|
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
|