Celebration Fortnight — Day 8

Each day during our celebration we will focus on a single aspect of the Foundation. Today John Stevenson supplies a short history of the Foundation’s efforts to promote renku online.

Our third season of renku sessions has just completed. It featured a Kasen (36 verse) Renku led by Marshall Hryciuk of Toronto, Canada. The entire text of A Day of Snow is now available and will remain available in THF Renku Archives. Previous sessions, also archived, included:
     • Pilgrims’ Stride, led by John Stevenson (2014) a Kasen Renku
     • Distant Melody, led by Sandra Simpson (2015) a Twelve Verse Renku
     • A Bowl of Cherries, led by Linda Papanicolaou (2015) a Triparshva (22 verse) Renku
Our intention, throughout, has been to encourage a wider interest in and appreciation for renku in English. To accomplish this, we have presented an array of formats and leadership styles and invited the active and open participation of any and all visitors to The Haiku Foundation’s web site. We feel that a good start has been made, as indicated by the works produced and the level of participation, which has been consistently high.
It is our hope that this progress will continue. It is a significant commitment of time and effort that is required of anyone who volunteers to lead one of these sessions. We are profoundly grateful to those who have offered this service and hope that we will hear from others who may be willing to lead a 2017 session. If you have renku composition experience (and everyone who has taken part in prior THF sessions does) and would like to try leading a session, please contact us and let us know. We will definitely be going forward with one or more 2017 sessions and hope to announce specific plans early in the new year.

Once a year we ask the haiku community to help us meet our financial challenges. We reserve the period from Thanksgiving through St. Nicholas Day, the time our culture has has set aside to note our many blessings and show our appreciation. Thank you to those of you who have already contributed. If you have not done so yet, please take this opportunity to help us continue our work — details on our donation page. Again this year we have the support of an anonymous angel who will double your donations — for every dollar you commit, the Foundation receives $2. Please help us make the most of this generous offer, and thanks in advance for your support of The Haiku Foundation, and of haiku itself. We wish you a most happy holiday season.