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WORLD
HAIKU
FESTIVAL THE
WORLD HAIKU CLUB: Central Website: http://www.worldhaikuclub.org PRESS
RELEASE Epilogue
to World Haiku Festival 2000 & Advent of JAPAN 2001 The
World Haiku Club (WHC) is pleased to announce our three-day major haiku event to
be held in London and on the Internet this month. “Epilogue to World Haiku
Festival 2000 & Advent of JAPAN 2001” marks the finale of this five-year
marathon haiku project, which has made history in the development of haiku on
the world stage. The event also marks the start of WHC’s various activities
under the banner of JAPAN 2001, a year-long celebration and festival of Japanese
arts and culture, sponsored by the Japanese and British Governments. After May,
World Haiku Festival 2000 will become simply “World Haiku Festival” and will
be continued as a permanent fixture of WHC world-wide. Under
WHF2000, numerous haiku and haiku-related events have taken place and
become a source of joy, educational initiatives and poetic inspiration,
with the highlight being last August’s historical six-day London-Oxford
Conference. Its developments in cyberspace with a quality website, active
mailing lists, Internet kukai and competitions have been phenomenal. WHC has
become a virtual and real world-wide network of haiku poets and organisations in
all corners of this planet. Epilogue
to World Haiku Festival 2000 & Advent of JAPAN 2001 Sat
19 and Sun 20 May 2001 (Ginko=haiku walk in Hyde Park, London and its environs
& kukai=haiku meeting; also WHC’s 48-hour simultaneous world-wide Internet
Kukai, see WHC website for details) Open
to the public. No participation fees. The WHC world-wide Internet Kukai: open
for 48 hours. For
two days, JAPAN2001’s “Matsuri
- Japan in the Park” will be performed from 10 am to 8 pm on the North East
side of Hyde Park. So, start your ginko on your own or with your friends any
time from 9 am onwards in and around Hyde Park (e.g. London streets, St. James’s
Park or Kensington Gardens). It is recommended to write haiku about the Matsuri
as well. We
then assemble at 12.00 noon at the New World Chinese restaurant and have our
kukai over lunch (on a “go Dutch” basis): 1 Gerrard Place, London W1V, Tel:
020 7434 2508/0677/0396. After
lunch, we go back to the Matsuri in Hyde Park, do more ginko and enjoy the
performances of the Matsuri. From
6 pm onwards, people can “drop in” at the nearby Hotel Inter-Continental
(Ground floor: Observatory and/or Le Soufflé
Bar) where we continue our kukai over a drink or a light meal on a “go Dutch”
basis. Send
your haiku poems by Friday 25 May to the Head Office of the World Haiku Club
(see letterhead). Monday
21 May 2001 By
invitation only. No participation fees. The
year 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Masaoka Shiki (according
to Japanese calculations), providing an apt opportunity to study and reassess
this father of modern haiku. The Conference aims at exercising critical
reappraisal in the area of haiku which Shiki reformed and modernised in order to
elevate it to the status of "literature", a new notion imported from
the West during the Meiji era. As haiku has now spread across the world, the
Conference will look at Shiki's achievements from the perspective of world
literary history. Shiki
was one of the most influential figures in modern Japanese literature and
certainly one of the most prolific writers of his time. His disease, however,
crippled him and cut short his life when he was only 35 years old. Venue:
SOAS, University of London, Brunei Building Room B102, 10 Thornhaugh Street,
London WC1H, nearest tube: Russell Square Registration:
9.00 am Morning
session: 9.30 am - 12.00 pm Afternoon
session: 14.00 pm - 17.00 pm Evening
Reception:
18.30 pm - 20.30 pm Papers
will cover various aspects of Shiki, including his haiku modernisation and
reform, critique on his own haiku poems, his influence on his followers and some
personal views about him. The main speaker will be Professor Katsushi Wada, a
leading scholar on Shiki, of Osaka Seikei Women’s College, Japan, who will
make a special visit to this Conference on a Japan Foundation’s scholarship. Asked about the significance of the three-day London event, Mr. Susumu Takiguchi, Chairman of The World Haiku Club and the organiser of the event, commented: It is significant, because it will be the bridge between the World Haiku Festival 2000, which is a one-off project, and the lasting values and continuous activities which the World Haiku Club has come to represent on the long path of world haiku movement. It will also be a bridge between Japanese and non-Japanese haiku poets. For further information and/or invitation, please contact Head Office, The World Haiku Club (see letterhead. THE
WORLD HAIKU CLUB: World
Haiku Festival: Patrons, His Excellency Mr. Sadayuki Hayashi, Japanese
Ambassador; Sir Peter Parker,
KBE LVO Supporting
Organisations: Poetry
Society, Global Haiku Festival, Haiku Society of America, Modern Haiku
Association of Japan, Haiku North America, Oxford Brookes University, National
Poetry Day, Ehime-Ken Matsuyama Declaration, Gunma Prefectural Museum of
Literature, Constantza Haiku
Society-Romania, Association of
Croatian Haiku Poets, Obayashi
Seisakusho, Japan Festival Education Trust, Barbican Centre, British Library,
SOAS, Donnington Grove Society, Embassy
of Japan, BBC, Great
Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Japan Foundation, Japan Society, Daiwa
Anglo-Japanese Foundation
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