Carpe Diem's "Pick Up the Pieces" #1

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to host Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. I can share my creativity and knowledge and in return I get insight in all the wonderful people who are part of this warm and loving haiku-family. We are a family and we share all our love for haiku and other (Japanese) short poetry-forms.
When I was a young guy we (my family) were all into playing games such as cards and Monopoly. In my opinion, playing games together as a family, made us a family. So I have created a new feature based on the idea that playing cards as a family makes us a family. Playing games is were this new feature is about. Let me tell you what I mean.

Credits: Uta-garuta

Uta-garuta (歌ガルタ?) are a kind of karuta, Japanese traditional playing cards. It is also the name of the game in which they are used. The game is played mostly on Japanese New Year's holidays. On each card, a poem (waka) is written, and there are a total of 100 poems. The standard collection of the poems used is called Hyakunin Isshu, which is often also the name of the game. The collection was chosen by a poet Fujiwara no Teika in Heian period.

Uta-garuta (歌ガルタ?) are a kind of karuta, Japanese traditional playing cards. It is also the name of the game in which they are used. The game is played mostly on Japanese New Year's holidays. On each card, a poem (waka) is written, and there are a total of 100 poems. The standard collection of the poems used is called Hyakunin Isshu, which is often also the name of the game. The collection was chosen by a poet Fujiwara no Teika in Heian period.

The game uses two types of cards.

Yomifuda: One hundred reading cards with a figure of a person, their name and poem on each one

Torifuda: One hundred grabbing cards with only the lower phrases of poems

At the start of a game, 50 torifuda are neatly arranged on the floor faced up. When the reader starts reading out a poem on the yomifuda, the players quickly search for the torifuda on which the corresponding lower phrase is written. (Source: Wikipedia)  


Credits: Uta garuta contest


This new CDHK-feature, which I have called "Pick Up the Pieces", is based on Uta-garuta as described above. Of course there is a difference. In this new feature the goal is to pick together the pieces of three haiku which I have divided in three groups:

1. first lines
2. second lines
3. third lines

The goal is to pick the lines of one real haiku together to make that haiku complete again. Maybe the picked up pieces belong not together, but they maybe make a whole new haiku ... you'll never know!

Let me give you an example in which I will put together one of the three haiku which we going to use in this episode. After that example there will be two other haiku scrambled for you to put together again. For this first episode of CDHK's "Pick Up the Pieces" I have chosen a haiku by Hokushi (1665-1718); Basho (1644-1694) and Kikaku (1661-1707). These three are by the way connected to eachother, because Hikushi and Kikaku were disciples/students of Basho. 


Credits: A modern Uta garuta game (Anime)

 For every first line I have made a 'card' on which I have written the first line in Romaji and in English with a nice picture ... just for fun ...
 
Here are the first lines:
 

• the pheasant scratches
• in the midst of the moor
• spring rain

Here are the second lines:
 

• flutters a butterfly
• the river willows blow back
• its beautiful face

 
And here are the third lines:
 

• with its spurs
• the straw-coats
• in the rays of the evening sun

 
And here are the 'cards':

1.

 

 

 2.

 
 
3.

 
 
As we look at the first picture with the first line of a haiku by Basho (1644-1694): "spring rain" and we look a bit closer to the picture then maybe we can already get an idea about the second line of that haiku by Basho. What do we see on the picture? A river, a few fishermen and a willow. So maybe the second line has to be "the river willows blow back" ... I think you can follow that for sure, but how do we find the third line? I think that's not that easy, because the third line is not to distil from the picture or the first two lines of the haiku ... or ...? As we look at the both lines we have already found than we can see/read that it rains and that it is a windy/stormy day as you could distil from "willows blow back". Than you have to look at the time in which the haiku is written, ancient Japan. What did e.g. Japanese people wear as it was raining? The answer will be "straw-coat" and by analyzing that we have found the third line of this haiku by Basho "the straw-coats". So this first haiku of which we have picked up the pieces is:
 
spring rain
the river willows blow back
the straw-coats
 
(c) Basho
 
Well ... number two (2) and three (3) aren't that easy, but if you have found one of the last two haiku in pieces than you have the other one all so.
 
I hope you did like this new feature. Please let me know what you think of it and maybe you have ideas to make it better? Feel free to share that with our haiku-family by commenting on this post.
For this feature there is no possibility to link up. So if you would like to share your 'new found haiku' with us please leave that in the comment-field.
 
For now have fun ... and good luck ....

Namaste