Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry forms like haiku and tanka. It’s a warmhearted family of haiku poets created by Chèvrefeuille, a Dutch haiku poet. Japanese poetry is the poetry of nature and it gives an impression of a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. ++ ALL WORKS PUBLISHED ARE COPYRIGHTED AND THE RIGHTS BELONG TO THE AUTHORS ++ !!! Anonymous comments will be seen as SPAM !!!
Welcome at the penultimate episode of November. In this month our theme was / is "Never Change A Winning Team" and that means that it all was about haiku, my first love. For this episode I have chosen a nice set of haiku.
Yosa Buson (source: wiki-art)
The task is to create a "fusion-ku" from the two given haiku and create a Troiku with it, so this episode is a "Crossroads" episode. Here are the two haiku to work with:
cutting into with the ax, I was surprised at the scent. the winter trees. unfolding at the hand of the glass polisher: a camellia!
Two wonderful haiku by one of the "big five" haiku poets.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 6th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun!
Create your Troiku with the new "fusion-ku" created from the two given haiku and share it with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
First I have to apologize ... I have a very busy week, so I hadn't time to publish on time. Last Wednesday I totally forgot that we have a weekly feature on Tan Renga every Wednesday, so here is the Tan Renga Wednesday episode of this week.
Your task is to complete a given haiku by adding a two-lined stanza and create a Tan Renga in that way.
For this week's Tan Renga Wednesday I have chosen that world famous haiku by Basho:
This Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 5th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!
Make the Tan Renga complete by adding your second stanza of two lines and share it with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai were we are "honoring" haiku, the most beautiful poem on Earth.
Today I love to challenge you to "revise" a haiku by one of the classical masters, Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Shiki was the haiku-master that gave haiku its name and he was the one that brought haiku into the 20th century.
Here is the haiku to "revise":
the wild geese take flight low along the railroad tracks in the moonlit night
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 2nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!
Share your revised haiku with us all here at our Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to create and share Japanese poetry.
Today I have a double episode for you, because during circumstances I couldn't publish yesterday. So this episode I will give you two themes to work with, both episodes have their own linking widget.
(#1786) Renga with Chèvrefeuille.
For this first part of this double episode I have chosen for "Renga With Chèvrefeuille", I will give you six haiku written by myself and extracted from my personal website "Chèvrefeuille's Haikublog". The goal is to add your own two lined stanza to make the Renga (Junicho = a 12 stanza renga) complete. You may choose your own "line-up".
reaching for the sun lotus flowers blooms from the mud old pond changes deep silence even deeper as the nightingale starts to sing beautiful life snow falls gently covers up the autumn fields faraway sounds
For the second part of this episode I have chosen a modern kigo taken from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku". It's an autumn kigo. As you all know Jane was once my co-host here at CDHK and she is still missed. So create your haiku in honor of her.
Here is the theme: Autumn Equinox
And here are a few examples of haiku with this modern kigo created by Jane Reichhold (1937-2016):
autumn equinox cool wind comes scented sun-hot pine needles autumn equinox putting porch furniture away getting it out again
Two beauties by Jane ... and now it is up to you to create haiku with this modern kigo. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 2nd at noon (CET). Have fun!
Share your haiku inspired on this modern kigo with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
!! Open for your submissions next Sunday November 24th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!
Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
Welcome at a new episode of our CD Weekend Meditation ... Maybe you remember that new feature I introduced a while ago "Carpe Diem Transformation" in which I challenge you to "re-build" a given haiku into a tanka. In the first episode of this feature I challenged you to "re-build" a famous haiku by Chiyo-Ni (that episode you can find HERE).
And for this weekend meditation I have chosen a haiku by that other famous haiku master, Matsuo Basho. I have chosen a not so well-known haiku by him, but I think you remember it from our series about "Haiku Writing Techniques", it's one of his Karumi haiku. Karumi (lightness) was Basho's Haiku Writing Technique he strived his whole life for.
Here is the haiku to "re-build" into a tanka:
Uguisu ya mochi ni fun suru en no saki A spring warbler casts A dropping on the rice cakes — The veranda edge.
