Lake Onawa, Maine, is the location of a cabin owned by haiku poet Paul MacNeil, where for almost 20 years poets gathered each summer, retreat-style, to discuss and write poetry. Specifically, from 1999 through 2017 members of the Route 9 / Upstate Dim Sum haiku group from Upstate New York gathered at the lakeside cabin to compose renku (collaborative linked poems). These Lake Onawa compositions were published in major journals, won prizes in renku contests, and generally contributed significantly to the development of renku in English.

Paul MacNeil (born Paul W. MacNeil, January 7, 1948, Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S.A.; died October 30, 2019, Denver, Colorado), retired banker and music store proprietor, self-proclaimed amateur naturalist, and haiku and renku poet. His haiku were published widely in journals and anthologies, and he served as an associate editor of the journal The Heron’s Nest, 2000–2019. He was especially interested in renku, and his work in that genre won five Grand Prizes and nine other awards in the Haiku Society of America’s Bernard Einbond Renku Contest. From his childhood, MacNeil was enchanted by the Northwoods of Maine, and he continued to spend as much time as possible at his camp on Lake Onawa, in recent years hosting a gathering of haiku friends there every summer. A collection of their work was published as The Onawa Poems, 1999–2008. MacNeil last resided in Ocala, Florida.