Haiku Trail at Audubon–Preview

NOTE: Haiku Poets and friends–you’ll be getting individual invitations soon! Everyone: Save the Date!

New Haiku Trail Opens at Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary
Twenty-four New Mexico Poets Collaborate on Permanent Poetry Path
SANTA FE—This spring, the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Santa Fe will pave a new way for poetry enthusiasts in New Mexico—a haiku trail.
The collaborative art piece features haiku from twenty-four New Mexico poets, each on a clay plaque designed and created by artist Christy Hengst. Contributing poets Stella Reed and Miriam Sagan co- curated the show.
Co-curator Stella Reed, the center’s office and outreach manager and also a featured poet, holds the project dear to her heart. “It’s a joy to see the beauty and wonder of this special place capsulized in haiku to be shared with visitors from around the world.”
The new haiku trail is site-specific: writers created haiku there and curators placed them in environments from the Wildlife Garden to the Acequia Trail. Trail wanderers are free to discover the tiny poems placed in the local landscape, and haiku are in free syllabic count for an informal, welcoming tone any reader can enjoy.
Poet and teacher, Miriam Sagan, who co-curated and contributed to the show, is no stranger to haiku or site specific art. She created a haiku pathway at Santa Fe Community College and has participated in haiku installations in botanical gardens and street-side at arts festivals internationally. This is her first haiku trail.
“I’ve always wanted to do a site-specific haiku trail,” says Sagan. “The poet observes and records. Then the passer-by has the enhanced experience of seeing what someone else saw, understanding what someone else felt. It creates a kind of community of perception.” She hopes the trail and the site-specific nature of haiku, springing from that vivid, observed experience, will encourage writers of all experience levels to be inspired to write haiku at the center.
The opening for the haiku trail is May 13, 2022, from 5:30-7:00 pm, though it will be open permanently year-round. The center will have a map for visitors to explore the haiku trail.
Haiku Trail Contributing Poets
Arthur Sze
Barbara Robidoux
Carol Moldaw
Darryl Lorenzo Wellington Don MacKeller
Douglass Rankin Elizabeth Rose
Ellen Fox
Gail Reike
Gregg Manoff
Jessica Ann Sanchez Jonnie Prather
Judy K. Mosher
Kathryne Lim
Levi Romero
ljmulry
Mario Garcia
Miriam Sagan
Nic Redfern
Steffie Grow
Stella Reed
Susan Aylward
Tina Carlson
Tintawi Kaigziabiher
Haiku Trail—opening of permanent exhibit Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary David J. Henderson Pavilion
1800 Upper Canyon Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Opening—May 13, 5:30-7 pm
Expect refreshments and haiku in the spring air!