Carpe Diem Weekend-Meditation #10 Fibo-ku winter time

!!! Open for your submissions next Sunday December 10th at 7:00 PM (CET) !!!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What an awesome month we have. All those wonderful quotes from the novels by Paulo Coelho. I have read wonderful responses already, but I have to apologize, because I am behind with commenting on all your beautiful posts. I hope to catch up a.s.a.p.

It's almost weekend and that means time for a new CDHK weekend-meditation. This weekend I love to challenge you with a special kind of haiku-ing which I introduced a few years ago here at CDHK and at our CDHK Specials weblog. This weekend I will challenge you to create a so called "Fibo-ku" and as the name already says it's based on the Fibonacci sequence. Let me give you a brief explanation of this special way of haiku-ing.

Logo of Carpe Diem Fibo-ku

I love to introduce a new kind of haiku to you all. It's based on the Fibonacci sequence and I think it's fun to write these new haiku-form. I have given it the name Fibo-Ku and the goal is to write a "haiku"-like verse following the Fibonacci sequence (1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5 etc.) The numbers of the Fibonacci sequence aren't numbers in this form, but syllables. So the first line has one (1) syllable and the second line also. The third line has two (2) syllables, the fourth line has three (3)  syllables, the fifth line has five syllables and so on. As I give the sequence it looks like this:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on

I will give you an example of a Fibo-Ku titled "this summer morning "

sun
moon
star light
the breeze
this summer morning
birds singing their beautiful songs -
young sparrows playing hide and seek in the dry sand of the garden 

© Chèvrefeuille

Of course you can make this Fibo-Ku longer by using more numbers from the Fibonacci sequence, but in this example I have reached the 7th line with 13 syllables. I think it's fun to compose these Fibo-Ku and I think you all will like it ...

Winter Time (image found on Pixabay)

For the Carpe Diem Weekend-Meditation I have chosen the theme "winter time" and the goal is to create a Fibo-ku themed "winter-time"

It's a real challenge I think and I think you will need the weekend to create your Fibo-ku.

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday December 10th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until December 17th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend full of inspiration.

Carpe Diem #1272 October (Robert Frost)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you have had a wonderful weekend. My weekend was awesome, we have met our "new" two grandkids, Jason and Dana. Our oldest son has a new girlfirend after he divorced from his former girlfriend. So we have two "bonus" grandkids now and that makes us happy. We are a loving family and we hope to become nice grandparents for these two "bonus" kids. So ... I had a wonderful weekend.

Today I have a nice anniversary episode for you to work with. As you know I have created several special features here at CDHK and one of those features was "CD-distillation" in which I challenged you to create haiku or tanka extracted from a longer poem. Back in our first anniversary month (October 2013) I had a nice poem by Robert Frost for you. That poem was titled "October" and I love to challenge you again with that same poem.

Logo CD Distillation

Let me explain the goal of this special feature, that's going into it's reprise today, for you. I have chosen a long poem by a renown poet. After reading the poem the goal is to create a haiku or tanka extracted from the poem, in which you have to try to catch the essence of the poem.

Here is the poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963) again:

October

by Robert Frost (1874-1963)           

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call.
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled, 
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

(Source: www.poets.org)

Autumn Colors (of October)

A wonderful poem, but for a haijin to long … so I have re-worked my cascading haiku into a tanka in which I catch the essence of the poem by Robert Frost.

at daybreak
one leaf falls and another –
bare branches
clothed with crystal drops of dew
at daybreak

© Chèvrefeuille

You can find the original post HERE. 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 15th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, into the sea, later on. For now ... have fun and let me know if you would like to see this special feature back again at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

