Carpe Diem #1523 H.F. Noyes' ... rusty toy truck (Renga With ...)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I had some trouble with finding a theme / prompt for today, but after some surfing over the WWW I found a wonderful modern haiku poet, H.F. Noyes (1918-2010). I honestly had never heard of him, but as I ran into his haiku I was immediately caught by the beauty of his poems. So let me share a little bit background about him. (Source: The Living Haiku Anthology)

H.F. Noyes

H. F. Noyes (1918 – 2010)

The poet, editor, and psychotherapist H.F. "Tom" Noyes was born in 1918 on a farm in Oregon to which he attributes his love of nature. He attended Yale and Columbia, majoring in Anthropology and Social Psychology. He also studied Developmental Psychology at the Rousseau Institute and the University of Geneva. Immediately after graduation, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as an ordnanceman and torpedoman, and then as an ensign in the Scouts and Raiders (U.S.Marines). After the war he obtained a Doctorate in Counselling, as well as training in Gestalt Therapy and Jungian Psychoanalysis. He practiced psychotherapy in New York City for 25 years, retiring in 1970 to live the simple life in Politia, outside Athens, Greece.

Tom’s interest in haiku began through study of R. H. Blyth’s four-volume Haiku. Noyes' work appeared in poetry journals worldwide and in many anthologies, including collections published in the USA, Canada, Slovenia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, India, Romania, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and England. His favourite authors were Thoreau, D.H. Lawrence, and Dostoevsky, and his favourite poets were Frost, Jeffers, Yannis Ritsos, Francis Ponge, the T'ang and Sung Dynasty poets, and the old masters: Basho, Buson, and Issa of Japan. In Modern Haiku (2008, 39:1, p.125) H. F. Noyes wrote: “Re definitions of haiku, I honor Basho’s, ‘Do not follow in the footsteps of the ancients. Seek what they sought.’ If they could speak from beyond the grave, Basho, Buson and Issa would caution that a haiku is not a product of mind, but of heartmind. The most precious ingredient in a haiku that ingratiates itself with us is likely to be spontaneity . . . an unselfconscious catching of the haiku spirit as it flies. The depth reflected is chiefly through afterthought in readers’ minds. The writer is content to convey a sense of wonder.”

chain

This episode I love to challenge you all to create a renga together with H.F. Noyes as we do in that special feature "Renga With ..." I have chosen six haiku to work with. You can make your own "line-up" and than add your two lined stanza to make it a wonderful renga in honor of Noyes.

Here are the six haiku I have chosen:

as if nothing happened
the crow there
the willow here

rusty toy truck
stuck on the mudbank
a cargo of blossoms

full moon rising
nowhere on the empty beach
to hide our love

Empty Beach in the Moonlight

raking aside leaves
on the backyard pond
I release the moon

bright fall day
the brook wanders off 
its shimmer lingers

evening walk
the creak of my boots 
invades the stars

© H.F. Noyes

A wonderful series of haiku to work with I think. You may decide your own "line-up" and try to complete the "circle" with a nice "ageku" (closing verse).

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 23rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... enjoy the challenge!

Carpe Diem #1519 Junicho, the twelve stanza renga (Soliloquy No Renga)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy this month is. It's really a feast this month and that makes me happy. I hope you all like the choice of prompts I have made. Today we have arrived at the letter J and I have chosen the theme "Junicho" and for sure you have heard from Junicho, because that's the kind of renga we are creating in our "Renga With ..." feature, but there is something about the Junicho I didn't know. So therefore I have chosen this theme. Let me give you an explanation of the Junicho.

Junicho--meaning ‘twelve tone’--is a ‘single sheet’ poem that disregards the formal separations of the jo-ha-kyu movement. There is no set seasonal progression, though each season is represented and the poem would be expected to open with the season in which composition takes place. Spring and autumn carry their traditional greater weight, the poem overall dividing more or less equally between season and non-season verses. The typical distribution therefore is: winter - one, summer - one, spring - two, autumn - two, and non-season - six.

cherry blossom road

The Junicho allows for a single blossom verse; this may appear in any season and be any type of flower. The poem will likewise contain a single moon verse that may also appear in any season and be otherwise shorn of classical precedent. 'Love' will be represented by a pair or so of verses that may appear in any position.

Source: Simply Haiku (online haiku magazine)

So for this episode I challenge you to create a Junicho on your own following the above mentioned pattern. As you can read above a traditional Junicho opens with the season in which composition takes place. So if you are living on the Northern Hemisphere, your Junicho has to start with an autumn verse. Are you living on the Southern Hemisphere, your Junicho has to start with a spring verse.

