Julie Weightman   Profile on Garry Gay

Garry Gay: Haiku Leader Who is Garry Gay? Garry Gay was born in Glendale, California in 1951. In 1974, he graduated with his B.P.A. degree in photography. For the past 26 years, he has been a professional photographer. He began writing haiku in 1975, after being greatly influenced by Basho’s Narrow Road To The Deep North. He is one of the co-founders of the Haiku Poets of Northern California. From 1989 to 1990, he became the group’s first president. He also became the president of the Haiku Society of America in 1991. Along with the Haiku Poets of Northern California, he also co-founded Haiku North America and the American Haiku Archives in Sacramento, California. He created the poetic form called Rengay. He is the author of four chapbooks including, The Billboard Cowboy, The Silent Garden, Wings of Moonlight, and River Stones. He is a publisher and one of the three editors of The San Francisco Haiku Anthology. Garry Gay currently lives in Windsor, California with his wife Melinda and daughter Alissa. Garry Gay writes a variety of poetic forms. When he first started writing, during high school and college, Garry wrote blank verse, free verse, rhyme and meter work. He did not discover haiku until the mid-nineteen seventies. Once he experienced haiku, he fell in love with the form. Only rarely does he write the forms he experienced before haiku. Now he focuses in on forms such as tanka, renku, senryu, rengay, and haiku. He actually created the form rengay in 1992. Rengay has since gained great popularity in the United States and worldwide. As a photographer, Garry has become fond of pairing haiku with photographs he has taken. He is involved in this aspect to the degree of giving talk/workshops about the art of pairing haiku and photographs. In fact, this October he will be giving a talk/workshop for the Haiku Poets of Northern California on this very topic. Although this topic is a challenging one, he approaches it in three basic ways. The first way to approach this is by having an existing photograph and finding an existing haiku to pair with it. The second approach is having an existing photograph and writing a haiku to it. The third and final way to approach it is by having an existing haiku and taking a photograph to work with it or to illustrate it in some way. Since he is a professional photographer, he is able to pull his own photographs into this pairing process. Therefore, he has less difficulty in the process than others may have. He does, however, find it challenging to not let his photographs reveal too much of the main element in the haiku. It is easier for Garry to match a photograph to a poem than to write a haiku to a particular photograph. He compares the process of pairing haiku and photographs to a modern haiga. As a photographer, his visual art, photography, always keeps him aware physically and emotionally of everything around him. This is a major quality needed in a haiku poet as well. He uses his awareness from his visual art and transfers it to his haiku. Throughout the years, Garry has developed intuitiveness that allows him to capture his artistic ability. Garry says, "The desire to share what one discovers with those that also may be awed by the same kind of moment of discover or event, I think it is a natural human trait." He believes that it is a part of human nature to want to share ones’ discoveries. His own desire to create also inspires him. Garry sees himself as a person who uses creativity as a vehicle to take him further in his life, whether it is through photography or writing. From his creative inspiration, he has written over thousands of haiku. He does not even know how many to be exact. So when it comes to a favorite haiku, he has about six to a dozen that he is fond of. The following haiku is one of his favorites: Along the way an old oak branch becomes a walking stick Garry feels that this haiku covers the passage of time. Most haiku writers focus on the here and now. However, the here and now quickly changes into the future without realization. This haiku illustrates the sudden transition, bringing the idea to the forefront of readers’ minds. In our youth, we often pick up a stick and make it useful during play. As an adult, the stick becomes inevitable, perhaps a crutch. The poem just seems to have natural flow for Garry and for us. Along with the many personal haiku favorites, he also admires quite a few haiku poets. When narrowing the list down, however, Nick Virgilio and Alexis Rotella are the two that stick out in his mind. He never knew Virgilio except through his powerful haiku. Since Virgilio’s death, he has found interest in the living contemporary poet Alexis Rotella. Garry feels that her approach in writing haiku is honest. Her haiku reminds him of the small things in life that people build their memories on. She looks at life with a fresh perspective. Most people believe that writers go through a long, drawn out editing process on paper. Garry, however, has a different approach to editing. He tends to think his haiku through in his mind; he commits his haiku to his head before committing it to paper. It only takes him about an hour to edit his poem after writing it down. He may choose to change a word here or there, but this is uncommon for him. Garry usually just moves on, rarely going back to change a haiku. If the poem does not work for him after a week to two months, he will simply drop the piece. He will then create new writing material. Garry has left behind a few works that upon looking at them years later has enjoyed reading. The following is probably what he would consider as an extensive editing process: Alone at last I take my own portrait with the self-timer Pressing the self-timer I join you in the photograph I take our picture at the over look pressing self timer Finally: Self timer I join you in the photograph This was taken from "Snapshot" a rengay that he wrote with Cherie Hunter Day. Garry finds several responses to the question "What is the primary goal of haiku?" When asked the question, he responded with a series of questions including, What is it? What is it you are trying to say? Who are you addressing? and Why point the way? Despite all of these questions, Garry was finally able to give a direct answer. At first he believed that his goal was to express his life experiences through good poetry. Through his experiences with haiku, he has come across many things that he never expected. He has made many great friendships and experienced adventures that he never planned because of writing haiku. These friendships and adventures have brought great joys to his life. The haiku experience has also brought opportunities of work such as publishing, judging contests, editing books, and being on committees for conferences. Garry admits that these joys did not come to him easily. His writing did have to go through a slow process, probably similar to most writers. Garry does not deny that his early works needed help. It took him a few years of sticking with haiku and going through its stages before he started to improve. Although haiku may seem extremely simple due to its length, they are often too complex for most modern poetry editors to understand them. This makes it difficult for them to judge good haiku from the bad haiku. Garry says, "I am very hopeful that they will in time, earn their rightful place in the important books on modern poetry." Garry sees a connection between Japanese and American haiku. He believes that it is important to know the history of any art form. We are greatly influenced by the Japanese approaches to haiku. However, these approaches do not restrict him. He believes that one must break the rules every so often. This will help the person see if he or she is able to create something new. Garry’s main feeling towards writing haiku is "I think one must go forward and just create their own art. It must become part of your life and life experiences." Awards and Grants 1994-1st place Nature Company "Haiku For The Earth" contest. 1994-1st place San Francisco International Senryu contest-HPNC 1995-1st place Nature Company Haiku Contest. 1995-Editor’s Choice Award-Brussels Sprouts magazine. 1997-Japan Foundation Travel Grant. 1998-Special Haiku Award SBS Shizuoka Broadcasting Award, Japan 1999-Winner "The Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Award Chapbook Contest 1999-1st place Tanka-Yellow Moon Literature Award-Australia 1999-Courage Award in English Division 10th Itoen Haiku Contest-Japan 1999-Runner-up in the "Snapshot Collection Competition" for "Along the Way." Leadership and Poetry Service 1989-1990-Co-founder and first president Haiku Poets of Northern California 1990-Created Two Autumns reading series along with Two Autumns Chapbooks. Founded Two Autumns Press. 1991-Haiku Society of America President 1991-Co-founded Haiku North America 1991-Created the video "Haiku Spotlight" 1992-Created the "Rengay" poetic form 1996-Co-founded the American Haiku Archive 1998-2000-Chairman of the library committee for the American Haiku Archives 1999-Since the creation of Haiku North America to the present, board member to place the conference every two years in North America —Julie Weightman