Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #76 Celestine, our "runner-up" of the "time"-kukai in the spotlight

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As the "runner-up" of the CDHK kukai you win a special Tokubetsudesu episode and this week that's the purpose of this post to 'celebrate' the "runner-up" of the "time"-kukai. Maybe you can remember that we had a draw in this "time"-kukai, not only Celestine was "runner-up", I too was a "runner-up", but of course it is not possible to create a post only about me and that's why I will place Celestine of "Reading Pleasure" in the spotlight today.

Celestine is a long term participant in Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and she is a very gifted haiku poetess and family member of our haiku-loving family CDHK. Celestine writes wonderful haiku as you all could have read in the "time"-kukai:

midair waltz
first snowflakes and the leaves
frozen in time

© Celestine

Recently Celestine published her first anthology "Haiku Rhapsodies" written under her pseudonym "Afua Peprah". I hope it will be a very successful antholgy.
In the weeks before publishing I had the opportunity to read her concept (and later the final print) and I was in awe. Celestine writes really wonderful. A few examples:

sound of bamboo flute
calming the savannah
rushing streams

cockcrow
the stirring of leaves
heralding a new day

© Celestine

She even asked me to write a review as her "mentor" at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. I was honored, because I am just a guy who happens to have a haiku weblog to promote haiku as an art form. I will give you a highlight of my review:

[...] "With "Haiku Rhapsodies", Celestine has delivered a wonderful book full of gems. A few years ago I met Celestine online at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, my daily haiku meme. Than she was just a novice in haiku. During the years she improved her haiku writing skills and I have seen her grow ... and now ... with this haiku anthology she dives into the 'big world'.

With this anthology she has reached a milestone ... I am glad and a bit proud that she has made this anthology after several years of publishing and sharing her beautiful haiku at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

As I read "Haiku Rhapsodies" I was overwhelmed by the beauty of her haiku and I love to bring a few haiku in the spotlight:

empty calabash
reflecting the fading sun
a beggar sits in gloom

This haiku describes a scene, which is seen very often, but it's not the fading sun here but the beggar who has the lead. It's a haiku in which I easily can recognize the spirit of Basho (one of the four greatest haiku poets ever) ..." [...]

Celestine Nudanu (a.k.a. Afua Peprah)

Let me tell you a little bit more about Celestine or maybe ... this is what she says about herself at her weblog:

I am a Ghanaian living in West Africa who loves books and reading, so much that I would rather buy books than clothes.

I read mostly fiction, both contemporary and classic. I do love non-fiction too, if I lay hands on any.  I enjoy world literature as well.  I’m partial to women writers and their works, especially African women writers.

I also read English and Theaters Arts at the University and majored in Playwriting. I have a Masters in International Affairs, all from the University of Ghana, Legon. I am a Senior Assistant Registrar, with the Institute of Professional Studies. I am married with three boys.

I love to write and read and not necessarily in that order.  My home is choked with books of all sizes, both adult literature and children stuff as well.

I also have a passion for thrillers, mystery and any good suspense novel from the West. I have read almost all of Sydney Sheldon, Dan Brown, Robert Ludlum, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, Martina Cole and a few of David Baldacci. I do love historical novels and romance. So, it goes without saying that I have read Danielle Steel, Judith Gould and Judith Krantz.

I am also fascinated with any novel that is based on the Jews and the Holocaust. So, I’ve read almost all of Leon Uris.

So this is me, a woman of diverse reading taste and talents.

cover Haiku Rhapsodies by Celestine Nudanu

As Celestine says above ... she is a woman with talents and this first published book "Haiku Rhapsodies" shows this very well.

To conclude this Tokubetsudesu episode about Celestine, a few other haiku written by her taken from her "Haiku Rhapsodies":

midday nap
a string of beads
her only cover

bursting through the mist
silver rays kiss the leaves
ah, the dew, the dew

© Celestine

Congratulations Celestine with this wonderful "mile-stone" your first book published ... chapeau!

As you all know Celestine lives in Ghana and maybe you can remember that we have had a while ago a few special episodes about Africa and that we were introduced to what Adjei Agyei Baah calls "afriku".

So that's the challenge for this week's episode of Tokubetsudesu: Try to write an "afriku" in the same spirit as the ones I gave here from Celestine, our "runner-up" of the "time"- kukai. Have fun! 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until April 22nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, the third CD-Special by our featured haiku poetess Sara McNulty, later on.

Share your "afriku" with us all here at our Haiku Kai.

1.	Forest Bather	3.	kyle tm
2.	Kim M. Russell	4.	Dolores

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