Carpe Diem Time Machine #4, Yellow

Hello, this is Paloma once again, helping our host Chèvrefeuille today while he enjoys some extra time with his family and friends.  

For this episode of Time Machine we are looking at “Yellow”, which is revisiting November 2012. For that prompt, Chèvrefeuille featured Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Yellow House”.

Vincent Van Gogh. The Yellow House, 1888.

Here are Chevrefeuille's haiku in response to the painting:

the yellow house
a sturdy rock in a man's life -
the cry of a child

the cry of a child
seeing the rainbow for the first time
'I want to cross that'

Very sweet, right? 

For today, Chèvrefeuille mentioned that he was interested in Van Gogh’s yellow bridge, the Langlois Bridge at Arles.  Vincent loved this bridge because it reminded him of both Hiroshige and a bridge in his homeland. 

The Great Bridge.  Hiroshige (L) & Van Gogh (R)

Here is Van Gogh’s Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing (1888):

Vincent Van Gogh.  Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing, 1888. Wikimedia.

Here is my effort at haiku inspired by the painting:

morning washing –
the scent of yellow grass
clinging to my hem 

long into morning -
the scent of mud and green things
baked on yellow stones

Perhaps not my best (!) but I keep thinking about the smell of the mud and the grass.  What sense memories does the painting awaken in you?

**

This episode is open for your submissions from February 20th at 7 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 23rd at noon (CET).   

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #74, Jackie Le Poidevin's "Bare Branches Touch"

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Another week has gone and it was a busy week. First I am in the nightshift, second I have decided to be a co-host at Mindlovemisery's Menagerie starting today (Friday 20th) with my first Fairy Tale prompt. And last, but not least, I have created a new part of our Carpe Diem Haiku Family "Carpe Diem's Tanka Shrine".
And ... I am happy that Jen of Blog It Or Lose It will be my co-host for this weekend ... so I can take a weekend off. Feels strange, but it also will bring me more in balance ...

So this Tan Renga Challenge is the last post for me to do for this weekend, I will be back with a new Time Glass episode next Sunday. Of course I am looking forward to Jen's posts here at CDHK and I love to thank her for helping me out ... thanks Jen.

Ok ... back to this week's Tan Renga Challenge. Several episodes of CDHK ago I first read a post by
Jackie Le Poidevin of HaikuBlog UK and I am happy to see that our Haiku Family is growing.

The following haiku  Jackie shared in response on our Haiku Writings Techniques "Comparison".

Bare branches touch
Over the lane where we walk,
Fingers entwined.

© Jackie Le Poidevin

A nice and very romantic scene with a great comparison (bare branches touch/fingers entwined) in it. Really a nice haiku to start our Tan Renga with. The goal is to write the second stanza of two lines (7-7 syllables) to complete or continue the scene started in the haiku (or the first stanza).

Here is my attempt to make this Tan Renga complete:

Bare branches touch
Over the lane where we walk,
Fingers entwined.                                          (Jackie Le Poidevin)

no empty nest feelings finally
together again just the two of us                  (Chèvrefeuille)

And now it's up to you my dear friends to make this Tan Renga complete or continue the scene painted in the first stanza by Jackie.
!! I am behind with commenting I hope to visit all of you a.s.a.p and catch up !!

This episode is open for your submissions Friday February 20th at noon (CET) and will remain open until next Friday February 27th at noon (CET). For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Special #133, Fuyuko Tomita’s “how lonely”

Hello everyone!   This is Paloma, and I am helping Chèvrefeuille this weekend while he enjoys some “R&R” with his family.  While it’s a huge honor to help out – it’s also a bit intimidating.  I feel a bit like the ten-year-old girl who’s been invited to anchor the 6 o’clock news.  [Smiles.] 

So before we get started, let’s send a big *thank you* to Chèvrefeuille for what he does for us on a daily basis. 

For today, we return to our featured poet, Fuyuko Tomita. Here is a wonderful tanka I think we can all relate to:

さんさんとそそぐ朝日の文机に遺す未完の歌ぞ淋しき

Sansan to/ sosogu asahi no/fuzukue ni/ nokosu mikan no/ uta zo samishiki

How lonely I would be
left behind on my desk
an unfinished poem
in the glorious morning sun  

© Fuyuko Tomita

(Note that the Japanese version is in five lines – but – as she explained to Chèvrefeuille in a separate post – the English version is slightly different.  She is translating her poem so as to keep the spirit of the original, more so than the structure of the original.)

 

Lesser Ury. Woman at Writing Desk, 1898. WikiArt

Here’s my response:

at the bird feeder
three cardinals are squabbling –
a love triangle?

the poem that nudges my ribs 

is fading with the laundry

**

What about you?  Has an unfinished poem haunted you throughout your day?   What thoughts come to mind when you read "how lonely"? 

