About Haiku Poets of Northern California HPNC was formed in 1989 to further the writing, study, and appreciation of haiku and related genres of poetry written in English, which now include senryu, renku, rengay, tanka, and haibun. We hold meetings, sponsor readings, and publish haiku books with our own imprint, Two Autumns Press. Though most of our members live in the San Francisco and Northern California area, membership is open to anyone with an interest in haiku. HPNC's members include both new and established writers, many of whom have had their work published in journals and anthologies throughout the world. We also welcome beginners. HPNC publishes a quarterly newsletter, as well as Mariposa, a twice-yearly journal of haiku and related poetry, and also publishes occasional anthologies of haiku and senryu by members. We also hold annual contests for haiku, senryu, tanka, and rengay. You can see some of the recent Haiku Competition winners at the bottom of this page.

Meetings and Events: HPNC holds four quarterly meeting each year, usually at Fort Mason in San Francisco ( click here for directions to our meeting location ). We usually hold our meetings on the third Sunday of every third month, starting in January. These meetings usually consist of a featured reader, a featured presentation or workshop related to haiku, rounds of open readings of haiku and tanka, news and announcements, socialization and refreshments, and book tables for the sale and purchase of HPNC and other books (bring your own publications if you have some to sell). Everyone is welcome at no charge. You are invited to read your poems if you wish, and to participate in discussions and workshop activities, or to just listen. Whether you're new to haiku or a seasoned writer, you'll find something to benefit you at HPNC's quarterly meetings. In addition to those meetings HPNC also sponsors a special event featuring four of its members who present haiku at the annual Two Autumns Series at Fort Mason. For this year, HPNC's main events are listed below. 2009 Past Calendar January 11, 2009: This date is for HPNC's annual planning meeting. We will meet at 1:00 p.m. at the Roundtable Pizza Restaurant (1503 Northpoint St., behind the Marina Safeway) to plan the agenda for 2009. All members are invited to come and make suggestions for the coming year: featured readers, featured programs, Two Autumns readers and your wish list for HPNC. Plan to stick around for pizza and yakking after we have concluded the business part of our meeting. January 18, 2009: HPNC's regular quarterly meeting will be held in Building C, Room 235 from 1:00-5:00 p.m. John Thompson and Gary Gay will be the featured readers and there will be discussion regarding the Rengay form as well as a round of reading. March 1st, Sunday, 2009: There will be a special meeting at Fort Mason, Building C, Room 235 at 1:00 p.m. George Swede and Anita Krumins, the editor and assistant editor of Frogpond (the journal of the Haiku Society of America) will be visiting the Bay Area and are eager to meet with fellow haiku poets. George and Anita have offered to do a Q & A regarding the editing, layout, design and production of Frogpond. In addition, George (a highly respected and widely published haiku poet) will give a reading of some of his latest work. They will have just returned from New Zealand and will be happy to fill us in on the goings-on among New Zealand haiku poets. We hope you can all be there. April 11, 2009, Saturday. Japanese Poetry & Music at the Redwood Coast Whale and Jazz Festival at 7:30pm in Gualala, on the northern Sonoma County coast. HPNC Members Renée Owen will perform her haibun to Brian Foster's shakuhachi flute & Linda Galloway will translate Mariko Kitakubo's Japanese tanka performance. Other performances include Don McLeod, dancing an original butoh theatre piece to Jane Reichold's translations of Basho's haiku and musicians Shirley Muramoto on the koto and Karl Young on the shakuhachi. For more information see the following site: http://www.gualalaarts.org/ , or to see the complete program of the event, go to http://tobaccoroadpoet.blogspot.com/2009/03/gualala-arts-2009-whale-jazz-festival.html. 2009 Upcoming Calendar May 3rd, 2009, Sunday: The 4th Annual Moon Viewing Party, for details please contact Susan Antolin May 9th, 2009, Saturday, from 1:30 to 4:30, HPNC members Roger Abe, Ebba Story, Rich Krivcher and Linda Galloway read at the San Jose Japanese Friendship Garden Tea House, 1490 Senter Road, San Jose. See the Yuki Teikei web site: http://www.youngleaves.org July 19th, 2009, Sunday: HPNC's regular quarterly meeting will be held in Building C, Room 235 from 1:00-5:00 p.m. The featured reader will be Renee Owen, accompanied by her husband Brian Foster, on shakuhachi flute. September 13th, 2009, Sunday: This is the 20th anniversary of HPNC's premier annual event, the Two Autumns Reading. This year our readers will be Gary Gay, Carolyn Hall, David Grayson and Michael Dylan Welch. Please do join us in celebrating poetry and its presentation at the longest running Haiku Reading series in North America. Submissions for Mariposa: Mariposa is the semiannual journal of the members of HPNC. Only work by current members can be considered for publication. The in-hand submission deadline for the Spring/Summer issue of Mariposa is March 1st and for the Fall/Winter issue September 1st.  Postal submissions must include an SASE or e-mail address for acceptance decisions. We encourage e-mail submissions. Poems from any season are accepted for each issue. haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun, short linked verse, and brief articles (50-400 words) focusing on one aspect of haiku practice are welcome. Also line and gray-shade artwork and photographs suitable for reproduction within our 6 inch high by 4 1/2 inch wide perimeters is encouraged. All submissions must be unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere. Contest-winning poems which have not been published in a book or journal will gladly be considered. Submission review begins one month before the deadline and no acceptance decision letters are mailed until all submissions have been received and reviewed. The editor usually responds to submissions by the third week of the month after the deadline. Please note: Although Sue Antolin filled in for Ebba Story on the Fall/Winter issue, submissions for the Spring/Summer issue should be sent to Ebba Storey. Postal submissions should be sent to: 478 Guerrero Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 or email to: ebbastory@juno.com. Books For Sale, HPNC fundraiser: HPNC has books for sale to help fund our activities. You can find the list of available books here: HPNC Book Offers . To arrange your purchases contact Renee Owen, reneeowen@sbcglobal.net. Please be advised that you should put "HPNC Book Sales " in your email's subject line. If you are purchasing a single book by mail, enclose $1.50 for postage; if you use a check to pay for postage pleases make that payable to Renee Owen; checks for books should be made payable to HPNC. To purchase more than one book, contact Renee to determine postage necessary. We have various books by Two Autumn's Press still available as well as back issues of Mariposa, member's anthologies and the annual Two Autumn's chapbooks.  The 2009 San Francisco International Competition: The guidelines for the 2009 competition have been posted: HPNC's 2009 Competition! If you'd like to see the kind of haiku we enjoy you can look at the winning entries for the last few years, just click here

