When
I try to putdown my thoughts on paper by way of an official
report on the World Haiku Festival 2005 in Romania, it seems odd
that I should find myself using past tense. This memorable event
continues to be very much in the present tense in my mind.
Still, everything passes like the water of the River Danube. And
they say that all good things come to an end. However, my hope
is that the WHF2005 will live as unforgettable and fond memories
in people's heart and mind in the ever-present present tense and
will give birth to new haiku events and initiatives somewhere
else in the world.
It
was a daunting task to organise the WHF2005. However, it was
achieved in the end. Looking back, I am convinced that above
anything else, the enthusiasm and love for haiku helped us
organisers keep going and persevere hardships for over six
months. Each and every one of all those who contributed to its
organisation, including the participants, did his or her bit to
make it happen. So, my thanks go first and foremost to them.
Since the World Haiku Club (Chairman, Mr. Susumu Takiguchi) has
adopted a new policy in terms of the World Haiku
Festival. Starting with its inaugural year of 2000 when it was
launched in London and Oxford, World Haiku Festival is the
official name of the World Haiku Club under which important
world haiku meetings are held in different cities of the world.
Initially, these meetings were organised entirely by and for the
World Haiku Club. However, we began to organise some of the
World Haiku Festival events in association with other
organisations or devoted individuals. The WHF2003 was thus
organised in Holland by some devoted individuals, directed by
Milivoj Objedovic. Similar World Haiku Festivals took place in Japan and
Venice. This goes hand-in-hand with WHF meetings,
which continue to be directly organised by the World Haiku Club.
It
was under this new WHC policy that the World Haiku Festival 2005
in Romania was organised. The other organisations
involved were the Constantza Haiku Society (President, Ms. Laura
Vaceanu) and the Japanese Culture and Civilization Centre (JCCC).
I worked as WHC's Director of the WHF2005 as well as its World
Haiku Ambassador and Associate Director of WHChaikujunior.
However, I am also a member of the Constantza Haiku Society and
the founder (in 2002) of the Japanese Culture and Civilization
Centre. So, I am involved in all three of these organisations.
Therefore, this arrangement was ideal and worked wonderfully
well without any problem. As an umbrella organisation, the World
Haiku Club raised the profile and significance of the event
world-wide, providing the philosophy, expertise, publicity,
participants, skills and modus operandi that were
essential for organising such a large-scale haiku event. The
Constantza Haiku Society did a good job of mobilising Romanian
poets, who rallied behind the event. The Japanese Culture and
Civilization Centre has played a pivotal role in raising
people's awareness of and interest in Japan. I am thankful to
all these organisations. I enjoyed working with them.
It
was heartening that. before leaving Romania, all the participants expressed their
delight in the success of WHF2005,
followed by their letters of the same sentiment after
returning home. In my opinion, there are probably three main
achievements of the
WHF2005, as follows:
First, the
main theme of the WHF2005 was "Education and Haiku." We,
therefore, put a special emphasis on this issue in our campaign
for a successful festival. As a result, the contribution that
the WHF2005 made to haiku education became the most important
achievement. The campaign for a successful WHF2005
increased student and teacher interest in haiku considerably.
As a
highlight of these efforts, students who are members of the
Japanese Culture and Civilization Centre displayed an impressive
demonstration of what they had achieved. They presented their
writings to a large audience, after three years of
initiation into Japanese literature. On the third day of the
conference, students from Middle School No. 12, Dimitrie
Leonida High School and the Art High School of Constantza read their haiku
at the Public Library of Constantza. They presented some of their best haiku
written during lessons and workshops led by Ms. Laura Vaceanu and me. Also, the students of the Constantin Bratescu
High School performed an impressive drama consisting of old
Japanese love poems from waka. They had been tutored by
Ms. Luciana Crudu. Of special importance was the haiku reading
by Mr. Ion Codrescu's students from Nicolae Tonitza Middle
School.
