Haiku Down Under 2024: A Sensory Journey

The second Haiku Down Under conference was held via Zoom from 16-18 August 2024. Congratulations to the organising team for putting on such a successful event.

The theme for this year’s conference was A Sensory Journey. Two presentations on exactly this theme were Going in Blind by Sandra Simpson from New Zealand and Five Senses . . . Or More? by Marietta McGregor from Australia.

A haiku reflects our perception of a moment. In this context, Sandra quotes Scott Mason from his book, The Wonder Code (Girasole Press, 2017), who said:

When the record of such an instant includes a vivid sensory impression, the reader will often feel ‘I am there’ . . .

Clearly, being alert to our how we perceive the world is essential for a haiku poet. The five basic senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are the starting point. Here are two haiku from Sandra’s presentation which show how a single poem can be enriched through combining more than one sense, or through the intertwining of senses.

the softness
of lamb’s ears
garden for the blind

(André Surridge)

rainforest hike
the damp silence
underfoot

(Glenys Ferguson)

Sandra and Marietta both pointed out that we perceive the world around us using more than the five basic senses. Sandra noted, for example, our ability to sense temperature, pain, balance and time – all of which can be captured in haiku.

heat wave —
holding the soft part of my wrist
under the tap

(Sandra Simpson)

Marietta explained our capacity for proprioception where sensors in our muscles provide awareness of our balance and position, thereby enabling us to control the location of our body in space.

barefoot
the Earth
pushes back

(Bill Kenney)

Marietta also introduced us to the term ‘synaesthesia’ where, for some people, the stimulus of one sense triggers a response from another sense. For example, a person’s brain might respond to a particular sound by seeing a certain colour. This ‘crossing over’ of senses can lead to some intriguing haiku.

the sea darkens
and a wild duck’s call
is faintly white

(Matsuo Bashō)

mullet splash
glimpsing the sound
too late

(Jan Dobb)

autumn alone
the steel-grey whistle
of a night train

(Marietta McGregor)

A Sensory Journey was indeed an appropriate theme for a conference about haiku, and I’m sure the contributions from Sandra and Marietta will enable those who attended to write haiku that elicit a strong sensory response from the reader.

The conference program as a whole offered presentations on a range of subjects including haiku and art, haiku and music, haiku and zen/mindfulness, editing haiku and presenting haiku. Those who participated will be looking forward to another Haiku Down Under conference in two years’ time.