**

This episode is open for your submissions from February 19^th, 7 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 22nd, at noon (CET).   

Carpe Diem #671, Sunday Afternoon

!! I publish this episode earlier, because I am in the nightshift !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a marvelous month we have ... we have seen wonderful paintings and they inspired us to write wonderful "impressions" ... haiku and tanka. And now we will go further on this discovery of impressionism and today we are looking at a painting by Georges Seurat (1859-1891), A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884). It is one of his most famous works.

In 1879 Georges Seurat enlisted as a soldier in the French army and was back home by 1880. Later, he ran a small painter’s studio in Paris, and in 1883 showed his work publicly for the first time. The following year, Seurat began to work on La Grand Jatte and exhibited the painting in the spring of 1886 with the Impressionists. With La Grande Jatte, Seurat was immediately acknowledged as the leader of a new and rebellious form of Impressionism called Neo-Impressionism. Seurat spent over two years painting A Sunday Afternoon, focusing meticulously on the landscape of the park. He reworked the original as well as completed numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches. He sat in the park, creating numerous sketches of the various figures in order to perfect their form. He concentrated on the issues of color, light, and form. (Source: Wikipedia)

A Sunday Afternoon - Georges Seurat

This painting shows us a nice scene in which people are relaxing in the park. They enjoy the weather, the view, nature and each other. Seurat's painting is an awesome example of pointillism, a Neo-Impressionism technique. We can see human like figures, but there are no details ... these humans are impressions of humans.

sunday afternoon
a walk through the park with the one I love -
quality time

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong verse, but the painting brought nice memories back ... of the time my wife and I had just met (more than 25 yrs ago). So I just had to do something with those memories.

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 21st at noon (CET). Our next episode will be done by Jen of Blog It Or Lose It. For now ... have fun, be inspired and share your "impressions", your haiku with us all.

Carpe Diem Extra 2015-10 Vision Quest delayed!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,
As you all will have noticed ... I had planned a Vision Quest last weekend, but I hadn't time enough to prepare this Vision Quest, so I have decided to delay it to our next month March. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I have a few announcements to make:
Upcoming weekend Jen of Blog It or Lose It will be your host at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, because I will take the weekend off.
Next Friday (February 20th) I will start as a co-host at Mindlovemisery's Menagerie and I am going to take care of the Fairy-tale prompt on Fridays.
Maybe you have already visited our new part of our Carpe Diem Haiku Family Carpe Diem's Tanka Shrine, a weblog for Tanka (and Kyoka). I have published the first post there by using a Tanka composed by Georgia. Feel free to visit and maybe share a Tanka.

Carpe Diem Haiku Writing Techniques #7, The story of Wabi-Sabi continues

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our CD Haiku Writing Techniques series. As I promised in one of my earlier posts I love to dive into the "matter" of Wabi-Sabi which I wrote about in our last episode of this feature last Wednesday (February 11th). I have titled this episode "The story of Wabi-Sabi continues" and I hope it will give you all more insight in this ancient Japanese phenomenon and to "learn" you how to use it in your haiku-ing.
For this episode I have done some tough research and at the end of this episode I will give a short list of references which I have used to write this episode.

As you have noticed already I have used Wabi-Sabi instead of Sabi and Wabi (as I did in the last episode). In all the literature and articles I have read to prepare this episode (some used, some not) Wabi-Sabi was always used, so that's why I have chosen for Wabi-Sabi this time.

Wabi-Sabi is a compound word and to understand the essence of Wabi-Sabi I need to separate Wabi and Sabi. However both cannot be seen apart from each other, but first I will try to explain Wabi-Sabi as one word.

Wabi-Sabi is an ancient Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, incompleteness and impermanence that originated with Buddhist monks and then was integrated by masters of the Tea-ceremony in the 15th century. And if you keep it in mind, it will cut a lot of crap out of your writing and help you ignore your ego and bring out a beauty in your writing you didn't know you were capable of.

Originally Wabi-Sabi was about creating the ideal meditation environment and it symbolizes aesthetic simplicity and represents Zen Buddhist principles of harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. It's about appreciation, slowing down, using the senses, no ego, no expectations, no judgment. Sounds familiar? Yes ... this is haiku.

Ok ... let us pull Wabi-Sabi apart and look to the both "links" on their own.
Wabi refers to simplicity and humility. It's about being content with little. Wabi, stemming from the root "wa", which refers to harmony and tranquility, has evolved in meaning from describing something sad and desolate to describing something that is purposely humble and in tune with nature.
Sabi refers to the passing of time, which creates a feeling of sadness, longing and melancholy. It's about transient imagery, how things convey how they've lived - their age, their knowledge. Sabi by itself refers to the natural progression of time, and carries with it an understanding that all things will grow old and become less conventionally beautiful. However, things described as "sabi" carry their age with dignity and grace. At the heart of being "sabi" is the idea of authenticity.