At the
students' haiku reading, a group from the Japanese delegation
took us by surprise. They were members of the Meguro
International Haiku Circle led by Mr. Yasuomi Koganei, and
consisted of Mr. Yoshifumi Aga, Mr. Hideo Ebihara, Ms. Hajimu
Hirakita, Mr. Takashi Ikari, Mr. Kenichi Ikemoto, Mr. Shinya
Ogata, Ms. Masako Sasayama, Mr. Naoki Takei and Ms. Kazuko
Yokoyama. One by one they paraded onto the stage of the large
auditorium, showing us many nice gifts brought from Japan, ranging
from a map of Japan to books on Japanese culture. They made the generous gesture of donating
these gifts to the JCCC library,
which will make them ideal study materials. These excellent
books, magazines and other items will be available to
students, experienced or beginners, who are interested in
Japanese culture and literature. They are a most handsome
present, and I am most grateful to the group for their kind help
and thoughtfulness.
The
participants exchanged ideas and experiences in disseminating
haiku among children and young people. This was very useful for
the future of haiku education. For instance, Ms. Visnja
McMaster shared with us her enchanting method of teaching haiku
by using her game of "haiku cards".
Last but not
least, the Worldwide Haiga Competition for Students yielded
beautiful works that were exhibited in the lobby of the Public
Library. I never cease to be amazed that children do make
invaluable contributions with a fresh and intuitive approach to
the understanding of haiku. These haiga were testimony to it.
The winners' efforts were amply rewarded at the award ceremony
led by Mr. Ion Codrescu and Mr. Susumu Takiguchi, the two
judges.
Now, the
second achievement that I would like to record is the fact that
the WHF2005 proved to be not only a huge world haiku event for
the Romanian people, but it also meant a festival of seven days
of intensive promotion of Japanese culture and literature in
Romania. The event was written up beforehand in local
newspapers, and when it actually began, it enjoyed good coverage
in the press, including the cultural columns of national
dailies, and on TV. The press coverage has done a great deal to
increase Romanian awareness of haiku and related
genres, especially renku. They were given
much useful information by useful information about and
insight into this exotic form of poetry, and I am convinced
that as a result haiku is now not an exotic or strange poetry
but a familiar one. Needless to say, local newspapers were the
keenest observers, and they covered the WHF2005 programme
closely in their daily dispatches. One television company sent
their cameraman and a reporter to accompany the WHF2005 during
the whole seven days.
On the
television front, Ms. Kazuko Yokoyama and I were invited to the
studio of TV Neptun. Ms. Yokoyama outfitted me with a Japanese
kimono, which added to the excitement. Our interview was live and broadcast across the nation. In this interview, I
explained the importance of the fact that Romania was chosen to hold this highly esteemed World Haiku Festival
in 2005, and that
it was the seventh WHF since the first meeting in London and
Oxford, back in the year 2000. I had the honour to attend
WHF2000, which planted the seed in my head to one day
organise a WHF for Romania. This was good publicity for haiku. WHF2005
virtually became a national event. TV Neptun was filming the
WHF2005 all the time. They broadcast this documentary soon after
the WHF2005 ended. Such a privilege does not come easily. In
this instance, it was made possible through the good office and
kindness of TV Neptun's Chairman, Mr. Florin Orezeanu, who
appreciated the motives and aims of the WHF2005, and became keen
to tell the nation about it. The actual work was done by the
teamwork of Miss Claudia Obretin, the reporter, and Mr. Bogdan
Simion, the cameraman. The documentary shows, among other
things, the natural beauty of the Danube Delta and the
Carpathian Mountains. After the three-day haiku conference in
Constantza, we set off on a bus journey to these beautiful spots
for four days as the second part of
the WHF2005, mostly devoted to ginko trips.
