Our Roving Ambassador in Latvia

After a bit of sleuthing on the part of THF’s Roving Ambassador, Roberta Beary, aided by haiku poets from Lithuania and Poland, she was provided with the name of the Latvian-Romanian haiku poet Adrian Briedis-Macovei. Following an email exchange, the two agreed to meet in the library of the Hotel Neiburgs, in Riga’s historic center. There they had a lively discussion, touching on haiku-related subjects such as the work of Briedis-Macovei’s late father, the writer Leons Briedis. The father-and-son collaborative piece ‘The Lyrical Gemstone (Haiku in Latvian Poetry)’ (which appears in Chrysanthemum Issue #7) is highly recommended. Other talking points included past haiku conferences such as Haiku-in-Ghent (2010), and The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Registry application process. The Roving Ambassador delivered a Haiku Registry how-to demonstration for the benefit of Briedis-Macovei by searching its listings for poets who attended the Haiku-in-Ghent conference with him.

Submitted June 2023
Roberta Beary, THF Roving Ambassador