Enjoy rhis challenge!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 17th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #53 Renga With Basho #10 "summer's night"

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

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first edition of our anniversary month's weekend meditations. This month I love to challenge you every weekend meditation to create a renga with one of the four greatest haiku poets ever: Basho, Issa, Buson and Shiki. This first weekend meditation I have a Renga With Basho episode with a twist, so this is a Renga With Basho Hineri episode.

I have chosen six (6) haiku written by Basho and you have to use one of them as the "hokku". As you have read this weekend meditation is titled "summer's night". "Summer's Night" is the first line of one of the six given haiku, that haiku you have to use as "hokku". The other five you can give your own line-up.
The goal is to add the two-lined stanza of approximately 14 syllables and make the renga complete. Your closing verse, the "ageku", has to close the chain through association on the "hokku".

Here are the six (6) haiku to work with and create your "renga (hineri)" together with Basho:

a bamboo shoot
when I was a child it was
fun to sketch (*)

day after day
barley ripens
a singing skylark

Rice Paddy Sparrows (found on 123RF)

rice paddy sparrows
shelter in the tea plants
when chased away

summer's night
the tree spirit follows in
the sound of wooden shoes (**)

clapping my hands
the echo as it dawns
of a summer moon

Shuukaidoo (Begonia Grandis)

begonia flowers
blooming in the colors
of a watermelon

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold, taken from "Basho, the complete haiku")

(*) Basho was also a haiga artist
(**) This haiku is your starting verse or "hokku"

A nice selection of haiku by Basho to work with I think. This is the opportunity to create a renga with one of the greatest haiku poets ... so have fun!

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday October 7th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until October 14th at noon (CEST). Enjoy your weekend.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (21) lend me your arms

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last regular episode in our Tan Renga Challenge Month. I ran through my archives to find a nice haiku to end this month with, but couldn't find the right one. So I have done some research to find haiku from the western world and I ran into a haiku by a fellow dutchman, Hendrik Doeff (1764-1837) who was the Dutch commissioner in the Dejima trading post in Nagasaki, during the first years of the 19th century. (source: wikipedia)

The haiku to close this TRC month with is the earliest known haiku written by a non-Japanese haiku poet and Hendrik Doeff has written that haiku. This makes me proud, because a fellow dutchman has written that haiku ... how awesome that is ...

Hendrik Doeff

Here is the haiku to work with and turn into a Tan Renga by adding your second (two-lined) stanza of approximately 14 syllabes:

inazuma no kaina wo karan kusamakura 

lend me your arms,
fast as thunderbolts,
for a pillow on my journey.

© Hendrik Doeff

I hope you will be inspired to add your stanza to this haiku to make the Tan Renga complete. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 4th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our last weekend meditation of this month later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (20) in an empty shoe

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the penultimate regular episode of our wonderful Kai. This month I challenged you to create Tan Renga with "hokku" and "ageku" given by me and you all did a great job on these challenges. You all make me so proud and love to thank you all for that.

Arigato (Thank You)

For this penultimate regular episode I have chosen a haiku by Virginia Popescu and I hope she will appreciate my choice.

This "hokku" Virginia wrote in response on one of our "masterpiece"- episodes:

rest on the field –
a lonely cricket chirping
in an empty shoe

© Virginia Popescu

Isn't it a wonderful masterpiece? I hope it will give you the inspiration to complete the task ... making the Tan Renga complete by adding your second stanza of two lines with approximately 14 syllables.

This TCR episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 3rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new (and last regular) episode of September later on.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (19) broken sunflower

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our TRC month Chained Together III. Today I have chosen a not so well known haiku written by myself to work with. During lack of time, I am very busy at work, I will not create a long episode. So here is the haiku to work with:

broken sunflower
torn apart by a rainstorm --
puddles on the path

© Chèvrefeuille, your host

Sunflower Reflections

Well ... it's up to you now ... create a wonderful Tan Renga with the above haiku by adding your 2nd stanza to it. Enjoy ... the task.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 2nd at noon (CEST). Have fun ...!

Renga With Basho #9 A Mark On The Wall

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It is time again for a new episode of our special feature "Renga With Basho", our special feature in which you have the opportunity to create a renga together with the master, Matsuo Basho, one of the most famous and renown haiku poets on earth. I think that a lot of people will know his famous "frog pond" haiku, but he has written a lot of other wonderful haiku in his lifetime. Renga With Basho gives you haiku he has written and which are not renown by a greater public. So this is an opportunity to become familiair with other haiku of Basho.

The goal is to create a renga with the given haiku, the line-up your own choice, through adding your second stanzas of two lines wit approximately 14 syllables. I have made another nice choice (I think) of haiku by Basho taken from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, The Complete Haiku".

