CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Carpe Diem #1050 blossoms

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our warmhearted family-community Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. This month it's all in honor of Jane Reichhold, who passed away at the end of July. All our prompts are modern kigo extracted from Jane Reichhold's saijiki "A Dictionary of Haiku" and all the used prompts will be shared here with examples of haiku (or tanka) by Jane.

Let me give you a brief biography of Jane Reichhold (1937-2016), Queen of Haiku and Tanka, a close friend and my mentor and co-host of CDHK:

Jane Reichhold was a haiku personality. There's a lot to know about her, as well as to learn from her. On her page (AHA!POETRY!) we learn that she was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1937, and studied Art and Journalism at Bluffton College, Ohio, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, Fresno State University, Fresno, CA, and San Francisco State University, San Francisco. She lives now in Gualala, CA, USA.

Jane Reichhold (1937-2016)

She was also a mother of three children and taught art classes for children (1962-1966). She owned a pottery workshop studio in Dinuba, CA (1967-1971) and then she moved to Hamburg, West Germany, in 1971. There, she made sculpture from ropes which were exhibited throughout Europe. She was the first American woman artist accepted into the Deutsche Kunstlerbund [German Artists' Organization] and wrote free-lance magazine articles and poetry since 1963 which, were published in USA, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Romania and Croatia.
In 2013 Jane became co-host of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and featured her own special feature "Ask Jane ...", in which she gave answer on questions by Carpe Diem Haiku Kai family members.
Recently, on July 28th, Jane decided to end her own life. She could not longer cope with the pain of Fibromyalgia and the partially loss of her sight.
Jane became 79 years and she will be missed forever, but never forgotten.

Lake Biwa - Cherry Blossoms

Okay ... back to our prompt for today: Today our prompt is blossoms and Jane wrote wonderful haiku with this modern kigo for spring. Here are a few examples to inspire you:

knotted fragrance
on spring bare branches
blossoms

cloud blossoms
brush strokes between clusters
story-telling branch

silence
in the blind wind's dance
blossoms

moonlight
among blossoming trees
a white parasol

silence
the blossoms
dance

All wonderful haiku in the excellent, but fragile, way of Jane's haiku writing. It's really wonderful to read her haiku (and tanka) and re-read them. She was really the greatest modern haiku poetess.

Cherry Blossoms

Here is my response on blossoms inspired on the haiku by Jane Reichhold to honor her, my dear friend and mentor:

cherry blossoms bloom
such a fragile beauty -
the Spring breeze

spring breeze
caresses the fragile blossoms
of young cherry trees

standing naked
in awe of the first cherry blossom
dancing in the garden

I wonder ... will be spring as beautiful as ever without Jane? She was (and still is) my inspiration and she will continue that ... Her spirit will dwell here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, because without Jane CDHK wouldn't be alive ...

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until September 15th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our new episode, calm, later on. For now ... be inspired and share your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form in tribute to Jane Reichhold with us all here at our Haiku Kai.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Making the CDHK-family bonds stronger

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Recently I read a comment on one of the posts here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai and (not that it worries me), but I think it's good to respond on that comment here in an extra post.

This extra episode I titled "Making the CDHK family bonds stronger" and in this title the reason for this extra post is hidden.

I am grateful that CDHK has become a wonderful and loving community / family of haiku poets all around the globe and I love creating it, but (and I know for sure that I am not the only one) there is more than CDHK alone. Next to creating CDHK I have a busy job and a loving family of myself. But, and I think I don';t talk only for myself, there is not always time enough to make CDHK or even visit all of your wonderful blogs to comment on them and read all your beauties.
Of course I do love to visit you all to read your haiku and tanka, but time is not always on my side.

Time isn't always at our side

In the above I tried to tell you that, and I can understand that completely, we can make our CDHK bond more by visiting each other's blogs more often to "like" them or to "comment" on them. One of our family-members said the following (and I quote):

[...] "I have observed that haijin who are part of CDHK hardly visit the blog of fellow of haijins to comment or even like the works they post on the blogs. This is worrying to me. I know we all do not have time on our hands, but for the sake of fellow feeling,the bonding and love we have found on CDHK, I believe it is only complimentary for us to visit each other more frequently on the blogs.

We may not need validation when we write and post on our blogs but hei if no one reads and comment or critique, how do we grow. [...]

How can we make this bonding of our CDHK-family stronger? Without "working us over the head" (I don't know if you say that in this way). As I wrote above and you all know that I think, I am a busy guy and I don't have enough time to visit you all, but I am trying to visit you all ... and yes I know I am behind with commenting too ...

Do you have ideas to make this bonding better? Please share your ideas and thoughts on this with us all here at CDHK in the comment field. We are a warmhearted family and I need you all to make CDHK a better place to share and ... as you know you are all part of CDHK and therefore we make CDHK together.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille

Carpe Diem #1049 Fish and frogs

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

As I was preparing the prompt-list for September I ran into several "strange" modern kigo in Jane Reichhold's "A Dictionary of Haiku" and one of those "strange" modern kigo was our prompt for today fish and frogs.

