Haiku Workshop

MISSION STATEMENT: We connect people to each other, themselves and their environment through the ancient Japanese art of Haiku.

Before the shelter in place came to Pittsburgh on March 23, the first Haiku Happiness Zoom Party had already taken place in collaboration with The Incline.  That first event provided an opportunity for 20 people to discuss their concerns and fears surrounding the pandemic.  You can read the resulting Haiku here.

The next event, two weeks later, was in celebration of National Poetry Month. The group drew inspiration from a painting by local artist Frank Harris and created a collaborative multi-stanza Haiku (you can see it below in the photo slide show of all the art we've done).

By the middle of April, it was clear that it would be beneficial to continue talking about what everyone was going through with the enormous changes and adjustments brought on by COVID. 

The unique aspect of what we do is that each line is written by a different person so every Haiku has three authors! These  multi-stanza collaborative Haiku,  called Ku-Ren, are poetic nuggets that are sometimes funny, other times thoughtful, but always reflect how collectively we’re experiencing and processing these very strange times. 

We even played in the world of Ekphrastic Art, writing collaborative Haiku about amazing pieces done by both modern and historic artists. Inspired by pieces from incredible artists like James Simon, Jacob Lawrence, Mary Cassat, Harper Henry and Ashley Longshore, we wrote Ku-Ren about the art, then I took the words and designed a new piece of art using the original work. 

I turned the first month of collaborative COVID Haiku into art that was shown at the Corona Crafted Art Show in September 2020 and in January of 2021, three of our Haiku about navigating the pandemic went up on bus stop shelters around Pittsburgh thanks to Awesome Pittsburgh. These were followed by two more thanks to support from a GoFund me campaign.  We also won Best Art Gallery at Pittsburgh Fringe in 2021 for our collection. 

Although we don't meet as regularly now,  the Collective still occasionally gets together to document the emotions and reactions around the world we live in.  Currently, we have over 200 collaborative Haiku.