Carpe Diem #1526 Quote ... impressionism

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend full of inspiration. Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Kai were we are celebrating our 6th anniversary with all prompts following the alphabet. Today we have arrived at the letter Q. I had some difficulties to find a theme for this episode, but than I realized that we have our "Use That Quote" feature so I have chosen "quote" and I have a nice quote for you to work with.

Maybe you can remember that we had a month about "impressionism" and I have chosen a quote from that month, but first this wonderful painting by Claude Monet, the "Godfather" of impressionism.

Water Lillies (Claude Monet)

A wonderful painting I think and in this one you can see what "impressionism" means. The Water Lilies are just a faint image of the reality, but you can see that it are Water lilies. It's done with strong short brush-lines and when you look at it from a distance than those strong brush lines are flowing together to become a wonderful image/painting.

[...] "Haiku are very similar with Impressionism, because in the three lines of a haiku we have to catch a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water, this is very similar with the idea of painting with the light of the day during the day as is one of the major rules in Impressionism." [...] (Chèvrefeuille)

Maybe it's a bit immodest to use a quote by myself, but I think this quote gives you the inspiration you need to create a haiku (or tanka) as if you were an impressionist painter.

strange perfume
from a faraway place
morning haze

© Chèvrefeuille

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

Carpe Diem #684, bird feathers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Haiga ... to visualize your haiku or giving your haiku more strength ... both ways to make your haiku even more beautiful. Haiga makes it all even more an art to compose haiku. Haiga ... that's our theme for this month and I think until today it's a great month in which you all share wonderful posts.

Today our prompt is bird feathers and you can use it in any way you want and create your haiga ...

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

© Chèvrefeuille

I thought at first ... this has to be a peacock-haiku and so I have done that .... the feathers of the male peacock are really awesome and beautiful ... so I just had to us that image.

The haiga (haiku) reproduced here I wrote at the start of Carpe Diem in response on a haiku by Shiki and it was part of a cascading haiku which I love to share here too.

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

It was a joy to make this episode and I hope it will inspire you as it did me.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until March 15th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, first flowers, later on. For now ... be inspired and enjoy.

Carpe Diem "Time Glass", a time-challenging new feature

Credits: logo picture

Dear haijin, visitors and travelers,

Maybe you can remember our CD "Vision Quest" last month, in which I challenged you to write a new haiku inspired on a given haiku within 24 hours. Well ... I did like that your responses were great and many. So I have created this new feature CD "Time Glass" to challenge you a bit more than I did in our "Vision Quest".
As you all know one of the classic rules of haiku is that the haiku describes a moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown into water. In other words, haiku is just an image created in less than a minute, within an eye-blink so to say.
In this new feature I challenge you to write a haiku inspired on a given prompt and picture (an image, photo, painting or something) and post it within just 12 hours. With this new feature I hope to "learn" you all to write a haiku inspired on that short moment. This new feature is really a time-challenge, because the submission-time is just 12 hours.

I will give you an example of what I mean:

First the photo:

Credits: Lonely Rose

And than the prompt:

LOVE

This can inspire you to write a haiku. Look at the photo, let it "come to life" in front of your eyes. What has happened here? When was it? And so on ...

The prompt in this example is "love", so maybe this photo and prompt are bound together, because of a broken love, or just 'stupid' loss of the corsage ....
Let me give it a try and share my "Time Glass" haiku with you all:

running away
she left him in front of the altar -
broken love

© Chèvrefeuille

Or maybe it's more about the loss of the rose? Than maybe this could be the haiku:

after the party
running towards home
she lost her rose

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I think you all understand the goal of this new feature. Write/compose a new haiku inspired on the given photo and prompt and post it within 12 hours, catch the moment as short as the sound of a pebble thrown in water, and share it with us all here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Here is our first Time Glass challenge:

Here is the photo:

Credits: Contrails or Chemtrails

And here is the prompt:

AUTUMN LEAVES

Well ... I think this is a nice first Time Glass challenge and I am looking forwrad to all of your "Time Glass" haiku inspired on the 'contrails' (or 'chemtrails')-photo and the 'autumn leaves' prompt. And remember ... you have just 12 hours to post your response haiku on this first "Time Glass" feature.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 9th 7.00 AM (CET), so you have just 12 hours!! Have fun! Be inspired and share.