As I stated above "Wabi-Sabi IS haiku. let us take a look to how a haiku comes to life, maybe we can "discover" that Wabi-Sabi IS haiku.

You start by being part of the moment (as short as the sound of a pebble thrown in water), see the impression of the moment. Come in contact with the moment, BE the moment. Feel it, smell it, hear it, see it, touch it ... use all your senses to become one with the moment ... BE the moment. Let go all of your thoughts, make your mind empty, feel only the emptiness, be humble to the experience. It's a privilege to be in the moment. That moment grants you its permission to Be IN IT, be grateful to that.
Do you feel it? That's Wabi-Sabi, that's what haiku is.

An example of a haiku filled with Wabi-Sabi by Basho:

the morning's snow
i can chew dried salmon
alone

© Basho

This haiku by Basho reveals several important techniques that help capture wabi sabi in a poem:

First it presents two simple images without subjective interpretation. This makes the meaning of the poem satisfyingly ambiguous. Is Basho saying that because of the snow he cannot go out and be with friends and must eat a cold meal at home alone? Or is he saying that because of the snow, he "gets" to stay home and enjoy an unhurried meal by himself? Or is he simply looking out on the snow while he eats his morning meal thankful that he can still chew? Or is he noting the time he takes to savor the view by coupling the image with a second image of a "long slow chew"?

Secondly, the images presented in the poem are humble and common. They have a wabi quality. Thirdly the word "alone" is crucial to the success of the poem, because it points to the significance of the humble images. This word "colors" the images and is the sabi element. (Source: still in the stream)

Another example written/composed by myself:

in the backyard
of my ancestor's mansion
roses still bloom

© Chèvrefeuille

Or another one:

on an old branch
young sprouts of cherry blossoms
bloom again

© Chèvrefeuille

Do you "see", "feel", "hear", "smell" and "touch" the moment? I think so ... this is Wabi-Sabi.

I hope this episode of CD Haiku Writing Techniques has made the idea of Wabi-Sabi more transparent ....

References:

Wabi-Sabi (author unknown)
Writing the Wabi Sabi Way by Christine Stewart
www.stillinthestream.com

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 20th at noon (CET). I will try to post our new episode, Sunday afternoon, later on.

Carpe Diem #670, Bathing

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I haven't enough time today to write a "big" post so I decided to just give you the title and painting which was my choice for today's prompt. I love to present to you a painting by Paul Cézanne ... I think it's a nice example of late impressionism and it's really an impression from a bathing scene. Paul Cézanne painted this painting between 1898 and 1905. It is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art, and is often considered Cézanne's finest work. Cézanne worked on the painting for seven years, and it remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1906.

This painting is titled "Large Bathers" and is part of a series of paintings (as was very common in impressionism). With each version of the bathers, Cézanne moved away from the traditional presentation of paintings, intentionally creating works which would not appeal to the novice viewer. He did this in order to avoid fleeting fads and give a timeless quality to his work, and in so doing paved the way for future artists to disregard current trends and paint pieces which would appeal equally to all generations. The abstract nude females present in Large Bathers give the painting tension and density. It is exceptional among his work in symmetrical dimensions, with the adaption of the nude forms to the triangular pattern of the trees and river. Using the same technique as employed in painting landscapes and still lifes, Large Bathers is reminiscent of the work of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. Comparisons are also often made with the other famous group of nude women of the same period, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. (Source: Wikipedia)

Credits: Large Bathers - Paul Cézanne

It's a nice scene and I think it can inspire you to write an all new haiku (or tanka). I had some trouble to compose a haiku inspired on this painting, but ... after a while I came up with the following haiku:

skinny dipping
between frogs and waterlilies -
one with nature

© Chèvrefeuille

By the way it's not only inspired on this painting. As I looked at this painting a sweet memory came to mind ....

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and it will remain open until February 19th at noon (CET). I will (try to) post our new episode, a new episode of our Haiku Writing Techniques, the second on Wabi Sabi, later on.

By the way I will take a few days off next weekend and I have asked Jen of Blog It Or Lose It to help me out. She said yes ... so our regular prompts of Friday 20th, Saturday 21th and Sunday 22th will be done by Jen.
As you maybe know it's my goal to have every month a weekend off, so if you would like to fill in for me next month, than please let me know. That free weekend will be Friday March 20th until Sunday March 22nd. You're free to do with the given prompts of those days, but you have to follow the prompts according to our promptlist which I hope to publish next week.