Carpe Diem #1631 A new chapter ... leaving the Kumano Kodo

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Maybe you have read the CD Extra already than you know that I am a bit sad that the Kumano Kodo doesn't bring you what I had hoped for so I have decided to leave the Kumano Kodo and go on another trail. That trail ... I already mentioned in our CD Extra of today. I will give you new themes for the rest of this month ... those themes have all to do with Spring, New Life, Nature coming to life again and the light returning back to us.

It's maybe an unexpected turn this month, but it really makes me sad that the responses are in a downfall ... Every day I try to create posts to inspire you ... creating those episodes takes my time. Don't understand me wrong, I like to give my time for you ... but as I see the downfall of your responses than I have difficulties to take time in creating for your inspiration.

It's the second time in our wonderful CDHK history that I decide to change the theme in a running month. Maybe you can remember that I did that earlier in the month about the Quran ... it feels like failure ... to change our theme, but ... well it had to be that way I think.

For today I have chosen to inspire you with a wonderful sonnet by William Shakespeare titled: From you have I been absent in the spring. So you can see this as an episode of that special feature "Distillation" in which I challenged you to create a haiku or tanka inspired on a longer poem. Or create a haiku or tanka from the given poem.

Here is the poem by William Shakespeare:

Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight
Drawn after you, – you pattern of all those.
    Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
    As with your shadow I with these did play.

© William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

A wonderful sonnet by renown Shakespeare. Shakespeare is one of my favorite poets and I hope he can inspire you to create haiku or tanka.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 28th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #779 Seika (Midsummer)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Haiku Kai. As you all know we are exploring the classical Japanese kigo (seasonwords) for summer. Kigo or seasonwords are a kind of markers to place the haiku (or tanka) in the right season. Kigo are very important to the haiku poet, but also to his/her readers, because of the time, time needs to be clear to help the reader to experience the scene, the impression in the haiku.

Today our classical kigo is Seika or Midsummer. I think this midsummerfeeling is approximately around this time in summer (on the Northern Hemisphere) July 21st until August 21st, so in my opinion midsummer starts today.

As I started creating this episode I first thought at the play A MidsummerNight’s Dream by William Shakespeare and the wonderful music composed for this play by Felix Mendelssohn.

A wonderful piece of music I think, but that's just my humble opinion as a fan of classical music. I hope you did like this music.

Ok ... back to our classical kigo, Seika (Midsummer), because that's why we are here (smiles), but I love to create sometimes episodes with more than only haiku.

The rainy season is now over and summer comes with all its might, daily temperatures well over 30 degrees centigrade, which are called "midsummer days" (manatsubi) in the weather forecast. Sometimes they last for about 50 days in Kyushu.

Summer season in Japanese Haiku  is fixed according to the Asian lunar calendar from the beginning of summer around the sixth of May until the eighth of August. In reality the summer in Central Japan lasts roughly from June to the end of August, so July 21 is somewhat the middle of summer according to the Japanese lunar calendar.

Let us look at a few haiku written with seika as kigo:

.鶯に土用休はなかりけり
uguisu ni doyô yasumi wa nakari keri

for the nightingale
there's no break...
midsummer heat

.朝顔の花から土用入りにけり
asagao no hana kara doyô iri ni keri

from the morning-glory's
blossom
midsummer begins

.水切の本道り也土用なり
mizugire no hondôri nari doyô nari

the main road
dry from drought...
midsummer

.木末から土用に入し月よ哉
kozue kara doyô ni irishi tsuki yo kana

from the treetop
gliding into midsummer...
bright moon


© Kobayashi Issa (all above haiku)

Credits: Takotsubo (Octopus trap, Japan)

たこつぼやはかなきゆめおなつのつき
 takotsubo ya hakanaki yume o  natsu no tsuki

mere octopus traps,
evanescent dreams beneath
a midsummer moon.


 © Matsuo Basho

And I found a nice haiku written by a modern haiku poet, Stewart C. Baker. (I couldn't retrieve an email-address to ask permission)

midsummer storm—
shadows rushing over
a burst of rose

© Stewart C Baker

All different angles for "midsummer", but all are really nice, however not the correct kigo seika, because I couldn't find haiku in which seika is used, so I have selected the example haiku on midsummer ...

I love to share the following haiku written by myself inspired on this kigo, not a recently written one, but one from my archives, a nice cascading haiku which I wrote in February 2012:

young dancer © Enosh

ankle chimes
listen to the movement
of the young dancer

a ballerina
dances through the streets
sound of chimes

sound of chimes
through the midsummer night
fading away

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this episode and that it will inspire you all to write/compose an all new haiku (or tanka) and share it here with us.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until July 23rd at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, a new Tokubetsudesu episode, later on.

Carpe Diem ''Distillation'' #6, ''Carpe Diem by William Shakespeare''

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I have finally time to catch up with a few of our special features. So here is our new episode of Carpe Diem 'Distillation' in which the goal is to 'distil' a haiku from a longer poem written by a wellknown poet or poetess, modern as wel as classic. I was searching for a poem with the same title as our Haiku Kai and ran into a poem titled 'Carpe Diem' by William Shakespeare. I think you all know Shakespeare, but I love to tell a little bit more about him.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior. Together they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in 1583, and Judith (whose twin brother died in boyhood), born in 1585.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's company of actors, the most popular of the companies acting at Court. In 1599 Shakespeare joined a group of Chamberlain's Men that would form a syndicate to build and operate a new playhouse: the Globe, which became the most famous theater of its time. With his share of the income from the Globe, Shakespeare was able to purchase New Place, his home in Stratford.

While Shakespeare was regarded as the foremost dramatist of his time, evidence indicates that both he and his contemporaries looked to poetry, not playwriting, for enduring fame. Shakespeare's sonnets were composed between 1593 and 1601, though not published until 1609. That edition, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, consists of 154 sonnets, all written in the form of three quatrains and a couplet that is now recognized as Shakespearean. The sonnets fall into two groups: sonnets 1-126, addressed to a beloved friend, a handsome and noble young man, and sonnets 127-152, to a malignant but fascinating "Dark Lady," whom the poet loves in spite of himself. Nearly all of Shakespeare's sonnets examine the inevitable decay of time, and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in Stratford. He drew up his will in January of 1616, which included his famous bequest to his wife of his "second best bed." He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later at Stratford Church.

Poster from The Twelfth Night 1902

The poem "Carpe Diem" comes from the 3rd scene of the 2nd act of his drama 'Twelfth Night' and here it is:

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journeys end in lovers’ meeting—
Every wise man’s son doth know.

What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

As I read this poem again .. I realize that this could be easily connect to our Trans Siberian Railroad month and 'Aleph' ... this occurred conincidental ... but I like it ...

Now it's the task to distil a haiku from this poem ... it wasn't easy, but I think I did well. Here is my distilled haiku form the poem 'Carpe Diem' by William Shakespeare:

secret lovers
hiding between the curtains -
sweet kisses

Hm ... I like this one, but it's not my best ever (smiles).

You can submit your distilled haiku until January 25th 11.59 AM (CET). This episode of 'distillation' is NOW OPEN.