Bashô developed this concept during his final travels in 1693. Karumi is perhaps one of the most important and least understood principles of haiku poetry. Karumi can best be described as “lightness,” or a sensation of spontaneity. In many ways, karumi is a principle rooted in the “spirit” of haiku, rather than a specific technique. Bashô taught his students to think of karumi as “looking at the bottom of a shallow stream”. When karumi is incorporated into haiku, there is often a sense of light humor or child-like wonderment at the cycles of the natural world. Many haiku using karumi are not fixed on external rules, but rather an unhindered expression of the poet’s thoughts or emotions. This does not mean that the poet forgets good structure; just that the rules of structure are used in a natural manner. In my opinion, karumi is “beyond” technique and comes when a poet has learned to internalize and use the principles of the art interchangeably.
So ... your goal is to "re-build" this beauty into a tanka ... take your time.
This Weekend Meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday November 24th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until Sunday December 1st at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have a wonderful weekend full of inspiration.
Share your tanka "re-build" from the given haiku by Basho with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
I know you all like to create haiku with a given kigo (seasonword) as we have seen here often at CDHK. So today, in our month with "Never Change A Winning Team", I have a nice kigo for you to work with. Today I love to challenge you with the following kigo: Hoarfrost.
What is "hoarfrost"? Hoarfrost is a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.. Here in The Netherlands we have seen that already this month. Just recently we had still weather and it was a bit misty ... and it was cold ... so the world looked awesome as described in the definition of "hoarfrost" above.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 28th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... be inspired!
Share your classical haiku with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
This month our theme is "Never Change A Winning Team" and it's all about haiku, my first love. In the seven years of CDHK I have always tried to stay with my first love, haiku, but that changed during the years.
From the haiku I invented a few new poetry forms, like the Troiku and the "fusion-ku". Today I love to bring both forms together. I have chosen two haiku by one of the renown classical masters and your task is to create a "fusion-ku" and to create a Troiku with that "fusion-ku".
Two nice haiku by Santoka Taneda I would say, maybe you can remember them, because I used them earlier here at our wonderful Kai.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... enjoy the challenge.
Create your "fusion-ku" and the Troiku with the "fusion-ku" and share it with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
It is Wednesday again ... so time for new episode of our special feature "Tan Renga Wednesday". This week I love to challenge you to create the "hokku" (the three lined stanza) instead of the "ageku" (two-lined stanza).
I will give you the two lined stanza and than it is up to you to create the "hokku" to make the Tan Renga complete.
Here is the two-lined 2nd stanza:
at dawn birds start to sing praising their Creator ... as always
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 26th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... be creative.
Share your completed Tan Renga with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
Welcome at a new (somewhat delayed) episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to write and share haiku (or other Japanese poetry form) with the world.
This month it's mostly about haiku, as the theme says "Never Change A Winning Team", because haiku was my first goal as I started with Carpe Diem Haiku Kai back in 2012. So today I have a few haiku to inspire you to create new haiku.
For today's episode I have chosen a few haiku by Masaoka Shiki, one of the "big-five" haiku poets. The given haiku are for your inspiration and I hope you will be inspired to create new haiku.
Let the given haiku inspire you to create new haiku and share it with us all here at our Haiku Kai. If you want to read more about "shasei"? Than click HERE.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 25th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now .... have fun!
Let the two "shasei"-haiku by Masaoka Shiki inspire you to create new haiku and share them with us all here at wonderful Kai.
First I have to apologize for not publishing a weekend meditation, I really hadn't time. I had a very busy weekend at work so I couldn't create a weekend meditation. Sorry for that.
This month it's all about "Never Change A Winning Team", but today I love to challenge you with a kind of "let the winning team go", why? Well ... maybe you know that we have had here at CDHK once a feature about "freestyling" haiku. In that feature I challenged you to create a so called "free-style haiku", a haiku that doesn't follow the classical rules and that has as less as words as is possible. Let me give you an example:
No classical rules, a minimum of words, but still a wonderful haiku. This is what I call a "free style haiku". For this episode I will give you a few haiku by Jane Reichhold and your challenge is to "re-create" these given haiku into a "free style haiku".
Here are the haiku from Jane's online version of "A Dictionary of Haiku". I have chosen one from each season:
(spring)
light carried in my arms apple blossoms from a neighbor on my doorstep
(summer)
devouring apricots the fine hairs of her mustache moist and juicy
Four beautiful haiku I think and you have to "re-create" them as a "free style haiku". A nice challenge I think.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 24th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... happy freestyling!
