Carpe Diem #962 bird feathers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As I announced in an earlier CD-Extra I will bring back the Tan Renga Challenge. To give you (and those who are new here) an idea what a Tan Renga is I will give you a brief explanation and an example.

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 just started recently to create. The Tanka is a poem written by one poet and that's the difference with the Tan Renga.

The Tan Renga has also 5 lines following 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 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 as I do mostly. 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)

Logo for May 2016 Chained Together

Tan Renga is a short chained poem written by two poets. In our CDHK Tan Renga Challenge I will give the first stanza and than you have to write the second stanza towards it through association. In that way you complete the Tan Renga.

Okay ... back to our episode of today. Today I have another nice prompt for you to create a haiga with. Today that's bird feathers. To inspire you a little bit I will give the examples by Jane Reichhold for this prompt from her modern Saijiki "A Dictionary of Haiku".

bird feathers
in the night sound
spring rain

fading the colors
of a peacock feather
an iris blooms

joined by listening
the breath of disciples
in baby birds

© Jane Reichhold

I think it doesn't further explanation so I close this episode with my own haiga:

king of the farm
spreads out his gorgeous tail
feathers on a vase

© Chèvrefeuille

And to make it an even better source of inspiration I love to share a cascading haiku here also that starts with the haiku from the haiga:

king of the farm
spreads out his gorgeous tail -
feathers on a vase

feathers on a vase
eyes looking deep into mine -
again in love

again in love -
the first day of Spring has come
listen to the breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

By the way this haiga and cascading haiku were inspired on a haiku by Masaoka Shiki which I will share here too:

harukaze ni o wo hirogetaru kujaku kana

the peacock
spreading out his tail
in the Spring breeze

© Shiki (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

Well a lot to think about I will say, I am looking forward to all of your wonderful responses ... By the way I am behind with commenting I will try to comment on all of your posts a.s.a.p.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until April 29th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, magnolia, later on.