman of boundless energy and enormous talent, extraordinary haiku poet and friend to many in the community, passed away at home, surrounded by family, on Friday, July 17, 2009, after a long bout with cancer. She left this world as gracefully as she lived in it. Surviving her are her husband Patrick Gallagher, also a haiku poet, and loving children and grandchildren.

Claire became interested in haiku in 1991 after reading Wes Nisker’s commentary on haiku in his book Crazy Wisdom. Two years later she attended a meeting of the Haiku Poets of Northern California (HPNC) and quickly became active in that group, the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, and the Haiku Society of America, and remained so till the end of her life. She served as HSA Regional Coordinator for Northern California. She was co-editor of Mariposa, the membership journal of HPNC, from 1999 to 2007 and played a major role in shaping this fine periodical. She served also on the editorial staff of the Red Moon Anthology. Her haiku have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and have won or placed in many contests in the USA and abroad. Among her many honors were a First Place in the 2007 HSA Harold Henderson haiku contest and Second Place in the 1998 HSA Gerald Brady senryu contest, as well as top honors in the HPNC San Francisco International contests, the Snapshot Press Calendar Awards, the NLAPW Poetry Contest, the British Haiku Society’s Hackett Award Contest, and the Yuki Teikei Society’s Tokutomi Contest. As winner of the Virgil Hutton manuscript contest, her chapbook, How Fast the Ground Moves, was published in 2001 by Saki Press. A newer collection of her haiku, The Nether World, is forthcoming from Red Moon Press.

Claire described herself as having been “born a Californian in Wisconsin.” She was raised in Western Pennsylvania and it was 43 years before she arrived physically on the “Left Coast” in Sunnyvale, California. Her career included incarnations as a potter, educator, radio journalist, technical writer, and naturalist hike leader for a land preserve agency. In addition to reading and writing haiku, which contributed to her living “more mindfully and more heartfully,” among the joys and talents that enriched her life were hiking and traveling with her husband, gardening, ikebana, collage, Chinese brush painting, and spending time with her family and friends. She was always keenly aware of the world of natural wonders around her, and she delighted in sharing her excitement and knowledge with friends and family, most especially with her grandchildren.

She will be greatly missed.


A few of Claire’s outstanding haiku:


family reunion—
some of the beached kelp
in knots

1st Place, HSA Harold Henderson Haiku Awards (2007)



weathered bench—
I open my palms
to the winter sky

2nd Place, San Francisco International Haiku Contest (2007)



sunflowers
the tube of cadmium yellow
squeezed flat

2nd Place, San Francisco International Haiku Contest (2004)



the closer we get . . .
losing my friend’s heart-to-heart
to the waterfall

1st Place (tie), British Haiku Society Hackett Award Contest (1999)



budding maples—
how fast the ground moves
under his tricycle

How Fast the Ground Moves, Saki Press, 2001



blowing out
one birthday candle
the whole family

2nd place, HSA Brady Contest (1998)



his arthritis
guiding the hoe—
late tomatoes

The Heron’s Nest IV:2 (2002)



Advent altar—
a candle wick straightens
within the flame

3rd Place, NLAPW Poetry Contest (1999)



winter solstice—
the sunset incantations
of red-winged blackbirds

Frogpond XXIV:3 (2001)



the dark folds
of a greening mountain —
my sister’s locked diary

The Heron’s Nest VIII:2 (2006)



sultry day—
melancholy squeezed
from his accordion

Acorn #20 (2008)



slicing apples
into the dented pan—
howl of the wind

The Heron’s Nest X:2 (2008), Heron’s Nest Award

[Photo by Carolyn Hall]

A request from John Stevenson and a reminder from an'ya

This just in from John Stevenson:

I'm going to be attending Haiku North America in Ottawa in August and I've volunteered to help with the memorial reading. While I am aware of many of those who have passed away since the last HNA gathering, in Winston-Salem, I'm wondering if I could ask your blog visitors to send me names (and perhaps a few favorite poems, or lines of remembrance) of anyone they know or know of whose loss, occurring in the past two years, has left parts of the haiku community with memories that might be shared with the wider group. If so, I'd love to hear from them (ithacan@earthlink.net).

---

And this message from an'ya:

Now that it is almost July, just a quick reminder to have your submissions for our autumn/winter issue of moonset to us no later than 1 August. Please see the official website (URL) below for full details on how to submit haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, and haiga to the appropriate editors. Old-timers and Newbies equally welcome.

Also please send any articles to an'ya and any news to Sasa; email contest entries, and/or dream-ku to peterB;. email addresses also listed at the website.

