National Haiku Poetry Day

The Beats introduced the English-language haiku to much of America. What better place to celebrate the haiku poetry form than the Beat Museum! During National Poetry Month! The history of the Beat poets’ interest and experiments in haiku, and how the traces of their work manifests itself in poetry today will be provided. Notable Bay Area haiku poets will read their haiku poetry, and those in attendance will be able to read up to five haiku poems that they bring to the event.

Patrick Gallagher is a haiku poet, editor, and publisher. His interests and publications include literary history and theory. His haiku have appeared in many journals and collections. He is retired and lives in San Francisco.

Garry Gay is an internationally known haiku poet and has contributed leadership to the haiku poetry community. He is the most recent winner of the Haku Society of America’s annual Henderson Prize, for the best haiku poem published in the United States and Canada. He was a founder of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, Haiku North America, a semi-annual conference, and the Haiku Archives housed in the California State Library. Garry is a professional photographer and lives in Windsor.