Share your "re-created" "freestyling haiku" with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai. This month our theme is "Never Change A Winning Team", and it's all about (mostly) haiku. At the start of CDHK I focused on haiku alone and in my opinion that worked awesome, so this month I hope to challenge you to create haiku.
Maybe you can remember our special feature "Quest For A New Masterpiece" and today I love to challenge you to create your New Masterpiece, there is only one restriction ... you have to follow the classical rules (more you can find above in our Lecture 1).
The theme for your New Masterpiece is "Colorful Autumn", so your masterpiece has to do with autumn. Look around you ... see the beauty of autumn ... let your senses come in contact with autumn and let your muses inspire you.
autumn has come leaves re-painted by Mother Earth - she ... the moon ... lovely
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 21st at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, a new weekend meditation, later on. For now ... have fun!
Share your new masterpiece with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
First I have to apologize for being late with publishing our episode of today. I had a very busy Wednesday, so I hadn't time to publish it yesterday. But today ... well I think I have a nice challenge for you all.
Today I love to challenge you to "Revise That Haiku". I will give you a haiku and the story behind it and your task is to "revise" it.
I have chosen that renown haiku by Matsuo Basho. I think a lot of people all around the globe will know this so famous haiku by the Master ... yes it's "The Old Pond". Let me give you the haiku and the background of it.
furu ike ya / kawazu tobi komu / mizu no oto old pond a frog jumps into the sound of water
This verse, now so famous, was first published in a selection of haiku 'Haru no Hi' (Spring Day). What, at first made his haiku interesting was the fact that in poetry up until this time, frogs were mentioned for their croaking but never for their leaping. However, with the passage of time, countless translations and copies, this haiku has only grown more special.
The background of this haiku is not so well known, so let me tell you something about that ...
Basho was living in a hermitage in Edo (nowadays Tokyo) where there was a pond. There were some Japanese yellow roses (yamabuki) growing around it. On one quiet early spring day, around the end of March, Basho was with Kikaku and heard a frog jump into the pond. It was a moment when he understood the idea of tranquility. One of Badho's disciples, Shiko wrote about the process in his haiku essay, "Kuzu no Matsubara" published in 1692.
[...] First Baso thought of the 7-5 sound units, "kawazu tobi komu mizu no oto", conveying the idea that "a frog jumped in with the sound of water". Then he tried to think of a good 5 units for the first line. Kikaku proposed 'yamabuki ya' (Japanese yellow rose). Basho said that yamabuki would be elegant, but to showy. He said 'furu ike ya' should be used because it is simple and truthful' [...]
Kikaku's idea was easly understood and the combination of a frog and yamabuki was common at that time, but Basho's was a novel idea. The word ''old pond'' was from traditional Chinese literature and was associated with the hermit life. Many haiku poets were so impressed with this modest simplicity that several stories related to Zen Buddhism were fabricated about the haiku.
Isn't it a wonderful story? It's a joy to read how even Basho sometimes had trouble with the composing of his haiku. Haiku is a way of collaborating poetry as we have seen above.
Maybe you think "Can I really "revise" this renown haiku written by one of the best haiku poets?" Yes you can I think, don't be shy ... I think Basho would be happy to see how you are "revising" his haiku, because haiku is collaborating poetry.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 20th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on today.
Share your revised version of this renown haiku with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
It's Wednesday again, so time for a new episode of "Carpe Diem's Tan Renga Wednesday", that special feature in which I challenge you to complete a Tan Renga inspired on a given haiku.
This week I have chosen a haiku by Kikaku, a contemporary and disciple of Matsuo Basho. Kikaku was one of Basho's favorite 10 disciples (students) and he was a very gifted haiku poet too. He wrote wonderful haiku, all in the way as been taught by Basho.
The haiku I have chosen written by Kikaku is one of his most beautiful haiku in my opinion. He wrote it to comfort Basho in his last days of his life:
how I wish to call a white crane from Fukei, but for this cold rain.
And now it is up to you to complete this Tan Renga by adding your two lined stanza (approx. 7-7 syllables) and share it with us all.
This Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 19th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!