Thank you ever so much to a generous few, we are about 40% to our goal of becoming non-profit . . . also please update your subscription asap if need be so we can make certain that you receive our next issue . . .

love ya', an'ya
http://www.moonset-newspaper.com

Paul O. Williams remembrance page

Gary Warner sent this about a special web page for Paul O. Williams:

Paul was a faithful participant in the Shiki Monthly Kukai at haikuworld.org, sending us poems in fifty-three separate months over the past six years. We've posted a remembrance page, with his vote-fetching kukai entries here:

http://www.haikuworld.org/kukai/paul.o.williams.html

He will be missed by all of us at haikuworld,

Gary, Robert, Jennie, and George

Honoring Nick Virgilio

This just in from Ellen Compton:

Hello all,

The following letter invites you to an event honoring poet Nick Virgilio in the 20th year after his death. Attached are directions to the site of the event, with a map of campus on which it takes place. Please help to pass the invitation along.

Cheers,
Ellen Compton
Regional Coordinator
HSA Mid-Atlantic


Dear friends,

Nearly twenty years ago, on January 3, 1989, we lost a national treasure with the death of Nick Virgilio -- Camden resident and internationally renowned haiku poet. In the years since his death, the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, formed to foster his legacy, has learned just how deeply his poetry and persona have influenced school children and poets laureate, other haiku poets and members of his Camden community from neighbors to high ranking elected officials.

We invite you to join with us as we celebrate – in our personal and collective stories and poetry, critical reflections and artists’ interpretations of Virgilio’s haiku – the gift of his life and art to all of us!

Sunday January 25th, 2009 from 2PM – 5PM
Rutgers University Campus Center, Camden New Jersey
Tickets are $10, but seating is limited.
Reserve your place now!*

Nick first discovered haiku when he found Kenneth Yasuda’s Pepper Pod at the Rutgers Library in 1962. Nick transformed himself from disc jockey and sports broadcaster to an early master within the American haiku movement. In the process, he touched many lives. His voice was heard on NPR, as a regular commentator on Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon in the 1980’s. At home he taught haiku in the schools, volunteered at Sacred Heart Church in Camden and was the poet in residence at the Walt Whitman Poetry Center when it was founded in 1976.

Renowned poet and critic Cor van den Heuvel called him “…one of America’s most loved haiku poets.” Fr. Michael Doyle said: “He was pure flame in a battered city, a spark in a dark place.”

Your participation in this event will help the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association to preserve his legacy for future generations, support teaching haiku in the schools, and further creative projects, including a possible one-man play, based on his life and art.

*Please reserve your place ($10 per person) today by calling (856) 365-0136 after 6PM, or by sending an e-mail to: Nick.Virgilio.Haiku@gmail.com


Warm regards,

A message from Penny Harter

Penny Harter has asked me to post the following:

Thank you all so much for your loving support during these months following my loss. From your phone calls, e-mails, and condolence cards, to haiku honoring Bill on various web sites, and the special tributes and poems in the journals--you have been so generous, and your caring has meant much to me. I know he would feel both honored and moved (and perhaps he does). I'm doing reasonably well, considering that it's the holiday season. This past Wednesday would have been Bill's 70th birthday, and he had hoped to really celebrate that day. I ate a simple meal at home, raising a glass of white wine in his honor.

I'll be spending Christmas with my family, then madly packing boxes as I prepare to move during the third week in January to a small condo in Mays Landing, NJ, (a little ways inland from Atlantic City), where I'll be only about fifteen minutes from my daughter and her husband--love those grandkids (Courtney aged 8 and Conor, 5)! Bill's daughter Beth, her husband, and their two boys (ages 15 and 20) live in north-central Pennsylvania but have other family near Philadelphia, so I'll hope to see them fairly often as well. There is an active poetry community down in South Jersey, many of whom I already know, and I'll be near two colleges that are quite active culturally. I'll also be very near the Atlantic County Main Library. I can't yet tell you my new phone number or exact address; however, postal mail will be forwarded from my Summit P. O. box for a while. When I have my specific new contact information, I'll send it to Curtis for posting. Meanwhile, my e-mail will probably stay the same for some time: penhart@2hweb.net.

In closing, I'm pasting below an account of the first dream I had of Bill since his death. I wrote the introduction to the dream prior to sharing it at a reading I was invited to give at Overlook Hospital--for the palliative care community, the doctors and nurses who worked with us during Bill's weeks there, and the public. I was grateful for the opportunity to give back to them. I read from my new book of longer poems, The Night Marsh, a few poems I'd written since Bill's death, and a haibun Bill wrote eight days before he died (which will be in Frogpond). I closed that reading by sharing the dream--a pre-dawn gift to me that same morning--and my waking interpretation of it. May it bless you as it did me. I'm not sending Christmas cards this year, but this can kind of be one, perhaps from both Bill and me. I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a fine new year!

