new members ALWAYS welcome
Our History
Southern California Haiku Study Group History – Compiled by Deborah P Kolodji
Our Mission
We value stewardship of nature around us and appreciation for the natural world from the smallest dew drop to the entire universe. We embrace poets of all cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. We believe that writers with diverse perspectives provide a bit of clarity to the world.
-Yvette Nicole Kolodji
The Southern California Haiku Study Group promotes and inspires appreciation for haiku and other related poetry forms. We honor and acknowledge the Japanese heritage of haiku through studying translations of Haiku masters and their historical relevance and importance while also bringing this beautiful poetic form to the modern and diverse society of southern California.
As an English language haiku community, we study the core features of haiku, kigo, a word that references a season, and kireji, a phrase or word that separates from the previous line or lines to provide juxtaposition and multiple interpretations.
As an organization we embrace the essence of kigo with drawing inspiration from seasonal changes and cultural events that occur in southern California such as spring’s California poppy blooms, West Hollywood’s Pride Parade, or the Los Angeles Book Fair; summer’s hot beaches, Hollywood bowl concerts, or Disneyland’s 4th of July fireworks; autumn’s Santa Ana winds, monarch butterfly migration, or wildfires; winter’s Mount Baldy’s snowy peek, Christmas Tree Lane, or the Rose Parade. We embrace and celebrate the cultural diversity and renowned beauty of southern California.
As an organization, we value stewardship of nature around us and appreciation for the natural world from the smallest dew drop to the entire universe. We embrace poets of all cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our organization fosters voices of different perspectives and experiences. We believe that writers with diverse perspectives enrich our world.
Our group believes that collaboration with different groups can spread the love of haiku to a greater audience. We believe that haiku has been misrepresented as just a syllabic poetic form but there is much, much more to this poetic art such as kigo, kireji, non-syllabic 3 liners, and even one-line haiku. Through workshops, writing exercises, presentations, and haiku events we believe we can educate and share poetry to Southern California and beyond.
Our members have been published in many haiku journals from around the world. We celebrate and share poetry in monthly meetings open to the public and annually in an anthology. Our anthologies are housed in the California State Library for all to enjoy. We hope to share our love of haiku with you.
Southern California Haiku Study Group 