Carpe Diem's utabukuro #1 introduction "a single flower"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's my pleasure to introduce to you all an all new feature here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This new feature is based on a haiku by Basho which he wrote when he was around 22 years of age, it's one of his earliest known haiku according to Jane Reichhold. I have called this new feature "Carpe Diem Utabukuro, which means "poem bag".
The logo above is a bag with a wonderful print of a Japanese woodblock and in the logo you can read the romaji translation of the haiku on which this new feature is based. I will give that haiku here again:

hana ni akanu
nageki ya kochi no
utabukuro

© Basho

And this is the translation by Jane Reichhold:

flower buds
sadly spring winds cannot open
a poem bag

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

In her compilation of all Basho's haiku "Basho, the complete haiku" she gives the following description of this haiku:

1667 - spring. Because Basho has used kochi instead of the conventional ware for "my", the verse has two distinct versions. The associative technique is the idea that the flowers are not yet opened and neither is Basho's bag of poems (Utabukuro). The unopened purse of poems is like the flower bud in its potential for beauty.

The goal of this new CDHK feature is not difficult, because I just ask you to share a haiku or tanka which you admire. That haiku or tanka can be one of a classical or non-classical haiku poet or one by yourself. You can choose what ever you like, but it has to be a haiku or tanka. Maybe the haiku brings you sweet (or sad) memories or you just like it. Explain why you have chosen that haiku or tanka to share here "in" CDHK's Utabukuro, poem bag and ... that's the second task for this feature write/compose an all new haiku inspired on the one you have chosen.

I will give you an example:

As you all know I wrote my first English haiku several years ago (2005) and that started my international fame as a haiku poet. I love to share that haiku here again, by the way this haiku is slightly different with the original haiku on advice of Jane herself:

a single flower
my companion
for one night

© Chèvrefeuille (2005)

This haiku is a haiku which is always on my mind, because of the strong emotions in it and through the emotions that it was the start of my international career as a haiku poet. And there is another deeper meaning in it, not only a Zen meaning (loneliness, emptiness), but also the sorrow of losing my only brother in 1995. My brother and I were always together, as we say here "four hands on one belly", after his death I lost my companion for life and with this haiku I tried to bring that feeling into my poetry.

I have explained the first task of this new feature and I think you understand what I mean if I look at the second task of this feature ... write/compose an all new haiku inspired on the haiku or tanka of your choice. So I will do that also in this introduction to this new Carpe Diem Utabukuro feature:

a single tulip
covered with snow
arrival of spring

© Chèvrefeuille

For this new feature I will give no prompts, but sometimes I will ask you to "put a haiku or tanka in our CDHK poem bag" on a given theme.

I will publish every Saturday an episode of this new CDHK feature, so you have one week to submit a haiku or tanka of your own choice to put into our CDHK poem bag.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until next Saturday June 20th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem "Ghost Writer" #28, Chèvrefeuille's Memory-Lane along all the special features

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As you all know I write my haiku under the pseudonym "Chèvrefeuille". I use that name since I started writing haiku in English. I started Carpe Diem in October 2012 as "Chèvrefeuille's Carpe Diem, a daily haiku meme" in short I only used "Carpe Diem" as Carpe Diem evolved and became "bigger" I changed the name into Carpe Diem Haiku Kai (in this name "Kai" means "group").
As I started with this daily haiku-meme I wouldn't have dreamed that I would be still your host here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Being your host takes a lot of my time, but I like doing it. Of course sometimes, through lack of time, posts are delayed or special features follow not always the scheme I had planned for it, well ... maybe that's the strength of our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... we are flexible and adaptive in times of lack of time.

As I started with Carpe Diem in 2012 I had only (next to the regular post) the CD-Special, in which I share haiku (or quotes) for inspiration in every month by a featured haiku-poet or other wellknown person. And I shared Carpe Diem Previews in which I also looked back to the shared haiku on carpe Diem. I even had a few months an Award for the best haiku (or haiku-poet), but after doing that a few times I realized that we are all winners and that awards aren't that important.
During the years of Carpe Diem I sometimes had "theme" weeks e.g. a week about all the colors of the rainbow or all signs from the Zodiac. I remember that I had a special week about the eight ancient world wonders and we made once a trip around the world through different kinds of dancing e.g Tango (Argentina).