Share your completed Tan Renga with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai. As you all know we are over 7 years now and in those seven years there were a lot of wonderful themes to work with. You all know that here at CDHK we have a so called "publishing policy" (you can find this at the bottom of our Kai) in which we all have decided that if you are a part of this Haiku loving family and participate in our challenges and themes ... you agree with using your work for our exclusive line of E-books, but it also stated that I can use your work here ... ofcourse I will always grant your credentials.
Today I love to challenge you with a haiku written by one of our longtime members, Hamish Managua Gunn (a.k.a. Pirate). This haiku he wrote in tribute to Jane Reichhold:
the temptation at the chalk cliff top I throw a rose
With this haiku he not only gave tribute to Jane Reichhold, but he also honored her for her choice. A very strong haiku with a very strong emotion in it.
As you all (maybe) know Jane Reichhold took her own life by jumping off a cliff ... she couldn't longer live with fibromyalgia. She is still missed and I know her spirit still dwells here at CDHK.
I love to challenge you to create a haiku in tribute to Jane Reichhold inspired on the haiku by Managua Gunn as given above.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 18th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, a new Tan Renga Wednesday, later on. For now ... have fun!
Share your haiku inspired on the given one and in tribute for Jane Reichhold with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
Welcome at a new episode in our wonderful "Never Change A Winning Team" month in which we celebrate the beauty of haiku. I have what they call "a writer's block", so I couldn't come up with a beautiful episode today, therefore I have chosen to let you free ...
You can make your own choice of a haiku, maybe there is a special haiku that means a lot to you, or you have a favorite haiku written by a classical or non-classical haiku poet, maybe you will introduce one of your own masterpieces ... that's all possible today.
The only thing I would love to read in your post is "Why did you choose this specific haiku?" and I challenge you to create a new haiku inspired on the haiku of your choice.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will reain open until November 17th at noon (CET). Have fun!
Share your inspired poetry with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
!! Open for your submissions next Sunday November 10th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!
Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
Sorry for being late with publishing our new Weekend Meditation, but here it is. This weekend I love to give you the possibility to write a Renga with Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). I have selected six beautiful haiku written by him and it's up to you to create the Renga by adding your two-lined stanza.
This time I have chosen for six haiku which he wrote in the last years of his life. In the last years of his life Basho traveled a lot and in those years he created his masterpiece "Oku No Hosomichi" (The Small Road Into The High North), that haibun has become a classic piece of literature and is renown around the world.
Here are the six haiku to work with. You can choose your own "line-up" and have to try to "complete the chain" through the Hokku (starting verse) and the Ageku (closing verse). Enjoy this challenge.
spring rain trickling into the wasp's nest a leaky roof blooming wildly among the peach trees first cherry blossoms butterflies and birds restlessly they rise up a cloud of flowers
coming to the eye especially at this time May's Mount Fuji life's journey plowing the patch of rice field back and forth the lettuce leaves are just as green eggplant soup
* all the above haiku were extracted from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, The Complete Haiku".
This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday, November 10th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until November 17th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend and enjoy the "renga-session" with Basho.
Share your renga with Basho with us all here at our wonderful Haiku Kai.
First I have to apologize for being late with publishing our regular episode of Friday November 8th, I hadn't time to create an episode.
This episode I love to challenge you with a "Crossroads Task". I will give you two haiku, you have to create a new haiku with those two haiku, a so called "fusion-ku". With your new haiku you have to create a Troiku (more about Troiku above in the menu).
I have chosen a haiku by a non-classical poetess, Jane Reichhold (1937-2016) and a classical poetess, Chiyo-Ni (1703-1775). Here are the two "crossroads" haiku to work with:
cricket silence between scraping sounds autumn begins
And now it's up to you to create your "fusion-ku" and your Troiku and share it with us all.
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 16th at noon (CET). I will publish our new weekend-meditation later today.
Share your "fusion-ku" and your Troiku with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
If you are a long time participant here, you will remember that special feature "Revise That Haiku", in which I challenged you to "revise" a given haiku by one of the classical haiku poets. Today I love to bring a "reprise" of one of the episodes of "Revise That Haiku".
For this episode I have chosen a haiku written by Taigi (1709-1771 ?), a contemporary and friend of Buson. I will first give the haiku (including the Japanese Romaji) and then I will give the description of the moment which led to the haiku.
