Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Carpe Diem #1214 dawn


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a nice and wonderful day full of inspiration and that you are ready for a new episode of our Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to write and share haiku, tanka and other Japanese poetry forms, but ... I have a few concerns according to CDHK. Maybe it's the time of year, time of vacation for example or you all have other business to do, but it seems like CDHK is dying a slow death. I think it needs an adrenaline shot to revive.
Maybe it's the choice of prompts I have made or something else ... I don't know, but I have the feeling that I am loosing CDHK. The last weeks, the last month, the responses were at their deepest point ... there were prompts or features with only one or two, sometimes four haijin who responded. I don't know what to do. At this moment I have not one idea to revive CDHK. All the time I give for this community of haiku-loving poets seems not enough ... so I am rethinking CDHK, maybe I have to end this community ... I really don't know.

Of course I will make CDHK this month, because this month has already started and I am willing to create this month until the end of this month. As we are running against the end of this month, say in the last week, I will consider further if I will go on or will stop.



Today I have another wonderful modern kigo for summer extracted from Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku", dawn. Will this episode be the dawn of the downfall of CDHK? We will see.

Here are a few examples of haiku written by Jane on this kigo "dawn":

rosy dawn
colors the moon
into the sea

spring dawn
darkness flies from the trees
with the bird

the sound of waves
on you sleeping face
dawn light

© Jane Reichhold

Three wonderful haiku in which you can find a clear "fragment and phrase" way of writing. It's how Jane explained how haiku has to be in another language than Japanese.

I will try to explain the "fragment and phrase" in the last haiku. And after that maybe you can see the "fragment and phrase" in the other two haiku. "Fragment and phrase" means that every haiku has two parts the "fragment" and the "phrase". These two parts you can HEAR when you read the haiku aloud.

Try it with that third haiku. Well ... did you hear the "break"? The "break" is after the first line "the sound of waves". There is a "natural" stillness after that first line. This is called the "fragment". The second and third line are "one part", "on your sleeping face dawn light". This is called the "phrase".
I hope I explained it well enough. Of course Jane was so much better in explaining the "rules and regulations" of haiku (and tanka).

Now try to find the fragment and phrase in the other two haiku ...

credits
The challenge for today is: Try to create a haiku in which you use "the fragment and phrase" way of writing haiku.

her naked body
glistens from sweat
after a hot night

© Chèvrefeuille

In this haiku "the fragment and phrase" is in "her naked body" and "glistens from sweat after a hot night"; but it can also be like this: "her naked body glistens from sweat" and "after a hot night". That also is a "fragment and phrase" way of writing haiku.

Another one:

daylight brightens
a rooster crows his sun greet
deepening silence 

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... did you like this episode? I love it to challenge you a little bit more this month by e.g. using the "fragment and phrase" so have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 9th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, cold sake, later on. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your poetry with us all here at our Haiku Kai.


6 comments:

  1. Don't give up, Kristjaan. It's probably just the time of the year and people could be very busy or on holiday. I'm so pleased to be back after a brief absence. I would sorely miss CDHK.

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  2. I don't always participate but I always read your posts filled with haiku, stories, information and writing tips. I value the beauty and education you offer. I imagine there might be many more out there like me.
    Sometimes I don't respond when the season or plant or other aspect of the theme doesn't fit what I am experiencing in the moment in my life....for example, I have no fruit trees nearby. I agree with Kim about the blogging world slowing down at this time of year. Cheers :))

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  3. I appreciate your many prompts (especially about nature, not religion as much) but don't have time to participate in them all. I have learned a lot about the art of haiku here...thank you!

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  4. Hope U will continue CDHK, perhaps with some changes. Here are 2 possibilities.

    (1) The window of time for responding is very short. Maybe a 2-week window would work better. I often think I might be able to respond to a prompt but find that window closes before my thoughts solidify.

    (2) My e-mail notifications of prompts often link to 2 or 3 long posts. I marvel at your ability to produce such a profusion of interesting and inspiring material, but I sometimes feel like I am drinking from a fire hose. Now I worry that U may be working too hard and burning out. If there are times when U feel less interest in topic A than topic B, maybe it would be better to work on only A. Subconscious processing may eventually make B more fun to work on.

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    Replies
    1. I will think about your idea of making the response window longer. As I started CDHK the responding time was two days, than I expanded it to three days and now it's expanded to five days ... Two weeks I think will be to long, but I can expand it maybe to one week.
      I love writing so the lenght of the posts is not a problem to me. Writing is my passion ...

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    2. Yes, a week would be a neat window length that is a little longer and a lot easier to bear in mind. (My own wheels turn slowly, so longer still would be good for me personally.) A publicly supported radio station in my area has fund-raising "weeks" that are actually 8 days long.

      I see 21 submissions. Maybe the danger of losing CDHK was an added incentive to contribute. :)

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