HAIKU HIKE (World Walks)

Invite Boredom

2008-04-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

Listening to the Invigilator : Digbeth discussion I was struck by oblique and direct references to boredom - the gallery invigilators job being referred to as sometimes boring.

When transposed to an outside space where the invigilator has to stand or sit and simply 'watch over' then the space and the action of simply watching over it sets up an interaction that is boring in such a way that it can transcend boredom if we let it... The space becoming bored of the invigilator throws up new facets new resonances between it and the 'watcher over' the 'invigilator'.

A couple of Invigilator : Digbeth participants said that they found the invigilating very zen like - another not at all - the invigilating passed-by with a contrived doing - a counting of and classification of vehicles passing through the invigilated space. Such actions are invoked by the space itself as it is watched over - after all it was only chance that the space invigilated happened to have cars passing through it - this counting this classifying borne out of the possibility of boredom.

"INVITE BOREDOM" - paul conneally 2008

Walk The Line

2007-11-08T02:39:00.000-08:00

3 Estates Kings Norton Birmingham UK

Create Your Own

Circle of Fire Renga Ramble

2007-10-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Circle of Fire

Renga Ramble

Sheffield Crookes Quarry Allotments

Hawkesley Square - Walk the Line

2007-08-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

this walk

is mind blowing

white whispery clouds

les littlehales

Walk the Line - Kings Norton 3 Estates August 2007

WALKTHELINE

2007-08-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

A JOURNEY THROUGH A CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Fancy a nice summer Sunday stroll, a short journey with surprise elements and a picnic thrown in? Then on August 12th join artist/historian Maurice Maguire with haiku poet and artist Paul Conneally and others on a guided journey through the changing landscape of the Birmingham Kings Norton 3 Estates.

Starting from the Masshouse Members Club, a short walk along the canal towpath will take you to the entrance of the Kings Norton canal tunnel - the Wast Hill Tunnel. We will then trace the above ground route of the tunnel as it runs underneath the 3 Estates, over the Wast Hill to the Hopwood end of the tunnel.

As this is roughly two miles suitable shoes should be worn. Transport will be available to complete the return journey to a picnic/buffet and discussion including a poetry reading back at the Kings 3 Café on The Fold.

Over the past 200 years, the canal has been the one constant feature of this area. The contours of the landscape we see today were formed to a great extent by the excavations carried out during its construction. How the Kings Norton 3 Estates area has developed in the past and particularly how it may develop in the future is the theme for what promises to be an entertaining and informative journey.

The event is free. To book your place, and for further details please call Rita Fletcher on 07877503392 or email to rita_fletcher111@hotmail.com

WALKTHELINE is a POWER PARTY.
Remember to switch off any appliances, lights etc before leaving home.

WALK THE LINE

INVIGILATOR : DERBY UK

2007-06-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION

IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH

photograph by kev ryan

from first dawn
by day or star-light
everlasting motion

little jimmy norcliffe
he looked after me
sorted me out
with a good shovel
and a pair of wellingtons

high objects
the mean and vulgar
works of man

showed me how to dig
without hurting my back
to lay concrete slabs
write out betting slips
on a bag of cement

enduring things
life and nature
purifying

paul conneally

2007

From INVIGILATOR:DERBY

paul conneally nikki pugh kevin ryan

ELEMENTS

RAPTURE

CHONGQING - Walk to Work

2007-06-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

CHONGQING
Walk to Work
paul conneally & kevin ryan 2007

I asked artist Kevin Ryan to map out his normal route to work in Loughborough UK as a series of LEFTS RIGHTS and STRAIGHTS and to then transpose this journey to Chongqing in China where Kev was visiting on a British Council funded visit exploring the sharing of approaches to art and do some work where ever he ended up.

So one morning Kev set of to 'walk to work' in Chongqing on reaching his 'work destination' Kev went about photographing the area doing about 2 hours work. Click on the image below to take you to Chongqing 'Walk to Work' slide show:

This is the first piece coming out of 'Walk to Work' more pieces will follow as walks are gathered from around the world and transposed to different parts of the world. A major new 'Walk to Work' piece 'Invigilator' with artist Nikki Pugh is currently in process.

The Renewability Haiku Hike

2006-12-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

Paul Conneally led the Renewabilty Haiku Hike workshop and hike on 18th and 19th of November 2006 - here are some photos from the event.

www.flickr.com

Paul Conneally's the renewabilty haiku hike photoset

Special!

2006-09-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

The Three Estates Renga

2006-06-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

Saturday the 17thJune 2006 sees the first of the 6 'Three Estates Renga - 100 verses for three estates' take place. Little Onion has been invited to be Master Poet for the piece. Not a walk but renga at 6 different locations through the 3 Estates across the 4 seasons from late Spring 2006 to early Spring 2007.