Love,
Penny

-------------------------------

Whatever our faith tradition, most of us believe in God, or some kind of caring deity, and in some kind of survival of the spirit. I believe there is something beyond! And there is Love. Toward dawn this morning, I was blessed with the following dream, the first I’ve had of Bill since his death. To close this reading, I want to share it with you:

-------------------------------

12/11/08: First Dream of Bill after his death

It is the Christmas season. I am sitting in the dark in the middle of a large church—it looks like Crescent Avenue Church where I used to sing in the choir—and it seems to be a Christmas concert. A choir is on risers on the steps to the chancel, and they and we, the congregation, are singing “Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming.” Though I am in the midst of the congregation, I am not really aware of them visually. Yet we are all singing together. I look up at the choir and there, standing in the top row, is Bill, looking hale and hearty. Our eyes lock, and he smiles at me as I sing directly to him, and he to me, these particular words of the carol:

It came, a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half spent was the night.

And I feel love flowing between us.

--------------------------------------

Given that those words, in particular, were what personally passed between us, I woke up feeling that the message of the dream was that I should be like that rose, blooming amid the cold of this winter of loss, the middle of this night. And since the “night” was already half spent—that I was already beginning to bloom, and should continue to do so. I also felt that the message was that I should celebrate the Christmas season, rather than mourn.

And, perhaps, since the dream came on the eve of this night of my giving back to the Overlook Hospital community, the message affirmed that my reading this evening should especially be an opportunity for me to be that “floweret bright.” Although in the original lyrics the floweret refers to Jesus, in this dream I knew that those words were for and about me as well. So I will continue to celebrate life, to find joy in loving and giving of myself.

And may we all be reminded that both in sorrow and in joy, we should strive to celebrate the blessing of being here on this old planet, and the opportunity to share both the blessings and challenges of our lives with one another.

Penny Harter

Tributes to William J. Higginson

The Australian Haiku Society has created a Tributes to William J. Higginson website.

As stated at the bottom of the page, you may send one haiku per poet to secretary@haikuoz.org by October 27, 2008.

Bill Higginson has died

Fellow Poets,

It is with a heavy heart that I make this blog post. Bill Higginson passed away today. I received the following email from Penny Harter a short while ago:

Dear Curtis,

Bill had been in the ICU since Monday early morning, and he was weakening some each day. And sadly, just after we were making plans today for Bill to go to hospice care within the hospital (his decision), his heart went crazy, suddenly beating up in the high 190s / 200s, he glazed over, his rapid labored breathing slowed dramatically to the last few breaths, and his heart beat on, slowing down, for about ten minutes until he died peacefully at 3:45 p.m. today. His daughter Beth and I were holding his hands and singing Amazing Grace to him.

He'd awakened early this morning saying he was "composed" and ready to stop fighting, then asked the nurses to call to tell Beth and me he wanted to speak to us. We came in early and though his voice was sometimes labored, we had an animated conversation much of the morning. He made it clear he wanted a straight DNR after all (no intubation, etc.), and then we talked about how he wanted to be remembered (memorial celebrations at Tenri in NYC and here in NJ in the spring), as well as personal things. And then I guess he was ready and just let go.

He knew we agreed with his decision, and though Beth and I cried, we affirmed that decision and said that though we'd miss him terribly, it was time. He'd been through enough. He will be cremated, and the only service anytime soon will be a family graveside ceremony in about two weeks or so. I have Beth with me and family coming tomorrow. I'll be going down to my daughter Nancy's for about a week to recover a bit from the strain of recent weeks, leaving on Tuesday or so. Then I'll start dealing with things here.

Bill and I both have been most grateful for all the cards and e-mails of support we've received over the past weeks. Bless you all! I won't be checking e-mail much while at my daughter's, but may do so once in a while. I'm not ready for engaging in much personal correspondence yet.

Love,
Penny


On a personal note, I'm honored to have met Bill at Haiku North America 2007. He and Penny have inspired and nurtured me through their poems and many books. (Practically every serious haiku poet has a copy of the The Haiku Handbook, right?) We have lost a friend and pioneer in English language haiku and Japanese poetic forms. Please join me in expressing our sincere condolences to Penny, family, and friends of William J. Higginson.

Due to this very sad news, the weekly Haiku - Three Questions post will be postponed until next week.