Carpe Diem's Tan Renga Challenge #110 swinging gate

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Maybe you are familiar with the early history of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai then maybe you know that we had a weekly feature on Fridays titled "Tan Renga Challenge". As the title already says the goal was to create a Tan Renga from a given haiku by an ancient or modern haiku poet. I remember that a lot of you enjoyed that feature very much, so I have decided to bring the Tan Renga Challenge back at CDHK. The above number (110) is just a chosen number, because I couldn't find the number of our last Tan Renga Challenge, somewhere back in 2016.

For this "first" newly born Tan Renga Challenge I have chosen a haiku written by our wonderful and beautiful Jane Reichhold. She is still missed and her spirit is dwelling here at CDHK. I have taken this haiku from her online "dictionary of haiku" from the division Summer and sub-division Plants:

a swinging gate
on both sides the flowers
open - close

(C) Jane Reichhold

What was the goal of this special feature? To create the second stanza of the Tan Renga through association on the images. scenes in the given haiku. The second stanza is a two-lined verse with approximately 14 syllables (7-7).
Tan Renga looks very similar to Tanka, but Tan Renga is written by two poets instead of one poet as is done with Tanka.

This Tan Renga Challenge is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 22nd at noon (CEST. I will (try to) publish a new Tan Renga Challenge every Wednesday. For now ... have fun!



 

Renga With Basho #6 bush clover and the moon

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I am a little bit to early with this new episode of our special feature "Renga With Basho" in which the goal is to create a renga together with the master, Matsuo Basho, by writing the inbetween two-lined stanza.
You may chose from six given haiku, you may chose your own line-up. Remember that the first haiku (hokku) and the last stanza (ageku) have to be connected through association and to "close the chain".

Here are the six haiku I have chosen, this time I have chosen haiku by Basho all translated by Robert Hass.

cedar umbrellas, off
to Mount Yoshimo for
the cherry blossoms

midfield,
attached to nothing,
the skylark singing

staying at an inn
where prostitutes are also sleeping --
bush clover and the moon

Radishes

when the winter chrysanthemums go,
there's nothing to write about
but radishes

with every gust of wind,
the butterfly changes its place
on the willow

the dragonfly
can't quite land
on that blade of grass

(C) Matsuo Basho (Tr. Robert Hass)

Well I hope you don't mind that I have already a new episode of "Renga With Basho" for you to work with.

This episode of "Renga With Basho" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 28th at noon (CEST). Have fun!

Carpe Diem #1497 Music of the Himalayan Mountains, Tibet.

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at our new stage in our journey around the world on a quest for folkmusic. Yesterday and the day before yesterday we visited India and today we are going further on our journey to Tibet. Tibet was once a free country, but was annexated by China back in the fifties of the 20th century.  I am still praying that Tibet will become a free country again and that the Dalai Lama can return to His home.

Tibet is a wonderful country in the Himalayan Mountains and in one of my new novels part of the story takes place in the Himalayan Mountains, because of legendary Shamballa, a heavenly place on earth, but that's not the issue today.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Tibet has a rich history in music. The music of Tibet is (in my opinion) the most religious music on earth and it was "created" by the Tibetan Buddhist monks, known as Lamas. Let me tell you a little bit more about Tibetan music.

The music of Tibet reflects the cultural heritage of the trans-Himalayan region, centered in Tibet but also known wherever ethnic Tibetan groups are found in Nepal, Bhutan, India and further abroad. First and foremost Tibetan music is religious music, reflecting the profound influence of Tibetan Buddhism on the culture.

The Lama Mani tradition – the telling of Buddhist parables through song — dates back to the 12th century. The songs were performed by wandering storytellers, who travelled from village to village, drawing on their own often humble origins to relate to people from all backgrounds. Vividly illustrated Buddhist thangka paintings depicted the narrative and helped the audience understand what was essentially a teaching.

Tibetan monks playing the Tibetan long horn

Tibetan "street songs" were a traditional form of expression particularly popular as a means of political and other commentary in a country that was previously without newspapers or other means of mass communication. They provided political and social commentary and satire and are a good example of a bardic tradition, akin to that in medieval Europe or, more recently, the role calypsos played in the West Indies. As song lyrics in Tibet usually contained stanzas of 4 lines of 6 syllables each, the lyrics could be easily adapted to almost any melody.