I find 'ren' / 'connection' between this piece and the Crossover UK Renewability project that Tomomi Iguchi is organising. An exploration, a kind of mapping of environments through the process of art of engagement.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE THREE ESTATES RENGA

Gerald England's Callander Haiku Hike

2006-06-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

Twelve poets gathered in the bookshop on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning for an introductory haiku session, before moving out for a circular walk around Callander

L-R: Margaret Gillies Brown, Ian Blake, Andy Robson, Elizabeth Rimmer, Gerry Singh and his wife, Sally Evans, Colin Will, Christine England, Maureen Weldon, Sally James.

PHOTO BY Gerald England

Margaret Gillies Brown wrote:
I thought I kind of knew about haiku but discovered there were certain aspects about them I didn't know, and Gerald England made it all so clear.

Sally Evans' haiku:

A crowd on Main Street
ice-cream melts
happy dogs

Maureen Weldon's haiku

High steeple bell;
Hill makes many bells;
Prayer wheel in the sky

Eileen Carney Hulme's haiku

last day of summer
poets loiter with intent
a garden of words

Gerald's haiku

train halted
across the Firth of Forth
Fife lies

book launch
passing ice-cream eaters
pause to look in

prodigal daughter
barbecues aubergines
blue smoke

how many bells?
low walls and distant hills
echo back

Ben Ledi
ignored by Munro-baggers
low mist

the pavement
is at war with the trees
roots are winning

[Christine England]

ducks ripple
through an alder's reflection
babies follow

on the cobblestones
of the riverside path
a white feather

Colin Will's haiku

church bells clang
in the busy street -
hills soften echoes

the poet reads
lavender wafts
in the sunshine

heat reflects
from wooden shed –
smell of old creosote

spruce trees
on top of the crag
a plain blue sky

hazy mountain -
a nearby tree
looks as high

rose hips
getting redder
on the rail route

dead conifer
brown against green -
this very dry season

level bowling green
a perfect square -
too hot to play

Christmas Shop
summer decorations
sell like hot cakes

tiny fish
all turn at once -
a hundred silver flashes

duck wakes
make a temporary grid
on the river

These can be linked to at POETRY SCOTLAND where they were originally posted. Take a look and see what's happening at this year's Callender Poetry Weekend 2nd to 4th of September 2006 and catch up on other poetry events in Scotland.

Gerald England is an internationally aclaimed poet who won the Ted Slade Prize For Services To Poetry in 2006 and has published many books and journals. GERALDS HOME PAGE

Colin Will is a Scottish poet and here is his Home Page

Sally Evan's 'Bewick Walks to Scotland'

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE

CROSSOVER UK

The Pilgrimage Tree

2006-06-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to 'The Pilgrimage Tree' a haibun series written on the Thorpe Acre Trail, Loughborough, UK during as part of the World Haiku Festival 2000. The festival was organised by the World Haiku Club and the Chairman of the WHC Susumu Takiguchi attended and took part in the walk along with other haijin. Walking and writing haiku on walks is a geat tradition and such walks are called 'ginko'.

THE PILGRIMAGE TREE
(click to link)

And Gerald England's page:
Thorpe Acre Trail

We encourage you to walk and look and see and share back your walks here at Haiku Hike.

Send your walks with pictures, videos if you have them too to:
Little.Onion@ntlworld.com

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE
CROSSOVER UK

an 'almost-tanka' - from a walk in school grounds

2006-06-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Children taken for a walk not somewhere new but in their own school grounds the Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, London UK. Encouraged to look with 'haikai-eyes'. Here's a 10 year old's first refelections:

sun shining on my eyes
like a devil taking over my body
like an ant getting eaten by a spider
the blue sky glimmering
in the sunlight

video made in the classroom after walking in the school grounds before any really formal editing of the work - fresh reactions - not haiku but has haiku-like fragments and phrases - fresh and lively - maybe we can get even more connection by looking at it without the use of 'like' - a move to more of a show rather than tell - lets look...

sun shining on my eyes
a devil taking over my body
an ant getting eaten by a spider
the blue sky glimmering
in the sunlight

whichever - a powerful set of feelings evoked by a walk in the playground a familiar place seen with new eyes

LO

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE

CROSSOVER UK

The Crow Walk

2006-06-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Alan Summers has been inspired by 'haiku hike' to revisit, update and share a favourite walk of his made some time ago now. His memories of the walk 'renewed' and shared with us here. Thank you Alan.

The Crow Walk
Australia

coarse grass curls
round my walking shoes
an ant enters my bag

the wind sways
part of a woven hat
once grass

a dragonfly hovers round a leaf drops heavily through branches
the day moves into that inbetween time

fading last note
torresian crow sounds
the darkening sky

woodfire
flickering in the light
distant horses

now under a black black sky stars more bright than I've ever seen
some seem to shift and move vibrate to suggest something more
last sighting on this travel of Jupiter above Venus

susurrus of moths
round fire that flickers on
like the night

it's cold now 3a.m. brittle cutting cold the moon's no longer full
this brutal simplicity of a night dark as a raven’s abode

a thin trail
to the stars
woodsmoke & embers

I see a lightening from dark to metal grey a quickening between trees
becomes a hurt violet into morning

early hours crow
I invoke a prayer
to its god and mine

a red sunrise
through pale blue
trees rekindling the fire

The Crow Walk ©Alan Summers 2006

(different earlier versions of the haibun text published in ‘Paper Wasp’ haiku journal, Queensland, Australia 1997; ‘Azami haiku journal’, Osaka, Japan 1998; and ‘Blithe Spirit’ British Haiku Society journal, June 2004.)

