Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #116 Renga With ... waiting for the full moon

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday February 16th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new Weekend Meditation episode. This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Renga With ... That beautiful feature in which you have the opportunity to create haiku with known and unknown haiku masters.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a renga with the so called "big five" (Basho, Issa, Buson, Chiyo-Ni and Shiki). And, how immodest, one of my own haiku.

Here are the six haiku to work with:

the autumn wind:
thickets and fields also,
Fuha Barrier

© Basho

a dandelion

now and then interrupting

the butterfly's dream

© Chiyo-Ni

the thunderstorm having cleared up

the evening sun shines on a tree

where a cicada is chirping 

© Shiki

simply trust:

do not also the petals flutter down,

just like that?

© Issa

in nooks and corners

cold remains:

flowers of the plum

© Buson

ancient warriors ghosts

mists over the foreign highlands -

waiting for the full moon

© Chèvrefeuille

Six nice haiku I think. Now it's up to you to create a renga with them by adding your two-lined stanza of approx. 7-7 syllables. You can choose your own "line-up". Enjoy this Renga challenge and have a wonderful weekend.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday, February 16th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 23rd at noon (CET). Enjoy!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #114 Renga With ... beach diamonds

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend meditation here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, that nice special feature for the weekend. I think you all have noticed that I didn't publish on last Thursday and Friday, my excuses for that, I had a very busy (and tough) week, so I hadn't time to publish on those days.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Renga with several haiku poets. Your task is to add the two-lined stanza towards it. You can choose your own "line-up", but have to start with the haiku I will give first. So this Renga With ... is a kind of Hineri, with a twist.

Here are the six haiku to use, the first given haiku has to be your hokku (starting verse) and is a beauty created by Jane Reichhold (1937-2016).

beach diamonds
a new day crystallized
in sunny surf foam

© Jane Reichhold

cold spring breeze
makes the cherry blossom shiver
one heartbeat long

© Chèvrefeuille

The wind from Mt. Fuji
I put it on the fan.
Here, a souvenir from Edo

© Basho (Tr. Ryu Yotsuya)

watch birth and death:
the lotus has already
opened its flower.

© Soseki Natsume (Tr. Soiku Shigematsu)

dervishes whirling
- seeking a higher consciousness
third eye opens

© Chèvrefeuille

flute melodies
across green ocean waves
spring meadows

© Jane Reichhold

Six wonderful haiku to work with I think, not an easy task, but I think and belief that you all can do it. Enjoy this Renga With ...

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 9th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend.

Carpe Diem #1774 Renga With Jane Reichhold ... apples for lunch

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

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

Apples For Lunch

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

© Jane Reichhold

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!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #57 Renga With ... six haiku poets

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday November 4th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend-meditation our feature that gives you the opportunity to meditate and contemplate before you submit your work. Let me give you a small update first. As you all know the hospital where I am working has ran into bankruptcy so I am unemployed at the moment. Of course my colleagues and I are hoping that the hospital will be re-opened and it looks positive at the moment. There are a few investors who would like to take over, but right at the moment it's not clear which one will get "the bone". So I have a few appointments for a new job. One of those interviews I have had yesterday (Thursday November 1st) and I am glad that interview was succesful. I have already my contract for that new job, but I have still a few interviews to do, so I haven't yet signed it. Why didn't I sign? Well ... it's just for a few months. Of course that's better than nothing, but I am looking for a longtime commitment.

For this weekend meditation I have cjosen to challenge you to create a Renga With ... not with one other haiku poet, but with six different haiku poets. So this weekend you can make a renga with the following haiku poets: Basho, Issa, Chiyo-Ni, Buson, Shiki and Jane Reichhold. Of course you may choose your own line-up. Your task is to add the two-lined stanza between the haiku through association on the scene(s) in the haiku.

Here are the six haiku to work with:

all my years
floating in the river
a childish heart

© Jane Reichhold (taken from our tribute e-book "All My Years")

a flash of lightning:
the screech of a night-heron
flying in the darkness

© Basho

the coolness
of the sound of water at night,
falling back into the well

© Issa

autumn's bright moon,
however far I walked, still afar off
in an unknown sky

© Chiyo-Ni

autumn's bright moon

pressing sushi;
after a while,
a feeling of loneliness

© Buson

at the gate of a deserted house,
a cicada is crying in the rays
of the evening sun

© Shiki

What an awesome challenge this is ... creating a renga with all those wonderful and renown haiku poets. I hope you will enjoy this wonderful task. By the way ... try to create a "closed chain" with an ageku that connects with the hokku.

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday November 4th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until November 11th at noon (CET). Enjoy your weekend.