As I mentioned in this morning’s update to my posting on the Haiku Society of America’s annual meeting in Rochester, NY, I had the great pleasure yesterday of meeting Sarah Painting at last night’s haiku-sharing session. Sarah is the nine-year-old daughter of f/k/a‘s Honored Guest Poet Tom Painting, of Rochester. She read five of her poems to the assembled audience of haiku poets and charmed us all. This morning, she accompanied her dad, when he led seven other haiku poets on a ginko (a haiku-inspiring walk or tour) at the spectacular Mt. Hope Cemetery (more from wikipedia), and was kind enough to say that I could share two of her poems with f/k/a‘s audience. Here are two that I first heard last night:
summer evening
a hot dog smell
on the breeze
.
.
funeral home
a girl comforts
her mom’s cry……………………………. by sarah painting (9-years old, Rochester, NY, 2007)
Watching her interact with her father (who teaches creative writing at the Rochester School for the Arts), it was clear that her poems are her own, with Tom asking [non-leading] questions that allow Sarah to think about the content and form of the poems she creates — while encouraging her love of the genre and the process of writing. Sarah also indicated that she may want to enter the world of haiku publishing and editing herself. She asked each of the ginko participants to send her a poem (either inspired by today’s walk or previously written), and has offered to put them into a small “chapbook” that will be produced and sent to each of us. A great offer and an excellent memento of our excellent end-of-summer haiku walk. So, when we hear the name Painting and haiku in the same sentence, we’ll all be asking “Tom or Sarah?”
p.s. Jerome Cushman and Michael Ketchek of the Rochester Area Haiku Group were the judges for this year’s Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku Competition, which is a contest from HSA for students in grades 7 through 12. Click the link to see the quality haiku from kids just a few of years older than Sarah.
update (June 3, 2008): See “good haiku by kids” for two more pomes by Sarah.