Inbetween all the regular prompts there was a moment that I thought what can I do more to make Carpe Diem Haiku Kai a great weblog? I decided to create special features. I love to go along a "memory-lane" of all these Special features:

2012 - the start of Carpe Diem, we had only regular and special prompts

2013 - On January 18 I started with "CD Imagination" in which I give a photo, painting or something for your inspiration;
2013 - April was a very special month because of a few celebrations we had:
            First in that month I became 50
            Second in that month I celebrated 25 years of being a haiku-poet
            Third I realized that in this month I also worked 25 years in Health care
In this month we had a Zodiac feature and April 27th I launched our haibun -feature "Kamishibai"
2013 - May was all about Tarot ... in that month we discovered the Great Arcana and the connection between Christianity and Tarot.
2013 - June was the month in which I started our weekly Tan Renga Challenge and we performed our first "virtual" Kasen No Renga Session.
2013 - July short before this month Paulo Coelho published his new nove "Manuscript found in Accra" and this month all the prompts were extracted from that novel;
In July all our CD-Specials were haiku written by Jane Reichhold.
Also in this month I launched two new features "CD Freestyle" (July 5th) and "CD Little Ones" (July 25th)
2013 - August all our prompts were wonderful pieces of music by Karunesh and I launched our CD "Distillation" feature.
2013 - September was the month of Classical Kigo for autumn and I started with CD "Goes back to it's roots" (Sept. 13th) and CD "Oku No Hosomichi" (Sept. 11th)
2013 - October we had our first anniversary in which month all the prompts were provided by our family-members of Carpe Diem. I started with "Revise That Haiku" (Oct. 12th) and "Tanka Shrine" (Oct. 23rd) and  "Make The Haiku Complete" (Oct. 8th).
2013 - November all our daily prompts were Tan Renga Challenges.
2013 - December Another month full of inspirational music by Adrian Von Ziegler. On December 15th I launched "Sweet Memories" and a few days later "Bookshelf" (Dec. 18th)

2014 - started with a trip straight through the Soviet Union by train with the novel "Aleph" by Paulo Coelho in our hand
2014 - After our adventure straight through the Soviet Union we arrived at Shikoku Island on which we went on a pilgrimage along 88 temples, and in the shadow of that pilgrimage we followed Paulo Coelho in his pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostella.
2014 - April was a nce month in which I created our first Ghost Writer Week, "Pick up the pieces", "Tan Renga Squared" and "Only the First Line".
2014 - May was all about Myth, Legend and Sage
2014 - June in this month we had all Modern Kigo compiled by Jane Reichhold and I launched the first episode of "Analyze that Haiku".
2014 - In July I introduced our first "Sea Shell Game" to you and we had all haiku by the "Big Five" (Basho, Chiyo-Ni, Buson, Issa and Shiki)
2014 - August was a wonderful month in which we discovered "Sand And Foam" by Khalil Gibran and we started with a few new features. "Sparkling Stars", "Little Creatures" and our three days challenge "Vision Quest)
2014 - September ... has brought us also wonderful Modern Kigo by Jane Reichhold, but it also brought us the honor that Jane Reichhold decided to be the host of our "Ask Jane ..." feature. Of course there were (a lot of) new features as e.g: "Soliloquy No Renga", "Remember This Music?", "Arti Visual haiku" and our "Time Glass" challenge to write haiku within 12 hours.

As I re-read this list, than I realize that Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has really evolved to a weblog that is great. For this GW-post I have no linking widget or something, because you don't have to write in response on a prompt. I just want to ask you all something:

Which special features you like and which special features I can skip (delete)? Do you have ideas for new special features? Just let me know what you think about the special features of our Haiku Kai. It's OUR Haiku Kai, so you all can share thoughts and ideas to make it even better ...

I will (try to) post our next episode, Hatsu Hana (March 2013), later on. For now ... please share your ideas with me through the comment field.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille, your host