Plum Blossom (Chinese painting)
umi ikete tsuki to mo wabin tomoshikage arranging the plum-flowers, I would enjoy them in the light of the lamp, as if in the moonlight
The brevity of haiku is not something differnt from, but a part of the peotical life; it is not only a form of expression but a mode of living more immediately, more closely to life as may be illustrated in the above haiku by Taigi.
The original of the above haiku is even more difficult, literally: "arranging the plum, as if the moon, I would savour, lamp-light" (Wabiru translated 'enjoy', 'means' to live a life of poetry in poverty). The poet has arranged the flowers in a vase, and wishes to see them in the light of the moon, but there being no moon, he lights the lamp instead, and adds its light to the poetry and the beauty of the flowers.
The whole of the poet's life is shown in this action and the essence of the verse in wabin. This poverty, this asceticism of life and form in haiku, this absence of luxury and decoration finds its philosophical and transcendental expression in Emanuel Swedenborg's (a Swedish philosopher who lived from 1688 until 1772) "Heaven and Hell" (paragraph 178); after he has described the garments of the angels, some of which glow with flame, some of which shine with light, he adds:
"But the angels of the inmost heaven are not clothed".
Well ... with the desciption of the moment I think you can revise that haiku ... so ... "break a leg", have fun, be inspired and share your revised Taigi-haiku with us at Caroe Diem Haiku Kai.
Plum Blossom
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on.
Share your "revised" haiku with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
It's Tan Renga Wednesday again, that nice weekly feature in which I ask you to create a Tan Renga with a given haiku. This week I love to challenge you a little bit more with a "Tan Renga Wednesday Hineri" episode, or a Tan Renga Wednesday with a twist.
I will give you the two-lined stanza and you have to create the haiku, the first three-lined stanza, to complete the Tan Renga.
So now it is up to you to complete the Tan Renga by adding your three-lined first stanza.
This Tan Renga Wednesday Hineri is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 12th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... be ceative and enjoy this challenge.
Share your completed Tan Renga (hineri) with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
Welcome at a new (somewhat belated) episode of our wonderful Kai. This month we will focus mostly on haiku, because haiku was the first theme here at CDHK and the only theme. Its therefore that I have chosen the theme for this month "Never Change A Winning Team". I will challenge you with a great diversity of haiku created by classical and non-classical haiku poets and I hope to challenge you today with a new feature.
I have titled this new feature "Carpe Diem's Transformation" and the goal is to transform a given haiku into a tanka. You have to use the scenes and images in the given haiku to create a transformed haiku into a tanka.
The first haiku I would love to see you transform into a tanka is that renown haiku by Chiyo-Ni about the Morning Glory. Here is that haiku:
asano eikou yoku baketto entanguru watashiha mizuwo motomeru morning glory! the well bucket-entangled, I ask for water
And now ... it's up to you to transform this beautiful haiku by this renown female haiku master into a tanka. Have fun!
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, later on. That will be a new Tan Renga Wednesday.
Share your transformed haiku with us all here at our wonderful Kai.
Welcome at the 2nd regular episode of our new month at CDHK in which the theme is "Never Change A Winning Team", and that means that we will have a lot of haiku challenges, because that was once the only poem I created CDHK for.
During the years I introduced several other forms of Japanese poetry and one of them was the Renga, or Chained Verse. Haiku was once part of a Renga and was than called Hai-Kai, Shiki chnaged that to haiku and that's the name we still use.
As you all know Jane Reichhold (1937-2016) was a great modern Haiku poetess and co-host here at our Kai. I still miss her every day. She was a wonderful source for me to get answers on questions I had, she even had her own feature here "Ask Jane ..."
Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)
Today I love to challenge you to create a Renga With Jane ... I have six beautiful haiku created by her, all themed apples. I extracted these haiku from her online saijiki "A Dictionary of Haiku". The goal is to add your own two-lined stanza. You can choose your own "line-up", and your "ageku" (closing verse) must be connected to the "hokku" (opening verse).
dad on high dropping from his trees apples for lunch southern sunset filling the apple bin a deeper red applesauce the cinnamon glow of a kerosene lamp
windfall apples palaces for worms American pie straight falling rain tiny lakes upon the tree stem hollows of apples baskets in a row overflowing with apples on one a sweater
A wonderful series of haiku to create a Renga with ... enjoy the challenge ...
This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 10th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!
Share your Renga with Jane with us all here at our Haiku Kai.