To come back
to the subject of the haiku conference in Constantza: in addition to our
overseas participants we had over 60 Romanians attending WHF2005. This exceeded my best expectations, and was proof that
WHF2005 was taken seriously in Romania—and that there is an
increasing number of Romanian poets who have taken up haiku and
related genres. These Romanian participants were a rich mixture
of people: experienced haiku poets, Western-style writers
interested in haiku, school teachers and general fans of
Japanese culture.
The WHF2005
haiku conference in Constantza had something for everybody. For
beginners, these three days effectively constituted an intensive
course in poetry in general—and in haiku, in particular. For
overseas participants, it provided a God-sent window to get to
know how haiku was practiced in Romania and what Romanian haiku
poets aim to achieve. For the Romanians, on the other hand, it
provided a golden opportunity to get to know leading haiku poets
from different parts of the world and to be exposed to
high-quality talks and debate.
Space does
not allow me to elaborate on the excellent papers and
demonstrations that formed the core of the WHF2005. Some of
these will be introduced in this and future issues of
World
Haiku Review. Therefore, I will just mention the titles of
these papers and their authors to give you the flavour of the
high quality of discussion. Let me name them in the order of
their appearance in the WHF2005 programme:
[The first day] A
Romanian Answer to Haiku Poetry—The One-Verse Poem, by Mr. Vasile Moldovan;
Shall we dance? Shall we haiku? by Mr.
Yoshifumi Aga; Haiku and Topography by Mr. Hideo Ebihara; Season Words—Rain in Japan, by Mr. Takashi Ikari;
Haiku in Croatia, by Ms. Visnja McMaster; A Multicultural
Approach to Haiku Poetry, by Ms. Suncica Samec; The
Key-Note Speech on Fuga-no-Makoto, by Mr. Susumu Takiguchi.
[The second
day] The Importance of Renku Training for Today's Haiku
Poet, by Mr. Raffael de Gruttola;
Renku Poetry—A Challenge for Romanian Poets, by Mr. Serban
Codrin; Renku Uniting Nations, and the wonderful renku
session led by Mr. Tadashi Kondo; Four Dimensional Haiku,
by Mr. Yasuomi Koganei; A World Out of Balance and In
Balance: Urban and Nature Haiku, by Dr. Bruce Ross; Haiku
as a Therapy in Working with Children with Language Difficulties,
by Ms. Zrinka Simunovic; Teaching Haiku and Healing to
Psychotherapists, by Dr. Richard Schnell; the excellent
speech with observations on haiku by Mr. Kai Falkman; Women
Poets of the Basho Period, by Dr. Angelee Deodhar.
[The third
day] Beautiful computer haiga demonstration presented by Dr. Angelee Deodhar; Creative Activities for Students—Haiku-Haiga Anthology, by Mr. Ion Codrescu;
Haiku in
Education, by myself (Sonia Cristina Coman);
Haiku
Teaching Experience, by Laura Vaceanu; the fascinating
Japanese calligraphy demonstration performed by Mr. Susumu
Takiguchi.
I cannot
name all the papers and other activities, but I can assure you that
all of them were done well and proved useful to the participants. I hope our study of haiku and related genres made
some contribution to our further understanding and appreciation
of them.
Throughout the three days, the
participants had ample opportunities to become acquainted, make
friends and discuss their views through private conversations that took place during coffee and tea breaks, meals
and even after the conference. Therefore, lastly, as the third
achievement I wish to praise everybody for making the WHF2005
living proof that people of different cultural backgrounds and
worldviews can shake hands and manage to live together. During
the seven days of the WHF2005, we talked to each other, smiled
at each other and helped each other. Out in the Danube Delta and
up on the Carpathian Mountains we braved thunder storms
and torrential rain together, we survived scorching days
together, we had meals, drinks, projects and long
journeys together. What on earth is the link that brought us all
together to this particular point of friendship? It is haiku.
From a long-term point of view, this may well be the most
brilliant achievement. I would, therefore, like all of us to hope
that this marvellous link will become even more powerful and
unshakeable in the months and years to come. We will meet again!