When I started reading her examples for this modern kigo I sometimes smiled and sometimes had questions on my face, but they all were exquisite.

Here are a few examples for this modern kigo:

heron silence
landing in the middle
of frog silence

silence
larger on the lily pad
a frog

delicate pastels
in the pain of a pinch
from a crab

new moons
at the edge of the pond
fish milt

© Jane Reichhold

All these haiku are beauties, but I think it will not be easy to create a haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form on this modern kigo.
Of course I have tried it and I came up with the following haiku:

croaking of frogs
resonates through the valley -
cry of a new born

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... it's up to you now. This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until September 14th at noon (CET). I am on the nightshift so I hope to have time to publish our next episode, blossoms, later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Extra September 9th 2016 a proposal

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

In this time of social media I love to make you all a proposal. Please share your thoughts on the following idea.

Social Media ... I think everyone of us knows what that means. In this modern time, we have facebook, instagram, pinterest and more stuff like that. We also have several digital ways to communicate with each other. For example: WhatsApp and Messenger (by FB).

What do you think of the following idea:

I love to create a Messenger group (on FB) for our haiku community. With that Messenger group it will become easy to debate with each other about haiku, tanka and so on. In this group you can share your haiku or tanka for consideration and improvement.
I was thinking of two sessions a month in which we can discuss our haiku with each other through this Messenger group.

Please let me know what you think of this idea and maybe we can try it at least one time. I am looking forward to your responses. Please let me know your thoughts through the comment field.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille, your host.

PS. I am busy to make an all new lay-out for our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, because I think it is time for some lay-out changes. I will keep you posted on this.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Carpe Diem #1048 stones

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our tribute to Jane Reichhold month here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. I think we, as a warmhearted family of haiku poets, can give Jane the tribute and the honor she deserves, without her there maybe wasn't a Carpe Diem Haiku Kai anymore. I have a lot to be grateful for all what Jane did for our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai ... so as I heard of her passing away I just had to be sure to create something in honor of her. So here it is, after our special Theme Week last month, we now have a whole month to honor her. And (maybe) you have read about that special feature I will create in honor of her, "Universal Jane", I hope to cherish her legacy here at CDHK.

Today our prompt is stones and it was inspired on what happened with Jane, she choose by herself to end her life by jumping of a cliff, so this stones prompt triggers tears, but we know she couldn't live any longer with the pain of fibromyalgia and the partially loss of her sight.

Here are a few haiku which Jane created as an example for this modern kigo:

moon meditation
in a glow of sparkles
the stone peaks

spring
when stones speak
of running water

tree stone
on its jagged edge
moon blossom

© Jane reichhold

moon blossom

Stones ... I have written (a lot of) haiku about them, so I dived into my archives again and found a nice one which I love to re-produce here to help your inspiration:

a couple of frogs
between the stepping stones
looking disturbed

© Chèvrefeuille

And another one, also from my archives:

timeless beauty -
the glint of polished pebbles
in the crystal brook

© Chèvrefeuille

And ... well I couldn't stay behind, I had to create a new haiku as well to honor Jane.

high above the sea
rising from the ancient earth
white cliffs

I hope I have inspired you to create haiku, tanka or another Japanese poetry form. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 13th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our next episode, frogs and fish, later on. For now ... have fun.

Carpe Diem #1047 riddles (delayed post) (had to be "puddles")

Dear haijin, visitors and travelers,

First this as I was starting to create this episode and looked back in my first concept of the promptlist I saw that I mistyped in the definitive prompt-list, because the prompt wasn't "riddles", but had to be "puddles" ... so my excuses for that. In this episode I will however use both prompts.

Welcome at this delayed post. Yesterday I hadn't time to create this post, so therefore I post it now. This (delayed) post is prompted "riddles". In this case it's a real prompt, but maybe you can remember that we had an episode of our CDHK Haiku Writing Techniques about "riddle".

That episode I started with a well known "riddle" haiku by Moritake:

A fallen blossom

returning to the bough, I thought --

It's very obvious where the "riddle" is in this one. I just had to re-produce it here and make it part of this tribute-episode for Jane, because without Jane's knowledge I couldn't have made the Haiku Writing Techniques series for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. So ... thank you Jane, where ever you are.

Here is an example of this "riddle" in a haiku by Jane:

Also a nice haiku to inspire you. Sorry ... again for this mistake.

haiga by Chèvrefeuille

As I wrote above our prompt for this delayed post was "puddles" and it was taken from the spring section of Jane's saijiki. Puddles we see them often in spring, here in The Netherlands, very often, because of our very wet climate. Puddles however we can see in every season of the year, but today it's a modern kigo for spring.

Here are three nice haiku created by Jane for this modern kigo to inspire you:

dried up
puddles covered with pollen

moiré shapes of shores

in puddles
the pattern of raindrops
dyes the hills green

spring sky
snow-melt puddles filling
to the brim

I couldn't come up with a new haiku so I dived into my archives and found the following haiku to go with this prompt:

Again my apologies for the dealy and the mistyping. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until September 13th at noon (CET). I will post our new episode, stones, immediately hereafter. Have fun!

Wednesday, September 7, 2016