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~ Search for the Golden Boomerang ~
— or — Not Finding Australian Kigo by John Bird A failed attempt to identify Australian season words A few Australians might remember the wonderful ABC radio serial, Search for the Golden Boomerang, a seemingly endless quest that enriched my boyhood. It carries parallels to my search after kigo. This is its narrative. In 2001, frustrated with trying to apply Japanese kigo to this hemisphere and continent I began researching potential Australian kigo/season words. I carefully reviewed haiku written by Australians and sought suggestions from both haijin and those unfamiliar with haiku. I was surprised to find only a handful of seasonal designators valid for all of Australia; most of these were events in human affairs such as Australia Day, Anzac Day, Melbourne Cup. I abandoned the project in favour of finding seasonal indicators for the region in which I live. Prospecting for regional season words I have been writing haiku in this region since 1997. For three years my mother and I held weekly ginko in the Brunswick Valley. See: the region: its season words and sample haiku In 2005 a regional haiku group, Cloudcatchers, was formed. It's object was not specifically to identify and use regional season words but the group has met four times per year, once in each season, for each of the last four years. Meetings take the form of a ginko with subsequent on-line workshopping of the best haiku. The members’ haiku output is widely published and respected; their attitudes to seasonality, are instructive. Certain conclusions are unavoidable: Regional season indicators are available, at least more so than on a national scale. However poets are not interested in formalising or codifying these indicators of season. Cloudcatcher poets write about nature as they experience it there and then; if their haiku’s context conveys the season then fine; if not, that’s usually fine too. They feel no obligation to indicate the season in which they write. If they feel their haiku needs an indication of season, or they wish to make the season clear to readers outside their region, then they will probably use the season name ("Spring" etc). They would eschew haiku written as if made in a season other than the current one. As a result of these experiences and further study, I revised my whole approach to kigo and seasonal references in Australia. This coincided with the launch in 2006 of the Haiku Dreaming Australia project Rethinking kigo and seasonal words I formed Haiku Dreaming Australia in reaction to a perceived loss of Australian identity arising from the homogenisation of world haiku written in English. This project dovetails with my abandoning the search for Australian kigo, a step no less painful that when I abandoned my childhood search for The Golden Boomerang. In the short essays of Haiku Dreaming Australia I look at how we Australians might reconcile our 'Australian haiku' with that of a world which largely embraces kigo, and I consider alternatives to kigo that might bring depth and resonance to our poems. ....... John Bird Last updated: September, 2009
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