Secular Tibetan music has been promoted by organizations like the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. This organization specialized in the lhamo, an operatic style, before branching out into other styles, including dance music like toeshey and nangma. Nangma is especially popular in the karaoke bars of the urban center of Tibet, Lhasa. Another form of popular music is the classical gar style, which is performed at rituals and ceremonies. Lu are a type of songs that feature glottal vibrations and high pitches. There are also epic bards who sing of Tibet's national hero Gesar.

I got goose-bumps as I listened to this wonderful OM mantra chant by Tibetan monks. It gave me a feeling of happiness and relaxation. I hope you will have that same experience. 

deep throat sounds
resonate through the Himalayan Mountains
tears of monks

© Chèvrefeuille

Maybe the above haiku/senryu has somewhat political "tones", but I am still praying for a free Tibet. I hope that there will become a day that China decides to give Tibet back to their rightful owners. If that's happening than finally the Dalai Lama can return home.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 21st at noon (CEST). For now ... be inspired and share your inspired Japanese poetry with us all.

Carpe Diem #1496 Rabindra Sangeet, the music of Bengal

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Yesterday we started our trip through India and today we will stay in India too. Today we will visit the region known as Bengal (Bangladesh and India). In this region there is a kind of music that has only words written by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) this music is known as Rabindra Sangeet.

Let me tell you first a little bit more about Rabindranath Tagore:

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath, a poet, musician and artist who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal".

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Tagore has written wonderful poems and I love to give you one to read before we are going to listen to the music known as Rabindra Sangeet, the music of Bengal.

In the morning I cast my net into the sea.
I dragged up from the dark abyss things of strange aspect and strange beauty -- some shone like a smile, some glistened like tears, and some were flushed like the cheeks of a bride.
When with the day's burden I went home, my love was sitting in the garden idly tearing the leaves of a flower.
I hesitated for a moment, and then placed at her feet all that I had dragged up, and stood silent.
She glanced at them and said, 'What strange things are these? I know not of what use they are!'
I bowed my head in shame and thought, 'I have not fought for these, I did not buy them in the market; they are not fit gifts for her.'
Then the whole night through I flung them one by one into the street.
In the morning travelers came; they picked them up and carried them into far countries.  

© Rabindranath Tagore

Awesome poem I would say, but I am a big fan of Tagore's prose and poetry, so maybe I am prejudiced. He has written wonderful poems. (Maybe we can do a whole month about Tagaore's prose and poetry?)

Rabindra Sangeet also known as Tagore Songs, are songs written and composed by Tagore. He wrote more than 2000 songs. The songs have distinctive characteristics in the music of Bengal, popular in India and Bangladesh. It is characterised by its distinctive rendition while singing which includes a significant amount of ornamentation like meend, murki, etc. and is filled with expressions of romanticism. The music is mostly based on Hindustani classical music, Carnatic Classical Music, Western tunes and the inherent Folkmusic of Bengal.
 

 

What a nice beautiful song. I hope it will inspire you to create haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry.

 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 20th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our next episode later on.

 

Carpe Diem #1495 Kashmiri music, the music of Kashmir India

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at our Haiku Kai. This month we are on a journey around the world searching for all kinds of folkmusic. Last Friday we were in the southern region of Japan on the island Okinawa and today we will stay in Asia, but we will go further on our journey around the world and we are going to visit Kashmir, India. We are exploring the folkmusic of Kashmir ... Kashmiri music.

Kashmiri music reflects the rich musical heritage and cultural legacy of Kashmir. Traditionally the music composed by ethnic Kashmiris has a wide range of musical influences in composition. Due to Kashmir's close proximity to Central Asia, Eastern Asia and Southern Asia, a unique blend of music has evolved encompassing the music of the three regions. But, overall, Kashmiri Valley music is closer to Central Asian music, using traditional Central Asian instruments and musical scales, while music from Jammu is similar to that of North India and Ladakhi music is similar to the music of Tibet.

