Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #73, Suzanne's "Poppies"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Impressionism is our leading theme this month and I am glad that I have found a wonderful haiku to start this week's Tan Renga Challenge with. This week I have chosen to share a haiga by Suzanne of Art and Life She submitted it for our "poppies" prompt a few days ago.
As I visited her weblog and saw this haiga I was in awe ... what a great haiga she had shared on poppies and I just had to use it for a Tan Renga Challenge. So here it is (I will give the haiga also):

Credits: Haiga "poppies" by Suzanne of "Art and Life"

And here is the haiku:

red poppies of Troy
- the blood of the fallen
bright on the grass

© Suzanne

A wonderful "impression" and with the photo a strong haiga which only can leave you in awe I think.
The goal of this Tan Renga Challenge is to complete or continue it by writing/composing the second (two lined) stanza towards it. Tan Renga is a short chained verse written by two poets and looks very similar with Tanka, but Tanka is written by one poet. That second stanza has two lines with each 7 syllables, but that is, as you all know, not an obligation.

Here is my attempt to write a second stanza towards this beautiful haiku by Suzanne:

red poppies of Troy

- the blood of the fallen

bright on the grass                                (© Suzanne)

heritage of battles once fought

freedom lost forever ... silence               (© Chèvrefeuille)

That wasn't an easy task, but I succeeded. I tried to turn it in a positive way and I think this second stanza brings that, but maybe you, my dear readers, have other ideas about that. Feel free to share your thoughts.

This Tan Renga Challenge is open for your submissions today at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Friday February 20th at noon (CET). For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #666, Poppies

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Recently I was given a present by Jane Reichhold ... finally I can read her "Writing and Enjoying Haiku". I started reading it immediately and it was an "eye-opener", not in the idea "all new", but more in the idea "yes I knew it". It's a great book to read and it will certainly make my haiku-ing better. I am very grateful that Jane send it to me and it gives me the opportunity to broaden my ideas and visions on haiku. Awesome!

As I created the prompt-list for February I realized that I had used several of the prompts earlier and so it is with our prompt for today poppies. I remember for example an episode of our "distillation"- feature in which I shared a wonderful poem by John McCrae "In Flanders Fields". I love to share that poem here once again.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

© John McCrae

In some way I have the feeling this poem fits our impressionism theme very much, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. It's a very strong poem with a very deep meaning and full of emotions. Yes ... for sure this poem is impressionism.

And I recall an episode on Basho Revisited in which I wrote about a haiku by Basho on White Poppies, here is that haiku by Basho:

shira geshi ya   shigure no hana no   saki tsu ran

white poppy
it must have bloomed
from a wintry shower

© Matsuo Basho

I even can remember that I tried to explain in that episode that Basho was indeed writing in Kanshicho-style (which we have discussed here in one of our episodes of "Ask Jane ...") for several years. After that period Basho re-wrote his haiku in Kanshicho-style to the regular haiku-style.

As you maybe know in every episode of Basho Revisited I try to write a haiku in the same sense, tone and spirit as the one by Basho, whom I see as my master, and here is my attempt to write an all new haiku on this one of the "white poppy":

at sunrise
poppies still redder
sacrifice for God

© Chèvrefeuille

Let us look back at the poem by John McCrae ... then we can see that this haiku I wrote fits the "impression" which is "painted" in the poem "In Flanders Field". A coincidence I think, but it came to my attention as I was preparing this episode.

We are busy with our central theme impressionism this month and all our prompts this month are based on Impressionistic paintings. This episode is inspired on this painting by Claude Monet (1873):

Credits: Landscape with Poppies - Claude Monet (1873)

Wow! What a wonderful painting ... it's really an Impression of a field with poppies and it's so clear that this is the "hand" of Claude Monet. Must be fabulous to paint like Monet, but ... I am not that much a painter with oil-pastel ... I am more a painter with words (smiles). As I stated in one of our "Haiku Writing Techniques" episodes, I think that a haiku is an impression of a moment in time, as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. How can haiku be more then that? It's ... just an impression of a moment in time and it's awesome to catch that moment in time with so little words ....

one summer day

poppies coloring the meadows -

raindrops start to fall

© Chèvrefeuille

Is this an impression of the scene I see? Well ... it could be ... 

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 14th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Tulips, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your "impression", your haiku with us all.

Carpe Diem Distillation #8, John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another CD-Distillation episode is ahead of us ... I know that our latest episode of CD Distillation is still open for your submissions, but I had to create this episode. Why?
Well ... in our Tan Renga Challenge of this week Managua's "let the ravens come" there were a few haiku-family-members who used poppies in their continuation of the Tan Renga. Bjorn of Brudberg's Writings was one of them. Bjorn shared a wonderful poem in his response on my comment a poem titled "In Flanders Field".

Inscription of the complete poem in a bronze "book" at the John McCrae memorial
at his birthplace in Guelph, Ontario, Canada

 
"In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918). He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London-based magazine Punch.
It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war. As a result of its immediate popularity, parts of the poem were used in propaganda efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict. (Source: Wikipedia)

Credits: John McCrae

 
I immediately fell in love with that poem, a real beauty, and I read and re-read it ... I had the feeling that I had to become one with this poem and reform it into a haiku. I had to create this new CD-Distillation episode ... I had to ...

Here is the poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

© John McCrae

What a gorgeous poem ... a real tribute to all those veterans.

Credits: Poppies on a graveyard

As you all know the goal of this CD-Distillation is to "distil" a haiku from the long-poem in this case "In Flanders Fields". It's a challenge of course, but even the classical haiku-poets used parts of other poems in their haiku ... so it's a classic way of writing haiku to distil haiku from a long poem.

This episode of CD-Distillation is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until June 17th at noon. Have fun, be inpsired and share your distilled haiku with our haiku-family.