Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday (4) crystal dewdrops (hineri / with a twist)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's Tan Renga Wednesday again, that nice weekly feature in which I ask you to create a Tan Renga with a given haiku. This week I love to challenge you a little bit more with a "Tan Renga Wednesday Hineri" episode, or a Tan Renga Wednesday with a twist.

I will give you the two-lined stanza and you have to create the haiku, the first three-lined stanza, to complete the Tan Renga.

Morning Glory

Here are the two lines of the 2nd stanza to work with:

pink morning glory in full bloom
covered with crystal dewdrops                       

© Chèvrefeuille

So now it is up to you to complete the Tan Renga by adding your three-lined first stanza.

This Tan Renga Wednesday Hineri is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 12th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... be ceative and enjoy this challenge.

Carpe Diem #1775 Morning Glory!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new (somewhat belated) episode of our wonderful Kai. This month we will focus mostly on haiku, because haiku was the first theme here at CDHK and the only theme. Its therefore that I have chosen the theme for this month "Never Change A Winning Team". I will challenge you with a great diversity of haiku created by classical and non-classical haiku poets and I hope to challenge you today with a new feature.

I have titled this new feature "Carpe Diem's Transformation" and the goal is to transform a given haiku into a tanka. You have to use the scenes and images in the given haiku to create a transformed haiku into a tanka.

The first haiku I would love to see you transform into a tanka is that renown haiku by Chiyo-Ni about the Morning Glory. Here is that haiku:

asano eikou yoku baketto entanguru watashiha mizuwo motomeru

morning glory!
the well bucket-entangled,
I ask for water

© Chiyo-Ni

And now ... it's up to you to transform this beautiful haiku by this renown female haiku master into a tanka. Have fun!

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 11th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, later on. That will be a new Tan Renga Wednesday.

Carpe Diem #1774 Renga With Jane Reichhold ... apples for lunch

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the 2nd regular episode of our new month at CDHK in which the theme is "Never Change A Winning Team", and that means that we will have a lot of haiku challenges, because that was once the only poem I created CDHK for.

During the years I introduced several other forms of Japanese poetry and one of them was the Renga, or Chained Verse. Haiku was once part of a Renga and was than called Hai-Kai, Shiki chnaged that to haiku and that's the name we still use.

As you all know Jane Reichhold (1937-2016) was a great modern Haiku poetess and co-host here at our Kai. I still miss her every day. She was a wonderful source for me to get answers on questions I had, she even had her own feature here "Ask Jane ..."

Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)

Today I love to challenge you to create a Renga With Jane ... I have six beautiful haiku created by her, all themed apples. I extracted these haiku from her online saijiki "A Dictionary of Haiku". The goal is to add your own two-lined stanza. You can choose your own "line-up", and your "ageku" (closing verse) must be connected to the "hokku" (opening verse).

dad on high
dropping from his trees
apples for lunch

southern sunset
filling the apple bin
a deeper red

applesauce
the cinnamon glow
of a kerosene lamp

Apples For Lunch

windfall apples
palaces for worms
American pie

straight falling rain
tiny lakes upon the tree
stem hollows of apples

baskets in a row
overflowing with apples
on one a sweater

© Jane Reichhold

A wonderful series of haiku to create a Renga with ... enjoy the challenge ...

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 10th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

no weekend meditation

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I will not publish a weekend meditation this weekend. I don't have enough time during circumstances. My apologies for this.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Chèvrefeuille, your host.

Carpe Diem #1773 Kick Off ... a new month full of beauty ... A Field Of Dried Grass (Basho)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first episode of our new CDHK month November. This month I have chosen the theme "Never Change A Winning Team". As you all know as I started CDHK the only Japanese poetry form that was used was the haiku, that beautiful small three-lined poem from that far away country ... Japan. But as you all know ... during the excistence of CDHK there were changes and somewhere in 2013 I decided to not only use haiku, but also Tanka and other forms of Japanese poetry. That change of a "winning team" was a great change and it brought more visitors and participants to our wonderful Haiku Kai. However ... I didn't change the name of our Kai ... it is still Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and it will stay that way, because through that name CDHK could evolve to what it has become. This month we will mostly write haiku, but ofcourse I will also create episodes with other kinds of Japanese poetry like Tanka and the Troiku.

This month I hope to inspire you through haiku created by renown and not so well known haiku poets. Starting today (as you maybe expected already) a haiku written by Matsuo Basho, the haiku master whom I see as my master, my sensei. All that I know about haiku I learned from him.

We will see renown haiku, but also haiku that aren't renown. Let's go ... have a wonderful month full of inspiration ... and joy ...!

A Field Of Dried Grass (photo © Aubrey Danielle)

Here is the first haiku for your inspiration, it's the haiku that is seen as Basho's deadpoem, his last poem or Jisei:

tabi ni yande yume wa kareno wo kake meguru

falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering
over a field of dried grass

© Basho (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

A wonderful haiku for your inspiration I would say. Become one with the scene, become Basho as he wrote this haiku while laying on his grass mat ... surrounded by his most close followers ... try to imagine the scene ... and create your own haiku.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 7th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1772 Virginia Blue Bell

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the last episode of our festive 7th birthday month. Our celebrations are almost over only one day left to honor the "little creatures" of Mother Nature. So let's go!

What kind of "little creature" I have chosen today for your inspiration? Well ... I have chosen a beautiful small flower the Blue Bell. Let me tell you first a little bit more about the Blue Bell and more specific the Virginia Blue Bell.

Virginia bluebell flowers which are also known as Virginia cowslip are the most elegant and good looking flowers. These are persistent flowers found in North America. These are very beautiful flowers and growing them in your garden will add natural exquisiteness and beauty to the garden. If you want to grow them in your garden but you don’t get sufficient information then read this article as it contains all the facts about Virginia bluebell flowers.

Virginia Blue Bell

What a gorgeous little flower this is, a real beautiful "little creature".

I found a nice haiku written by the Unknown Haiku Poet ... Yozakura, whom I introduced here at CDHK several years ago.

purple bellflowers
swaying in the breeze -
the sound of water

© Yozakura

And here is one from my archives, not about the Virginia Blue Bell, but about the Chinese Bellflower:

fragile beauty
purple flowers like paper
Chinese bellflower

© Chèvrefeuille

And now it is up to you my dear Haijin. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 6th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode later on.

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday (3) Crystal Brook (Yozakura)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It's Wednesday again so it is time for a new episode of our weekly Tan Renga Wednesday, that beautiful feature in which I challenge you to create a Tan Renga (two stanza chained verse) with a given haiku.

Today I have a nice haiku written by the Unknown Haiku Poet, Yozakura, whom I introduced a while ago here at CDHK.

Here is the haiku to use:

crystal brook
reflects the willow trees
birds sing their song

© Yozakura

Edo lodging house (image found on Pinterest)

Your task ... create the two lined 2nd stanza through association on the scenes and images in the given haiku by Yozakura. 

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until November 5th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our last episode of this festive month later on. For now ... have fun!