Kashmir Valley (Northern India)

Especially the music genre known as Sufiana Kalam. Sufiana Kalam is the classical music of Kashmir, which uses its own ragas (known as maqam), and is accompanied by a hundred-stringed instrument called the santoor, along with the Kashmiri saz, the setar, the wasool and the dokra. The dance based on the sofiyiana kalam is the hafiz nagma.

Sufiana Kalam has its roots in Sufism, the mystic branch of Islam.

I hope you enjoyed the music ... I certainly did. It's amazing how beautiful this kind of music is. I love the Indian ragas ... so this was a treat for my ears and I hope you have that same experience.

one hundred strings
create heavenly music
a birds choir

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 19th at noon (CEST). I hope to publish our new episode later on. For now .... have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #45 Gogyohka, a modern way of writing/creating tanka

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday August 12th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend-meditation. This time I have a nice "trip along memory-lane" feature for you. Maybe you can remember our special feature "Little Ones", a feature in which I introduced other small forms of poetry. For this weekend I have done that too.

Logo Little Ones feature

For this weekend meditation I have chosen a modern way of tanka-writing known as "gogyohka", a poetry form invented by Enta Kusakabe. I had never heard of this poetry form, but as I read about `gogyohka` on the website Finger Printing Eyes of Pat my attention was immediately caught.

Gogyohka is a nice new way of writing - creating tanka and here is how it works:

Gogyohka is a new form of poetry which has been developed in Japan. Gogyohka simply means verse which is written in five lines, but each line generally represents one phrase and has a different feel to five-line verse commonly found in Western poetry.

I wasted time,

and now

doth time

waste

me.

To be

or

not to be,

that is

the question

If you make each short phrase stand alone as a separate line in this way, then you have something a little different to what is generally considered standard 5-line verse in the Western sense.

This new form of verse was developed by a poet called Enta Kusakabe. The idea was to take the traditional form of Tanka poetry (which is written in five lines) and liberate its structure, creating a freer form of verse. Kusakabe, who was born in 1938, first came up with the concept in 1957. From the 1990s onwards he began his efforts to spread Gogyohka as a new movement in poetry, and there are now around half a million people writing this form of verse in Japan.

There is a long tradition of lay people writing short poetry in Japanese society  (currently there are around three million Japanese writing Haiku, one million writing Tanka and one million writing Senryu).

Traditional Tanka is based on a 5,7,5,7,7 syllable pattern. For languages such as English, however, it is difficult to compose verse within these restraints. Non-Japanese Tanka is, therefore, written freely in five lines, like Gogyohka. That is to say, Gogyohka is already being written internationally in the form of Tanka.

While a degree of freedom is inevitable in Tanka, in the case of Gogyohka the freedom of the verse is natural, and this can be used to great effect: the freedom of expression in Tanka is passive, whereas the freedom in Gogyohka is active and vibrant.

Kusakabe believes that all languages share an inherent quality, that words are a form of breath which can be uttered and felt. He came to the conclusion that this kind of poetry would work in any language and that writing it would help people to develop their thoughts. He resolved to spread the word about Gogyohka around the world.

There are a few people in New York who have already joined the Gogyohka cause, so Kusakabe decided to begin his global mission there.

◇Here is an example of a Gogyohka.

What kind of

stained glass

have your

rose-coloured cheeks

passed through

                                       Enta Kusakabe

It's a wonderful kind of poetry I think, but I couldn't come up with a good "gogyohka", because I have to dive somewhat deeper in this matter. Therefore it's a great idea to make the "gogyohka" the theme for this weekend-meditation.

This weekend-meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday August 12th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 19th at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend.



Carpe Diem #1494 Gagaku, the traditional music of the Japanese Court

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Today we stay another day in the land of Haiku, Japan, and we are exploring the oldest known Japanese music, Gagaku. Gagaku is court music, and is the oldest traditional music in Japan. Gagaku music includes songs, dances, and a mixture of other Asian music. Gagaku has two styles; these are instrumental music kigaku and vocal music seigaku.

So are you ready to listen to Japanese court music, also a kind of folkmusic, but than for the high society so to say (smiles).

I hope you enjoyed this music, because it's the oldest known music from Japan, land of the haiku.

sakura blossoms
around the imperial palace
birds sing their song

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 16th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend-meditation later on. For now ... have fun!

PS.: I am a little behind with commenting I hope to catch up a.s.a.p.