Here are the six (6) haiku to use in your own line up, of course I hope you will create a beautiful "closed chain of stanzas" by adding your stanzas and a wonderful last verse or closing verse the "ageku".

path of the sun
the hollyhock leans into
early summer rain

don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two

wait awhile
cut the soy beans to the sound
of monks beating bowls

White Egret (image found on Pinterest; photo © Norman Johnson)

building a bridge
between snow-covered mountains
white egrets

plovers fly away
the evening grows later with
cold mountain winds

summer rain
where the poem card peeled off
a mark on the wall

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold, taken from: Basho, the complete haiku)

A wonderful selection I would say, but if it's a selection to create a renga with I don't know, but maybe you can do it in a great way.

This episode of "Renga With Basho" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 1st at noon (CEST). Enjoy this "work-out" ... (smiles).

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (18) Grass On River Bank (Ken Gierke)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

September 2018, our Tan Renga Challenge Month, is running towards its end and we have only four (4) regular posts to go. I have tried to give you an every day challenge with haiku by classical and non-classical haiku poets and by challenging you a little bit more through the Hineri episodes, as we had yesterday.

Today I have a wonderful haiku by Ken Gierke of RivrVlogr. He wrote this one in response on our first episode of "quest for a (new) masterpiece" back in May 2018. Ken is one of the haiku poets who visits CDHK very often and I am glad he does, because his Troiku are really awesome. Yes Ken is an awesome haiku poet. Thank you Ken that you are a participant of CDHK and I hope you appreciate my choice of your haiku here to create a Tan Renga with.

Credits

Here is the haiku by Ken to work with:

grass on river bank
bending over in warm breeze
pale moon looking down

© Ken Gierke (RivrVlogr)

Well ... a beautiful haiku I would say ... a really nice one to work with.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 1st at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (11) the dim glow of a campfire

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

After an easy going weekend I have a new TRC for you. Today I have chosen another episode of our Hineri feature. So today I will give you the 2nd stanza of approximately 14 syllables spread over two lines. This time I don't have chosen a quote by a haiku poet, but by a young Japanese novelist.

First I will give you the quote to work with and than some background on this young Japanese novelist and I will end this episode with the two lined stanza I created inspired on the quote.

[...] "He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills."[...]

© Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927)

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, pseudonym Chōkōdō Shujin or Gaki, (born March 1, 1892, Tokyo, Japan—died July 24, 1927, Tokyo), prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity.
As a boy Akutagawa was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious reader. He began his literary career while attending Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo), where he studied English literature from 1913 to 1916.
The publication in 1915 of his short story “Rashōmon” led to his introduction to Natsume Sōseki, the outstanding Japanese novelist of the day. With Sōseki’s encouragement he began to write a series of stories derived largely from 12th- and 13th-century collections of Japanese tales but retold in the light of modern psychology and in a highly individual style. He ranged wide in his choice of material, drawing inspiration from such disparate sources as China, Japan’s 16th-century Christian community in Nagasaki, and European contacts with 19th-century Japan. Many of his stories have a feverish intensity that is well-suited to their often macabre themes.
In 1922 he turned toward autobiographical fiction, but Akutagawa’s stories of modern life lack the exotic and sometimes lurid glow of the older tales, perhaps accounting for their comparative unpopularity. His last important work, “Kappa” (1927), although a satiric fable about elflike creatures (kappa), is written in the mirthless vein of his last period and reflects his depressed state at the time. His suicide came as a shock to the literary world.
Akutagawa is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been made into films. The film classic Rashomon (1950), directed by Kurosawa Akira, is based on a combination of Akutagawa’s story by that title and another story of his, “Yabu no naka” (1921; “In a Grove”).

Rashomon (movie by Akira Kurosawa)

I wrote the two lined stanza to work with inspired on the above quote of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892-1927)

Haunted valley deep in the mountains
The dim glow of a campfire

© Chèvrefeuille

I think this 2nd stanza will inspire you to create the first stanza of the Tan Renga. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 23rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on today.

Renga With Basho Hineri #8 missing a wife

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of Renga With Basho. This time I have another Renga With Basho Hineri (with a twist) for you. Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) one of the most famous classical haiku poets has written a lot of haiku during his lifetime (around 1000 haiku). All wonderful but there is one haiku written by him that isn't finished, the third line is missing. If that haiku wasn't really finshed or that third line has been lost we don't know, but that unfinished haiku gives us the opportunity to be creative. How creative? Well ... we have the opportunity to create the third line of the haiku that was started by the master himself. That opportunity I will give you in this Renga With Basho Hineri episode.

I will give you six (6) haiku written by Basho, one of them is that unfinished haiku. The goal is to create a renga by adding your two-lined stanza (approximately 14 syllables) as we have done earlier, but you have to complete that unfinished haiku too. Of course you have the opportunity to choose your own line-up of the haiku.

