April 17 - International Haiku Poetry Day

Happy International Haiku Poetry Day! Observed annually on April 17, today encourages any and all to try their hand in creativity.  

Haiku poetry is a form of Japanese poetry that is non-rhyming and usually consists of three lines with a syllable pattern of five-seven-five.  

Usually, an element of nature, a season, moment of beauty, or an individual experience inspires haiku poems. Sensory language is used to capture a feeling, image or moment. 

From Haiku: This Other World 

Richard Wright (1908-1960) 

Whitecaps on the bay: 
A broken signboard banging 

In the April wind. 

As one of the world’s oldest and regularly used poetry, some recognizable poets wrote many haiku.  

While the most well-known is Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, others we may recognize are English poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake, American poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor T.S. Eliot or African-American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.  

And as small as the poem may be, they can be quite challenging to write. Try capturing an entire moment or emotion in seventeen syllables and getting it right.  

However, English haiku does not always follow the strict syllable count found in Japanese haiku. The typical length of haiku found in English language journals is ten-fourteen syllables versus the five-seven-five syllables used in the Japanese language. 

Even in film, the story can also be written in the format of haiku. 

American screenwriter, director and visual effects supervisor Dan O'Bannon wrote his script for Ridley Scott's 1979 American science-fiction horror film 'Alien. 

This was in a manner Pixar-based screenwriter and director Andrew Stanton found reminded him of haiku, where visual descriptions were done in continuous lines of a few words. 

Stanton wrote his robot dialogue for the 2008 American animation/family film 'WALL-E' conventionally, but placed them in brackets, formatting his script in a manner reminiscent of O'Bannon's. 

HOW TO OBSERVE 

Celebrate by creating a haiku poem of your own!  What will you use for inspiration? Take a walk and draw from the world around you.  

Encourage friends to join you and share your haiku. Be sure to include one or two senses in your poems, such as touch or sound. Spend time reading haiku poetry as well. 

Post your haiku poem on social media using #NationalHaikuPoetryDay. 

Educators, visit the National Day Calendar® Classroom for a project linked to National Haiku Day. 

HISTORY 

In 2007, Sari Granstaff registered International Haiku Poetry Day. In 2012, The Haiku Foundation implemented the day as a project. 

#NationalHaikuPoetryDay 

@theHaikuFoundation
@Haikutopia 

@nichecinema 

April 17 - International Bat Appreciation Day

Happy National Bat Appreciation Day! Each year on April 17, today reminds us of the roles bats play in our daily lives.   

  

April is also the best time of the year to observe bats, as they are now beginning to emerge from hibernation. The observance is an excellent time to learn about the role bats play in nature.  

  

Since bats are considered to be an “insectivorous” creature, they rid our world of many annoying insects. In one hour, a bat can eat up to one thousand mosquitoes! 

  

Fun Bat Facts: 

• 
  • Some species of bats live up to forty years. 
• • Bats can see in the dark and use their extreme sense of hearing. 
• • They also use echolocation to find food. 
• • A bat’s ability to fly makes them unique. In the mammal world, only bats are naturally capable of true and sustained flight. 
• • There are over 1,200 known species of bats! 
• • An estimated 48 species of bats make their home in the United States. 
• • Nearly seventy percent of bats are insectivores. 
• • As pollinators, bats, along with bees and butterflies, provide a vital link to our food supply.  
• • Bats grow in a variety of sizes. One of the largest bats is the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox bat weighing up to four pounds with a wingspan of up to five feet, seven inches. 
• • Bats are also clean animals, grooming themselves almost constantly. 
• • North America’s largest urban bat colony is found on the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas. An estimated 1,500,000 Mexican Free-Tailed bats live there! This colony of bats eats approximately 10,000 to 30,000 lbs of insects each night. An estimated 100,000 tourists visit the bridge annually to watch the bats leave the roost at twilight. 
• • One colony of one hundred and fifty Big Brown bats protects farmers from up to thirty-three million or more rootworms each summer. 
• • Almost forty percent of American bat species are in severe decline, with some already listed as endangered or threatened. 
• • Three U.S. states have an official state bat. Texas and Oklahoma named the Mexican Free-Tailed bat their state bat, and Virginia dubbed the Virginia Big-Eared bat their state bat. 

HOW TO OBSERVE 

  

Learn more about bats. Read about them or watch a bat documentary. Share your experiences with bats as well! Use #BatAppreciationDay to post on social media. 

Educators, visit the National Day Calendar® Classroom for more resources to help you #CelebrateEveryDay! Also, download and print the coloring sheet for this day by visiting the website below:

https://mlfjqdsf5ptg.i.optimole.com/q2nBJDA-60Vc_byY/w:auto/h:auto/q:69/https://n7jmr7muhj-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Bat-Appreciation-Color-Sheet.png 

HISTORY

Bat Conservation International (BCI) started and supports International Bat Appreciation Day. The BCI mission is to conserve the world’s bats and their ecosystems to ensure a healthy planet. 

How can you observe this batty holiday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SelsbIdequA 

#BatAppreciationDay 

@BatCon
@burkemuseum 

@nichecinema