ukiaHaiku Festival this Sunday

ukiaHaiku festival features winning
poems and taiko drumming


Sunday, April 18, Ukiah Civic Center, 1:30-4 p.m.


early spring--
ukiah sprouts
haiku and taiko


Suspense is building with the approach of the Eighth Annual ukiaHaiku Festival and Awards Ceremony. The poems have been written and submitted, the judges have made their decisions, and the best is yet to come: the opportunity for the community to spend an afternoon basking in the haiku form of poetry. The ukiaHaiku festival and Awards Ceremony will take place on Sunday, April 18, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at the Ukiah Civic Center at 300 Seminary Avenue. The thunderous sounds of Yokayo Taiko will drum the festival to life beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the courtyard by the fountain; the indoor ceremony will begin at 2 p.m.


Taiko drumming is a poetically perfect way to usher in a haiku festival because both haiku and taiko are art forms that originated in Japan. "Taiko" is actually the Japanese word for drum, but in North America it also refers to ensemble drumming using Japanese drums. The eleven members of the Yokayo Taiko ensemble, directed by Jennifer Ung, will perform "Taiko Train", "Renshu" (Practice), "Hiryu Sandan Gaeshi and Isamigoma" (Leaping Dragon and Brave Horse), and "Iwai" (Celebration), written by Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan. Poets and audience members are encouraged to arrive early to experience the spine-tingling drumbeats of Yokayo Taiko. (Rain will cancel the drumming because it would damage the drums).


The indoor portion of the program will begin at 2 p.m. with brief remarks by Mayor Benj Thomas and Poet Laureate Theresa Whitehill. Winning poets from age 6 to 66+ will then read their poems aloud to an appreciative audience and receive their awards. A reception with refreshments will follow, during which audience members will have the opportunity to scan many of the fine poems that did not make the final cut and learn more about the Japanese art of origami, or paper folding. A booklet of winning poems will be on sale before and after the ceremony.


The 2,362 entries to the competition set an all-time record this year, up from 1,581 entries in 2009. The Poet Laureate Committee's new emphasis on local poets meant that the majority of the entries came from Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, and Sonoma Counties. A significant number of poems were submitted in Spanish, and students from twenty Mendocino and Sonoma County schools participated. Submissions to the Jane Reichhold International Prize Category arrived from ten states, ten countries, and four continents. Poets from Australia, Denmark, Ghana, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, and England entered the competition. Ukiah's little haiku festival is on the map!


The 2010 ukiaHaiku festival wishes to thank the sponsors who have made it all possible. Sponsorship for 2010 includes a grant from the Measure X Transient Occupancy Tax Funds, City of Ukiah, along with: Haiku Vineyards; Susan Sparrow and Hal Zina Bennett of Tenacity Press; OCO Time Restaurant; Mendocino Book Company; Mulligan Books; Leaves of Grass Bookstore; Taka Japanese Grill; Copperfield's Books, Healdsburg; CGC Website Designs; Yokayo Taiko; and UFO (Ukiah Folding Organization). The 8th Annual festival has been produced by The Poet Laureate Committee of Ukiah, Grace Hudson Museum, City of Ukiah, Ukiah Branch Library, Nine Trees Design, Ukiah High School, Writers Read, Colored Horse Studios, and Marianchild Writing & Publicity.


Please note that the venue for the festival has changed from previous years. To reach the Ukiah Civic Center take the Perkins Street off-ramp from Hwy 101. Go west to State Street and turn left. Seminary Avenue is the third street on the right. The festival is free to the public. For more information about the haiku festival please go to www.ukiahaiku.org. For more information about Yokayo Taiko please go to www.yokayotaiko.org.

Kate Marianchild

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 18, 2008

“Scientists find universe awash in tiny diamonds”*

Pat Mayne Ellis

But haven’t we always known?

The shimmer of trees, the shaking of flames

every cloud lined with something

clean water sings

right to the belly

scouring us with its purity

it too is awash with diamonds

“so small that trillions could rest

on the head of a pin”

It is not unwise then to say

that the air is hung close with diamonds

that we breathe diamond

our lungs hoarding, exchanging

our blood sowing them rich and thick

along every course it takes

Does this explain

why some of us are so hard

why some of us shine

why we are all precious

that we are awash in creation

spumed with diamonds

shot through with beauty

that survived the deaths of stars

*quotations found in a newspaper clipping on the subject

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Poetry Month – April 18, 2008

SONNET

Robert Haas

A man talking to his ex-wife on the phone.

He has loved her boice and listens with attention

to every modulation of its tone. Knowing

it intimately. Not knowing what he wants

from the sounds of it, from the tendered civility.

He studies, out the window, the seed shapes

Of the broken pods of ornamental trees.

The kind that grow in everyone’s garden, that no one

But horticulturists can name. Four arched chambers

of pale green, tiny vegetal proscenium arches,

a pair of black tapering seeds bedded in each chamber.

A wish geometry, miniature, Indian or Persian,

lovers or gods in their apartments. Outside, white,

patient animals, and tangled vines, and rain.

Poetry for April 18, 2007

Willits Library National Poetry Month AND National Library Week Poem of the Day for April 18, 2007 – with thanks to all our Friends of the Library Book Sale Volunteers!

Edward H. Anderson

Four Quatrains for the Ex-Library Copy

O, thou rubbed, sunned, and smudged relic!

Thou marked, worn, time-spoiled tome!

Thy bent spine, frayed corners, ugly scribbles

But more endear thee to me in thy new home!

Safe from further stains and ravages,

No more shall thy past grandeur fade.

Though ignominiously stamped with “DISCARDED,’

Thou’rt well worth the quarter I paid!

Now enshrined on my safeguarding bookshelf,

Though thou’rt nicked, scuffed, creased, and quite torn –

Thy ex-libris smell I quite savor –

And now canst thy spirit be reborn.

Ne’er more shall numerous dirty fingers,

Tear thy endpages, buckram cover, and soul!

Here close to my heart dwellst thou forever,

Though of thee Time hath taken Her toll.

Poem of the Day – Ukiah Library

Workday

Linda Hogan

I go to work

though there are those who were missing today

from their homes.

I ride the bus

and do not think of children without food

or how my sisters are chained to prison beds.

I go the university

and out for lunch

and listen to the higher-ups

tell me all they have read

about Indians

and how to analyze this poem.

They know us

better than we know ourselves.

I ride the bus home

and sit behind the driver.

We talk about the weather

and not enough exercise.

I don’t mention Victor Jara’s mutilated hands

or men next door

in exile

or my own family’s grief over the lost child.

When I get off the bus

I look back at the light in the windows

and the heads bent

and how the women are all alone

in each seat

framed in the windows

and the men are coming home;

then I see them walking on the Avenue

the beautiful feet,

the perfect legs

even with their spider veins

the broken knees

with pins in them;

the thighs with their cravings,

the pelvis

and small back

with its soft down

the should which bend forward

and forward and forward

to protect the heart from pain.