Who are...
THE HAIKU POETS
OF CENTRAL MARYLAND

On August 4, 2004, Elizabeth Fanto and Cathy Drinkwater Better
(Walker) founded a new haiku group, the Haiku Poets of
Central Maryland (HPCM), to fill the growing need for a local
group serving haiku poets living in the Greater Baltimore metro
area and surrounding counties.

The Haiku Poets of Central Maryland has not been formed in
competition with, nor to supplant, any other regional haiku group,
but to augment other groups for the benefit of those interested in
writing and sharing haiku. The sole purpose of the Haiku Poets of
Central Maryland is to foster and promote the art and enjoyment
of haiku in the Central Maryland area. Meetings are held
bimonthly, and HPCM also sponsors modest publications—
including a regular post-meeting newsletter, The Dragonfly—
readings, and other haiku-related activities in the community.

In addition to meetings where members and guests can share and
discuss haiku and “workshop” their poems, the Haiku Poets of
Central Maryland sponsor an annual competition, The Anita
Sadler Weiss Haiku Award, named for haiku poet and Baltimore-
area haiku teacher Anita Sadler Weiss (see below).

Everyone—regardless of city, state, or country of residence, or
affiliation with any other haiku group—is invited to join the Haiku
Poets of Central Maryland. Members living out of state or abroad,
or local members unable to attend a particular meeting, still enjoy
participating by email and "snail-mail."

For more information, email haikupoetscentralmd@yahoo.com.
What are...
THE ANITA SADLER WEISS
MEMORIAL HAIKU AWARDS

The Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award, sponsored by the Haiku
Poets of Central Maryland, is an annual poetry competition founded in August
2004 by the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland in memory of Baltimore-based
haiku poet and teacher Anita Sadler Weiss. Award recipients will be
announced each April in honor of Ms. Weiss’ birthday, and a kind benefactor
has made a generous donation allowing us to award substantial monetary
prizes.

A woman of many talents—in addition to being a haiku poet who wrote both
in English and in French, she was an accomplished sculptor, a poet, a social
worker and a scholar—Ms. Weiss began her haiku journey relatively late in
life; but she embraced the form with passion and delight. A tireless student of
haiku, her thirst for haiku knowledge was unquenchable; her passion for
sharing haiku undeniable; and her love of haiku unlimited by geography, style,
or school of thought.

Ms. Weiss knew that haiku was more than a poetic form, that it is, truly, a
way of life. And she lived that life, being always open to and aware of the
special “haiku moments” around her. She introduced countless others to
haiku, as well. Though in her nineties, Ms. Weiss—armed with stacks of
books and poetry journals and piles of research notes—she began teaching a
class devoted to haiku at the Renaissance Institute, the College of Notre Dame
of Maryland. She also hosted haiku gatherings for her students at her
Baltimore home, expressly for the purpose of sharing of poems and the
exchange of ideas. When her health began to fail, Ms. Weiss encouraged one
of her students to continue the popular course in the spirit of learning that she
had fostered—although no one could ever take her place.

A longtime member of the Haiku Society of America as well as towpath, the
Haiku Poets of the Chesapeake Watershed, Ms. Weiss looked forward to haiku
gatherings, with their give-and-take workshop sessions and stimulating
discussions; and in spite of physical, logistical, and geographical limitations,
she attended or hosted towpath meetings as often as possible and enjoyed to
the hilt each and every one.

Ms. Weiss lost her final battle with cancer on August 1, 2004. She will be
missed in the Baltimore-area haiku community and beyond; and we, the Haiku
Poets of Central Maryland, dedicate the Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku
Award to her memory in hopes that her ever-youthful haiku spirit and her
loving embrace of all things haiku will continue to live on.


   Iridescence
  on a blade of grass
  —dragonfly

                     Anita Sadler Weiss
                    1908–2004
HAIKU POETS OF CENTRAL MARYLAND
2008 Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award Winners
2007 Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award Winners
2006 Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award Winners
2009 Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award Winners
2010 Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award Winners
COPIES AVAILABLE NOW!
paper lantern
The Haiku Poets of Central Maryland's Members' 2011 Haiku Collection

Contact us through this website for information for information on how to obtain copies.
A limited number of copies of past years' HPCM members' haiku collections are also available.
Please inquire if interested.
Recent HPCM Newsletters
Past Winners of
The Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards
Dragonfly December 2011:
HSA 4th-quarter Mtg in MD
Dragonfly August 2011
Dragonfly May 2001
Dragonfly March 2011
Dragonfly February 2011
Dragonfly January 2011
Important Notice
on the 2012
Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award

There will be NO Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Award this year (2012).
HPCM plans to resume the competition in 2013, and all entry information
will be made public well before the entry deadline.

In place of running the ASW Awards this, HPCM turned its attention and resources to planning and hosting the 2011 fourth-quarter
meeting of the Haiku Society of America, "A Haiku Retreat," which was held  December 2 through 4, 2011, at the Bon Secours Spiritual
Center in Marriottsville, MD (see the December 2011 Dragonfly for a news-wrap of the event);
and we are currently making plans to participate in National Haiku Poetry Day in April 2012.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through this website.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!