Images©Alan Summers2006

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE

CROSSOVER UK

'Siren Sound' - Arnhem Wharf, London, UK

2006-05-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

A Child taken for a short haiku walk in Arnhem Wharf Community Allotment

the pond the water skaters and sirens

Graveyard Walk

2006-05-30T05:21:00.000-07:00

Southampton, UK
May 2006

As someone who's poetry is completely bound up with walking the land I'm intrigued by your project, and would be interested to find out more.

Our graveyard walk took place on 13th May.

There were four of us: myself, my wife Robin Furth, Alison Williams and Alan Summers.

The walk took place on the Southampton Common, and took in the old graveyard there and which seemed to provide the most inspiration.

Myself: well, I live in the New Forest, go on long walks as often as possible, have always walked a lot, but the crucial relation of walking to my poetry didn't emerge until our 12 year stint living in the Maine woods... I'd be interested in getting involved in any projects bringing walking and poetry together...

in the graveyard
stone pages
printed with lichen

the weight of the bumblebee
draws down
the clover

rising from
the overgrown grave
the ant nest

up through the crack
in the fallen gravestone
fiddleheads unfurl

Mark Rutter
New Forest, UK

Photos: Alan Summers, Bristol, UK

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE
( find details of how to share your walks here)

CROSOVER UK

Rebecca’s Garden Ginko

2006-05-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

Austin Texas USA
Wednesday, May 17

Gray moons, blue
biscuit— gravel
snaps below our feet

the smell of mint!
a cat leaps
over the path

goldfish in the pond…
five slow gulps
then it’s gone

a rainy spring—
mosquitoes enjoy
the buffet

five different mugs
on benches, on the ground—
the meeting of friends

Melanie Alberts

This walk took place in a residential garden in Austin, Texas, USA. The owner is a potter...hence the reference to the "different mugs" she offered us.

Here is a bit about myself:

My poems have been published in small literary journals over the past 20 years. I serve on the board of the Story Circle Network and have written a non-linear, literary memoir. I will soon be leading haiku walks on a regular basis at the retreat center where she works as Event Coordinator. I livee in Austin, Texas with my British husband Chris and
son.

Thanks! I look forward to reading ku from other hikes around the world.

Please visit my blog:

http://widepathpoetry.blogspot.com

M.

HAIKU HIKE MAIN PAGE

CROSSOVER UK

2006-05-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

The Haiku-Hike

Tomomi Iguchi

Crossover UK

An interactive community project at London Olympic Development Site

Dates: Saturdays and Sundays from May – October 2006

Haiku is one of the Zen art practices, it is a Japanese short poem (composed of three sentences) that expressed our personal feeling and exposes our state of mind through the seasonal words from the daily life and nature. Haiku has humour and there is a delight in word play.

The Haiku – Hike is the contemporary Haiku poem project for the participation of the local community in east London. The environmental community in Japan will be invited to participate via the website. The walk will take place from Bow to London Olympic Development site past Three Mills and back to Bromley-by-Bow in East London. The records, images and ideas will then be selected for a community art project as a part of Renewability Exhibition at Mile End Park in October 2006. This activity is designed to inspire and stimulate feelings about the surrounding and constantly changing local environment.

We will use digitalised 3G mobile phone as a tool, which is the fast developing, popular personal communication technology for everyday life at present. This small and handy personal device is able to capture peoples feeling, to enable us to share our experience directly with the wide audience. It will provide immediate access to a digital facility as the creative documentation by transferring, optimizing, linking up between the physical and virtual environment. Instead of writing, drawing by analogue tool (pen and brush) such as people did in the past, participants from local community will have the opportunity to express their feelings to interact with the viewers from other partnership organizations through website www.crossover-uk.org.

Local artists who have already experienced mobile culture and Haiku poet Paul Conneally will create a Haiku project program by immediately capturing participant’s information as they walk with local residents in the East End of London. The Haiku-Hike will then reach a much wider audience virtually via website interaction.

Haiku-Hike will enable local people to understand and their community record the changes and transitions both physically and environmentally but also inform a world wide audience via website of new developments in our neighbourhood for the impact of the London Olympic games and their legacy via communication technology.

Haiku-Hike is being developed in partnership with local environmental organizations and leading educational institutions. We will also work closely with the Environment Trust to organise and plan routes for other Haiku-Hikes in the East End of London throughout the year, which will capture changes reflecting the different seasons through out the year.

Tomomi Iguchi

May 2006

We also invite you to send in haiku, video, images from your walks anywhere in the world. We'll show them at this site. Send them to little.onion@ntlworld.com - put 'haiku hike' in the subject line.

CROSSOVER UK