To Join HPNC To join HPNC, you may use our membership application form. Membership dues are $15.00 per year and entitle you to four quarterly newsletters plus two issues of Mariposa. All events are free to both members and nonmembers, but we do pass the hat to help defray rental costs at each meeting (such contributions are welcome but entirely optional). Then again, you could come to our next meeting or event with a check or money order payable in U.S. funds to "HPNC " (but you're welcome to attend without joining if you wish). Please note that HPNC is a volunteer, not-for-profit organization. Your contributions are encouraged. Join us today!

HPNC Officers as of 2009 President: Garry Gay photogarry@aol.com Vice President: David Grayson david_grayson@yahoo.com Treasurer: Paul Miller: pauldmiller@fctvplus.net 31 Seal Island Road Bristol, RI 02809 Membership Secretary: Carolyn Hall, carolynhall.sf@gmail.com Recording Secretary: Paul Williams .powms35@sbcglobal.net Hospitality Chair: Michael Sheffield mscoach@sonic.net Newsletter Editor: Susan Antolin susantolin@gmail.com Mariposa Editor: Ebba Storey ebbastory@juno.com Book Sales: Renee Owen .reneeowen@sbcglobal.net Web page: Dan Brady creative1@creativeideasforyou.com

........spring cleaning ........moving the dust ........from one season to another     ......David Grayson .....Chimes Award winner, 2007

Comments Welcome! Thanks for visiting the HPNC Web site. We'll be adding to the site periodically, so please visit again. If you have any comments or suggestions, contact Dan Brady Thanks! When writing Dan please put HPNC in the subject line of the email.   An archival photo of HPNC folks... a friendly bunch if ever there was one!

