Carpe Diem Special #177 Cor van den Heuvel's "a tide pool", three favorite haiku.

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's my pleasure to bring another CD Special with my three favorite haiku by Cor van den Heuvel. He has written a lot of haiku and it's for sure not easy to choose from his oeuvre, but I succeeded to choose three favorite haiku of Cor van den Heuvel and I love to share them here with you. Of course these are just my favorite at this moment, because these haiku I ran into while preparing this awesome third anniversary month.

Here are the three favorites:

November evening
the wind from a passing truck
ripples a roadside puddle

Roadside puddle

the sun goes down
my shovel strikes a spark
from the dark earth

a tide pool
in a clam shell
the evening sunlight

© Cor van den Heuvel

Three wonderful haiku I think. I like them that much that I don't even dare to write an all new haiku inspired on these beauties, but ... well that's of course our goal with this CD Special. So I have tried it and I hope it did work as I had hoped.

I tried to write an all new haiku by using the first line of the second haiku "the sun goes down" and used the baransu style to compose this one:

the sun goes down
spots of light sparkle in the waterfall
a timeless gift

© Chèvrefeuille

Awesome! A beauty (how immodest).

For this CD Special I love to ask you to write an all new haiku inspired on your favorite haiku by Cor van den Heuvel. Of course you may use the haiku I gave here, but that's up to you. If you choose another favorite haiku by Cor van den Heuvel? Please share your thoughts with us why you have chosen that specific haiku. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 26th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Hiroshima Lantern Ceremony, later on.

Carpe Diem Special #175 Cor van den Heuvel's "reading a mystery"

Dear Haijin, visistors and travelers,

What a joy to bring you another wonderful haiku by Cor van den Heuvel (1931 - ). In an earlier CD Special I shared a "baseball" - haiku written by him and this time I love to share the following beauty:

reading a mystery
a cool breeze comes through
the beach roses

© Cor van den Heuvel

I have tried to see this scene in front of me. I see a man or a woman enjoying the summer heat on a beach somewhere. Maybe it's late afternoon and the heat has tempered a little bit, but still it is warm. So he/she decides to seek the shade, he/she finds that shade in the dunes surrounded by beach roses.
"Reading the mystery" sounds great. Is it a novel or is the person in this haiku someone who is looking around to find someone, maybe the person is trying to find a mate.
As I look to this haiku from my own view and experience than I would go for that second idea. I love mystery and I love to find out such a mystery.

Another haiku by Cor van den Heuvel brought me also that idea of mystery, but in another way.

through the small holes
in the mailbox
sunlight on the blue stamp

© Cor van den Heuvel

This haiku is awesome, but it looks somewhat paradoxical, because of the scene given. I don't know the American mailboxes, so maybe it's possible, but to me this looks really strange. How can someone see the sunlight on the stamp while the postal is inside the mailbox?
It's a mystery ... so maybe this whole episode is themed mystery or mysterious ...

mysterious fields
hidden in mists and greyness -
the cry of an owl 

the cry of an owl
resonates through the night
mysterious fields

© Chèvrefeuille

Or this one:

a new day rises
in the mystery of the dawn
the sound of rain

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... now it is up to you to write/compose an all new haiku in the same sense, tone and spirit as the one given.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 20th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, Hokkaido Shrine Festival, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Special #171 Cor van den Heuvel's "baseball"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's my pleasure to bring another wonderful (well known) haiku poet to your attention, Cor van den Heuvel. Of course I will give credits to his work used here. I have asked him for permission to use his haiku (of course I hope he will grant me that permission), I however had already planned haiku written/composed by him for this festive third anniversary month of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Cor van den Heuvel:

Cor van den Heuvel, born and brought up in New England, has been writing haiku since he first discovered the genre in 1958 in San Francisco, where he heard Gary Snyder mention it at a poetry reading in North Beach. Though he is considered one of America's leading haiku poets, van den Heuvel is best known as the editor of The Haiku Anthology, generally considered the definitive collection of American and Canadian haiku.

After learning about haiku, van den Heuvel soon returned to the east coast and by early 1959 was writing his own haiku in a small cottage in Wells Beach, Maine. That summer he got a job reading them, along with translations of Japanese haiku, at the Cafe Zen in nearby Ogunquit. In the fall he moved to Boston where he gave readings of haiku and other poetry in Beat coffee houses.

Cor van den Heuvel

At the beginning of the 1970s, van den Heuvel, joined the Haiku Society of America and became friends with William J. Higginson, Anita Virgil, and Alan Pizzarelli. The poet's association with the society was close for many years. While he was its president in 1978, the society's magazine, Frogpond, began publication and haiku poet Sumio Mori and haiku scholar and critic Kenkichi Yamamoto were invited from Japan to speak on haiku in New York City.

In 2000 he was named Honorary Curator of the American Haiku Archives at the State Library in Sacramento, California, and at the World Haiku Festival held in London and Oxford, he received a World Haiku Achievement Award.

