Twenty years of haiku in Katikati park

Margaret Beverland and Sandra Simpson are a two-person committee of Haiku Pathway.

The serene, tranquil park in the middle of Katikati's bustling main centre turns 20 this year.

But keepers of the Haiku Pathway are putting off any events or celebrations to mark the anniversary until next year, due to Covid-19 disruptions.

"Twenty-one is a milestone year, too," says committee member Sandra Simpson.

They will save their biennial Katikati Haiku Contest for next year and make plans to do something special.

Sandra is part of a two-person committee with Margaret Beverland. The two haiku enthusiasts both have poems chiselled into river stones along the pathway.

They'd love more members to help preserve the park heritage. It is a tourist attraction in its own right, they say.

Sandra says haiku provides a new and different way of seeing what is around us.

"Haiku poetry is to capture a moment using ordinary language to describe the extraordinary and that is nature. Everything in nature is just a miracle."

One of the reasons they run haiku contests is to introduce people to the art form.

Haiku tends to be taught the old fashioned way which is quite constricting. Haiku is much more relaxed these days, Margaret says.

Haiku Park was the vision of haiku poet Catherine Mair.

The pedestrian bridge was blessed in January 2000 and the pathway officially opened at Queen's Birthday. The pathway was one of New Zealand's official millennium projects.

There were originally 24 haiku. More were added over the years including 10 new haiku on their 10th anniversary. It has inspired similar walks, particularly in North America.

There are now 47 haiku on the pathway.

People come here to get away and enjoy nature, Sandra says. They love that the park is used by walkers, cyclists, workers taking a break, skaters and even whitebaiters.

"It's a tranquil space in the middle of a thriving little town," she says.