Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #115 Transformation ... a sone for a pillow

!! Open for your submissions tomorrow, Sunday February 9th, 2020 at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a (belated) new CDHK Weekend Meditation. It wasn't possible to publish on time, through circumstances. This weekend I love to challenge you with a new Transformation episode, that wonderful special feature in which the goal is to re-create a given haiku into a tanka.
This weekend I have chosen for a haiku by a not so well known haiku poet, Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941).

Kawabata Bosha

Bosha is a not so well known haiku poet, a contemporary of Shiki and a devotee to Basho, as we already can see in his haigo, Bosha.

Let me tell you first something about this not so well known haiku poet. Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941) was born on August 17 in Downtown Tokyo.His family name is Kawabata Nobukazu. His father had a great influence on his haiku career. His grandfather and his mother worked in a hospital and as a child it was his wish to become a doctor himself.
His stepbrother was Kawabata Ryush (Ryuushi), who later became a famous painter of traditional Japanese Paintings (Nihonga). Bosha himself was also a great painter.

At age 17 he started to use the haigo Bosha. He later became a most beloved student of Takahama Kyoshi and worked with the Aogiri Group. But his lung tuberculosis became worse and he died at a young age in 1941. On the evening of July 16 he died, this was his Jisei (death-poem).

ishi makura shite ware semi ka naki shigure

a stone for a pillow
me, just another cicada ...
so shrill, like crying

© Kawabata Bosha

cicada

A beautiful Jisei (death-poem) I would say. As read this Jisei I immediately thought about a haiku written by my sensei Matsuo Basho. In a way the haiku by Bosha was I think inspired on a haiku by Basho.

That haiku was the following:

the deep stillness
seeping into the rocks
the voice of the cicadas

© Matsuo Basho

Did you know that the life-circle of a cicada is 17 years? Could it be that our 17 syllables counting haiku was inspired on the life circle of the cicada? As that is true than haiku is for sure the poetry of nature.

Well ... enough talking.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions tomorrow Sunday February 9th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 16th at noon (CET). Have a wonderful weekend full of inspiration.

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #112 Transformation ... sketching from life (Shiki's Shasei technique)

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday, January 19th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new Weekend Meditation here at our wonderful Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to create Japanese poetry and share it with the world.

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, Masaoka Shiki. In this episode I love to challenge you to re-create a haiku by Shiki into a Tanka. Maybe you can remember that Shiki has a certain haiku writing technique named "shasei". Let me introduce this technique again here.

Japanese Stamp with an image of Shiki

Shasei

The word "shasei" has not yet been invented at the time of Basho, but the idea was there according to what Basho tells his disciples:

[...] Matsuo Basho advises his disciples: “Learn from the Pine!”To do that you must leave behind you all subjective prejudice. Otherwise you will force your own self onto the object and can learn nothing from it. Your poem will well-up of its own accord when you and the object become one, when you dive deep enough into the object, to discover something of its hidden glimmer. [...]

Here is an example of this Shasei technique:

Come spring as of old.

When such revenues of rice.

Braced this castle town!

© Masaoka Shiki

It's a good example of the shasei technique. What is the Shasei technique? Let me try to explain that to you all with the help of Jane Reichhold.

Sketches of Life, Tree of Life (image found on Pinterest)

Though this technique is often given Shiki's term Shasei (sketch from life) or Shajitsu (reality), it has been in use since the beginning of poetry in the Orient. The poetic principle is "to depict the thing just as it is". The reason Shiki took it up as a poetical cause, and this made it famous,  was his own rebellion against the many other techniques used in haiku. Shiki was, by nature it seemed, against whatever was the status quo - a true rebel. If older poets had overused any idea or method, it was his personal goal to point this out and suggest something else. This was followed until someone else got tired of it and suggested something new. This seems to be the way poetry styles go in and out of fashion.

Thus, Shiki hated associations, contrasts, comparisons, wordplays, puns, and riddles - all the things we are cherishing here! He favored the quiet simplicity of just stating what he saw without anything else happening in the haiku. He found the greatest beauty in the common sight, simply reported exactly as it was seen, and ninety-nine percent of his haiku written in his style. Many people still feel he was right. There are some moments that are perhaps best said as simply as possible in his way. Yet, Shiki himself realized in 1893, after writing very many haiku in this style, that used too much, even his new idea could become lackluster. So the method is an answer, but never the complete answer of how to write a haiku.

Eggplant

I hope you can relate to this Shasei technique and can work with it. This weekend I love to challenge you to re-create a haiku (in Shasei style) by Shiki into a Tanka. Here is the haiku to work with:

kaboocha yori nasu muzukashiki shasei kana

Sketching from life —
eggplants are harder to do
than pumpkins

© Masaoka Shiki (Tr. Burton Watson)

A challenging task for you this weekend. I am looking forward to all of your wonderful "transformed haiku". Have a great weekend!

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday January 19th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until January 26th at noon (CET). 

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #110 Carpe Diem Transformation ... Bush Warbler

!! 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.

© Basho

Bush Warbler

What is karumi?

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.

Carpe Diem #1775 Morning Glory!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

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

© Chiyo-Ni

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.