On December 1, 2002, he was awarded The Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Prize in Matsuyama. The prize, for outstanding contributions to haiku as poet and editor, included a cash award of 500,000 yen (about $4,000) and an all-expenses-paid week in Japan. Van den Heuvel is presently in the process of putting together a volume of his collected haiku, The Ticket-Taker's Shadow. A book of his haibun, A Boy's Seasons, which was serialized in Modern Haiku, is to be published by Press Here.

I first thought that Cor van den Heuvel was a fellow dutchman, but it turned out that he wasn't a dutchman, but as I look at his name ... than he must have had Dutch ancestors ... maybe I will have the chance to ask him that.

Credits: Baseball player

Cor van den Heuvel has written wonderful haiku, but especially I was pleasantly surprised by his poetry-book "baseball", one of the most famous American sports. So I had to find a few of his haiku from "baseball".

conference on the mound
the pitcher looks down
at the ball in his hand

pitcher and catcher
head for the dugout
the batter stares at his bat

© Cor van den Heuvel (from: baseball)

But of course he has written a lot of other gorgeous haiku as we saw in one of our earlier Utabukuro episodes and now I love to share a few other haiku written/composed by Cor van den Heuvel to inspire you.

shading his eyes
the wooden Indian looks out
at the spring rain

late autumn-
sunlight fades from a sandbank
deep in the Woods

© Cor van den Heuvel

shading his eyes
the wooden Indian looks out
at the spring rain

© Cor van den Heuvel

Wow what a wonderful haiku to read and re-read. Cor van den Heuvel's haiku have a very strong quality and I hope to write/compose my inspired haiku to become "in his shadow", I think I will never be that a great haiku poet as Cor van den Heuvel has become.

As you all know it's the goal to write an all new haiku (tanka or other poetry form) inspired on the haiku by the featured haiku poet trying to become close to the same sense, tone and spirit. Not an easy task ... but I love to challenge you (as you all know) and myself.

Here is my attempt to write an all new haiku in the same sense, tone and spirit as the haiku by Cor van den Heuvel:

old farmer
inhales the fresh morning air
rain today

© Chèvrefeuille

Another one, this time inspired on the "baseball"- haiku. I am a big fan of basketball and I thought "maybe I can write a haiku inspired on basketball", so here is my very first "basketball - haiku" ever.

rebound
he dribbles to the other side
three points!

© Chèvrefeuille

I remember that we had a Jack Kerouac haiku on basketball last year in May. I love to share that haiku here again:

playing basketball
– the lady next door
watching again

© Jack Kerouac

Another wonderful CD Special has come to its end and I hope it will inspire you all to write an all new haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form. It was really fun to create this episode and I hope you all will feel that joy and fun too.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until October 8th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, a new episode of Haiku Writing Techniques, later on.

Carpe Diem Utabukuro #7 a drop of water by Cor van den Heuvel

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's Saturday again and that means time for a Utabukuro episode. This week I have given a lot of feature here at CDHK a thought, and also this Utabukuro feature came a long. It's a lovely feature and I love creating it, but I have decided to make this feature no longer every week, it will become a bi-weekly feature (on the other Saturdays we will have CD's Time Machine feature).

For this episode of Utabukuro I have chosen two beauties written by Cor van den Heuvel (1931-) to inspire you. Why have I chosen these two haiku? Well these are very nicely written and very much in tune with nature and it's fragility. Especially that second haiku is a beauty and for sure a favorite of mine.

By the way ... I always thought that Cor van den Heuvel was a Dutch haiku poet, but I discovered, just recently that he is from New England, but as I look at his name I would say he has Dutch ancestors, but that I don't know for sure.
Cor van den Heuvel, born and brought up in New England, has been writing haiku since he first discovered the genre in 1958 in San Francisco, where he heard Gary Snyder mention it at a poetry reading in North Beach. Though he is considered one of America's leading haiku poets, van den Heuvel is best known as the editor of The Haiku Anthology, generally considered the definitive collection of American and Canadian haiku. First published in 1974.

Cor van den Heuvel

reading a mystery

a cool breeze comes through
the beach roses

a drop of water
floats by the canoe
on a curled leaf

© Cor van den Heuvel

It wasn't easy to come up with a nice haiku or tanka, so I have a nice tanka to share here from my archives.

taking a last zip
the coolness of the last drop of water
burns my throat
desert sand between my toes
ah, that coolness

© Chèvrefeuille

Well .... now it's up to you. For Utabukuro there is no need to use the "theme" of my post, you may choose a haiku or tanka by your self, or from a haiku/tanka poet which you like. The only "task" is to write an all new haiku or tanka (or one from your archives ..) inspired on the haiku or tanka of your choice. Of course it's also great to read your explanation of your choice. It's up to you ...

PS I am still busy with creating the list for our first Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Renga Party, so be patient. I hope to publish it a.s.a.p. 

This Utabukuro episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until Saturday August 22nd at noon (CET). Have fun!