Chinquapin Tree ("fake" chestnut)

Here are the six (6) haiku (including that unfinished one) to create your renga with Basho with:

missing a wife
putting on bamboo grass
--------------------

above all else
a dependable chinquapin tree stands
in a summer grove

path of the sun
the hollyhock leans into
early summer rain

each with its own light
fireflies in the trees
lodge in flowers

Dragonfly (image credits: National Trust For Scotland)

a dragonfly
unable to settle
on the grass

an early winter shower
a rice paddy with new stubble
darkens just a bit

© Matsuo Basho (taken from Basho, The Complete Haiku by Jane Reichhold)

A nice series of haiku to work with I think. I am looking forward to how your Renga With Basho will evolve. !! Don't forget to make that unfinsihed haiku complete, before you use it in your renga with Basho !!

To give you an idea how to complete that unfinished haiku here is my attempt to make it complete:

missing a wife
the bamboo grass dives under -
wise men's gathering (*)

© Chèvrefeuille

(*) refers to the "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove", a group of Chinese scholars and poets in the mid third century,very similar with what Henry Thoreau describes in his "Walden, Life in the Woods".

Well ... a nice challenge I think ... have fun!

This Renga With Basho episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 18th at noon (CEST). Have fun. Enjoy this nice exercise to create a renga together with one of the most famous haiku poets ... Matsuo Basho.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (7) grasses wilt

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First ... my apologies for being this late with publishing our new TRC. I had a very busy evening shift in the hospital.

This month we have our 3rd edition of the TRC-month in which I challenge you to complete a Tan Renga with a given haiku by a classical or non-classical haiku poet. Today I have a nice haiku for you to work with by Seishi.

This haiku I found (again) on the same website as the haiku of yesterday by Patrick Blanche. This haiku is also in a translation by Burch.

Here is the haiku to work with:

grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt.

©️ Yamaguchi Seishi, (Tr. Michael R. Burch)

Steamengine on the railroad at Takanawa (woodblockprint by Ikkei)

As I read this haiku by Seishi I immediately thought of that nice haiku by Shiki:

smoke whirls
after the passage of a train.
young foliage.

© Shiki

Two beautiful haiku I would say, but the TRC for today is to create a Tan Renga with the haiku by Seishi, but if you also would like to create a Tan Renga with the haiku by Shiki than feel free to do as you like.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 17th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem's Tan Renga Challenge September 2018 Chained Together III (1) Morning Sun

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first regular episode of our wonderful Kai, a haiku loving family. This month all our regular episodes will be Tan Renga Challenges (TRC). I have titled this month "Chained Together III", because this is the 3rd time that I create a TRC month. Maybe you can remember that I created an exclusive CDHK E-book from the first month we had a TRC-month and that E-book was titled "Chained Together" (you can find this e-book in our CDHK Library, use the link at the left side of our Kai).

What is Tan Renga?

Maybe you know the Tanka that poem with 5 lines following the syllables count 5-7-5-7-7. A beautiful Japanese poetry form which I not often create, because I am not such a great Tanka poet. The Tanka is a poem written by one poet and that's the difference with the Tan Renga.

Sparkling Dew

The Tan Renga has also 5 lines following (approximately) the same syllables count as the Tanka, but the Tan Renga is written by two poets. One poet writes the first stanza of three (3) lines in the following example that will be Jane Reichhold:

Here is the first stanza of this example Tan Renga:

morning sun
the twinkle of stars
still in the dew                      (Jane Reichhold)

The goal for the second poet is to create the second stanza of two (2) lines through association on the first stanza (as we do in a renga). For this example I have written the second stanza:

her bright shining eyes
she unpacks her new doll     (your host)

This is what you call a Tan Renga. It's possible to leave a blanc line between the two stanzas, but you can also make it unite with each other. Than this is the result:

morning sun
the twinkle of stars
still in the dew                      (Jane Reichhold)
her bright shining eyes
she unpacks her new doll     (your host)

It's a great way of being creative with the work of another poet, like we do with our special feature "Renga With Basho".

Every regular episode I will give you a haiku written by a classical or non-classical haiku poet to work with. You have to create the second (two-lined) stanza through association on the scenes and images in the given haiku (or "hokku").

TRC September 2018: (1) Morning Sun by Jane Reichhold

For this first regular episode I love to challenge you to create a Tan Renga with the above given haiku by Jane Reichhold.

morning sun
the twinkle of stars
still in the dew

© Jane Reichhold

Well ... enjoy this wonderful TRC month chain your verse together with the given verse.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until September 9th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new TRC later on. For now ... have fun!