Additional Resources The Central Valley Haiku Club invites HPNC members to their website. The link is here: http://www.valleyhaiku.org/ For information about the Haiku Society of America, please visit http://www.hsa-haiku.org/ For information about the Yuki Teikei Society, which also meets in the San Francisco Bay Area, please visit www.youngleaves.org. For links to other haiku sites, please visit the Open Directory site for haiku and related forms at www.dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Poetry/Forms/Haiku_and_Related_Forms/, For information about the Haiku North America conference, please visit www.haiku-north-america-2003.org/.. Other resources: Mortgage Lender

Haiku competition winners from 2000:   1st Place: Carolyn Hall, San Francisco, CA   wildfire the thermometer climbs all night   2nd Place: Timothy Russell, Toronto, OH   morning rain - an egg for my father spreads in the skillet   3rd Place: Paul M., San Francisco, CA   pear slice falling to the kitchen floor pale moonlight     Haiku competition winners from 2002:   1st Place: John Stevenson, Ithaca, NY   new snow the arc the door makes   2nd Place: Ernest Berry , Picton, New Zealand   overnight rain a reflection by the runway levitates   3rd Place: Anne LB Davidson, Saco, ME   tree-filled swamp the silent air its own shade of green     Haiku competition winners from 2004:   1st Place: Beverly A. Tift, New Haven, CT   old steeple a turban of pigeons unwinds the hour   2nd Place: D. Claire Gallagher, Sunnyvale, California   sunflowers the tube of cadmium yellow squeezed flat   3rd Place: Ernest Berry , Picton, New Zealand   .....spring rain the chameleon busy .....being green     Haiku competition winners from 2006:   1st Place: Earl Keener, Bethany, West Virginia   mackerel sky the final wave before you board   2nd Place: Claire Gallagher, Sunnyvale, California   Hiroshima Day cigarette-pack cellophane uncrumpling   3rd Place: Margaret Chula, Portland, Oregon   end of summer my garden one wheelbarrow   Haiku competition winners from 2008:   1st Place: Natalia L. Rudychev, aka Liao   the heart drawn in snow still falling   2nd Place: Susan Antolin   and so I agree not to die before she does the sound of crickets   3rd Place: Linda Galloway   water thrush ... as if time never visited here

Haiku competition winners from 2001:   1st Place, D. Claire Gallagher, Sunnyvale, CA   redwood shade a banana slug eating - my worries   2nd Place: Ernest J. Berry, Picton, New Zealand   desert heat the lizard disappears into a snake   3rd Place: Karina Young, Salinas, CA   Twin towers and yet the morning glory blooms      Haiku competition winners from 2003:   1st Place: Laurie W. Stoelting, Mill Valley, CA   a phoebe's erratic flight this canoe trip won't settle anything   2nd Place: Christopher Herold, Port Townsend, WA   autumn sunset the wake of a tugboat sloshes ashore   3rd Place: W.F. Owen, Antelope, CA   Indian summer rust on our hands from the swing     Haiku competition winners from 2005:   1st Place: Carolyn Hall, San Francisco, California   autumn dusk - a word that will do for the one I can't find   2nd Place: Ernest J. Berry, Picton New Zealand   contractions - the darkness between stars   3rd Place, Carolyn Hall, San Francisco, California   a rack of antlers nailed to the gatepost lingering heat      Haiku competition winners from 2007:   1st Place: Ernest J. Berry, Picton New Zealand   .....summer one bumblebee deepens the hum   2nd Place: Claire Gallagher, Sunnyvale, California   weathered bench - I open my palms to the winter sky   3rd Place: Claire Gallagher, Sunnyvale, California   hollow center of the raspberry - Mother's silence