Carpe Diem Special #212 Joyce Lorenson's 4th "a glint of mica"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

This is the last CD-Special of this month. This month all the CD-specials were by Joyce Lorenson, she was the winner of the "New Life" kukai. Joyce is a very gifted haiku poetess and maybe you have already read her exclusive CDHK E-book "A Glint of Mica" which you can download at the right side of our Kai.

cover of "A Glint of Mica" by Joyce Lorenson

I think this E-book has become a beauty. In "A Glint of Mica" you will find haiku and haiga by Joyce. For this last CD-Special I have chosen the "title"-haiku of her E-book "A Glint of Mica" to share with you here.

a glint of mica
the swaggering strut
of a raucous magpie

© Joyce Lorenson 

Magpie

As you all know the goal of the CD-Specials is to create a new haiku in the same tone, sense and spirit as the one given. So here is my attempt to try to write a haiku in the spirit of the haiku by Joyce:

screaming peacock
walking around the farm
like a watchdog

© Chèvrefeuille

Not as strong as I had hoped, but I think this haiku is somewhat in the same tone, sense and spirit as the one by Joyce.

Here is another "peacock" haiku from my archives, this is what is called a cascading haiku: 

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

Peacock

I hope you did like this CD-Special and that I have inspired you together with Joyce.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until July 2nd at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, Poland, later on. For now ... have fun! 

 

 

Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu #73 pi-ku another nice poetry form (reprise)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our weekly feature Carpe Diem Tokubetsudesu. This week I love to challenge you to write a so called "pi-ku" as a kind of tribute to "Pi-day" which was on March 14. Why is this day called "Pi-day"? Because of the numbers of this date 3.14, which is the value of "Pi".

I remember that we have done this earlier in one of our episodes of "Carpe Diem Little Ones" that special feature about other little poetry  forms like haiku. I will give you an example of a pi-ku.

the sun rises
the heat
already tangible

© Chèvrefeuille

I sought the Internet for all the digits of Pi and I found the next (short) value: 3,14159 26535 89793 23846 ... and the digits go on and on, everlasting ...

Let us try to make a Pi-ku with the above digits in red (3,14159) the lines of the Pi-ku and the syllables-count would become the following:

1st line 3 syllables; 2nd line 1 syllable; 3rd line 4 syllables; 4th line 1 syllable; 5th line 5 syllables and the 6th line would be 9 syllables. To me this sounds great and will be for sure a challenge. So let me try to make my Pi-ku longer with those new lines and their syllables-count:

the sun rises
the heat
already tangible
mist
spirals above the stream
another day starts in mysterious ways 

© Chèvrefeuille 

Sunrise

Isn't it a wonderful (extended) pi-ku?

As you all know next week we will have our second Theme Week here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Last month the theme was "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" and in our second Theme Week we will "Color Our Life". I can hear you all think "coloring my life?" Yes ... we are going to explore the spiritual meaning of the colors of the rainbow.

At the start of Carpe Diem, back in 2012, I had also a week about the colors of the rainbow and in our next Theme Week "Color Your Life" we will have a reprise week (so to say). By the way ... at the end of this 2nd edition of Carpe Diem Theme Week I will create a new e-book (as I did last month for the Theme Week) in which I will gather all the episodes and all of your submissions.

Logo of our 2nd Carpe Diem Theme Week "Color Your Life"

yûmomiji tani zankô no kie kakaru

evening's fall colors -
the rainbow in the valley
fades away

© Issa 

I am looking forward to this new Theme Week, it will be a busy week, that's for sure, because I have to create two posts every day that week, but I enjoy it very much ... so I cannot wait until it is next week.

For closure a last message; The voting for our "Time"-kukai has closed. I will count the votes and I hope to publish the results later this week. Be patient.

I am busy with the creation of an anthology in which I have gathered all the submitted haiku for the "Winter"- en "Time"-kukai. I will give you the title already for this new CDHK e-book: "Melting To Nothingness" and it is taken from the following haiku by Nimi Arora:

a moments rest
melting to nothingness
snowflakes sigh

© Nimi Arora

Weel ... it has become another nice episode I would say. This Tokubetsudesu episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until March 18th at noon (CET). 

Carpe Diem Extra #31 2015 "Juxtaposition" kukai judging

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It took some more time, but I finally have the anonymous list of our third kukai "juxtaposition" ready. I have published it on the kukai page which you can find in the menu above.

This kukai was not an easy one I think. There were lesser submissions than we had in our second and first kukai. It was really a challenge this time ... well it doesn't really matter, because the kukai is just for fun.

Of course there will be a winner and a runner-up this time too and you all know what that means. If you are the winner than you have won the opportunity to create an e-book with a maximum of 50 haiku or 30 pages and you will be the featured haiku poet/ess in November 2015. And our runner-up will the central poet in the first Tokubetsudesu-episode of November 2015. Why November? Well ... September is almost there and in October we are celebrating our third anniversary and that will be a great month. So this time the winner and the runner-up have to wait a little bit longer.

Today I will start our fourth kukai. This time I hope that there will be more contributors to the kukai, because I have chosen the following theme:

PEACE OF MIND

You can submit a maximum of three (new) haiku, only haiku, inspired on "Peace of Mind" and email them to: carpediemhaikukai@gmail.com please write "kukai peace of mind" in the subject line. You can submit your haiku until September 25th at noon (CET), so you have one month to respond.

Than I have another announcement to make. I have created the e-book "Bare Bones School of Renga" by Jane Reichhold and it's now available at our Haiku Kai exclusively. You can find it at the right side of our Kai. (By the way: it's the first version)

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille, your host.