Carpe Diem Haiga Festival #3, "autumn"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

An all new episode of Carpe Diem's "Haiga Festival" (maybe you know it from our CDHK Special weblog) is here. Not so long ago today I posted a new post on my Wordpress weblog "Chèvrefeuille's Haiku" and that post (a haibun-like post) brought me this idea to bring the "Haiga Festival" of CDHK Special weblog to Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. I think I will do this sometimes more, exchanging Special features from CDHK Special weblog to Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. That will make us stronger as a family of haiku-poets. And our special features can be challenging ...

The goal of this special feature is to compose a haiga (picture + haiku) inspired on a given prompt in this episode that will be "autumn" and here is my haiga on "autumn".

This Planetree stands in the middle of my street and is in a way the heart of our street. As you look closer to the haiga you can spot the first yellow leaves between the green ones.

This episode of CD's "Haiga Festival" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until Friday September 12th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Imagination #10

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to publish a new episode of our special feature ''Carpe Diem's Imagination''. As you can see I have created a new logo for this feature and I think it's a great logo, if I may say so.

The goal of this special feature is to write haiku, senryu, tanka, kyoka or haibun inspired on a given photo. For this episode I have a photo taken in my own frontyard. Our Clematis is in full bloom and she has wonderful deep purple velvet-like flowers. It's really a joy to see how the Clematis blooms this summer. Last summer, as we just had planted it, she had a few flowers, but this year ... her flowers like a waterfall.

Clematis in my frontyard

Isn't she beautiful? Must be a great source of inspiration I think. Here another photo, a close-up of one of the flowers.

Clematis (close-up)

beautiful maiden
dressed in deep purple velvet -
the sound of water

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope this episode will inspire you to write all new haiku ... have fun! This CD Imagination epiode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until Friday July 11th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem Imagination #7, Buddha under the Bodhi-tree

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I love to share another wonderful photo with you for our "Imagination"- feature. The goal is to write a haiku inspired on the photo shared ... in other words Imagination is all about painting with words. So let this photo inspire you to write haiku.

silent devotion
I bring offerings to Buddha -
peace for my heart


This episode of "Imagination" will stay on 'till October 16th 11.59 AM (CET) and I will (try) to post the new episode that day.

Have fun, be inspired and share your haiku painted with words with our Haiku Kai.

Carpe Diem Imagination #6, Chèvrefeuille's Finally Spring

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I have spotted the first Cherry Blossom(s) today. Finally, after a long lasting Winter, Spring has arrived at The Netherlands. It's worth a celebration ... so I had to post another Carpe Diem's Imagination episode today. Come on celebrate Spring and the first Cherry Blossom(s) with me. This afternoon I photographed the first Cherry Blossom of the old Cherry Tree in the backyard, a real Sakura.

I have waited a long time for these fragile Cherry Blossoms. Every day I went outside and watched my Cherry Tree ... and now ... finally Spring has arrived.


finally Spring
after waiting a long time
first Cherry Blossoms

first Cherry Blossoms
blooming on barren  branches
finally Spring


Also another wonderful bush in my backyard has started to bloom. The old Rhododendron has his first blossoms. Awesome ... I had to make a photo of this wonder.

Ah! What a joyful day
the old bastard has bloomed
pink Rhododendron

pink Rhodondendron
as old as the world blooms again
Ah! What a joyful day


Well ... what do you think? Maybe these haiku and the photos will inspire you to write your own haiku on 'finally Spring'.

This episode of Carpe Diem's Imagination will stay on 'till Aprill 22th 11.59 AM (CET). Have fun.