Carpe Diem #1721 Canna Lily

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to create Japanese poetry and share it with the world. This month we are creating a bouquet of field flowers and today I have another nice flower for you, which not always is seen in wild nature, but often in gardens, but it can be used in a bouquet. Today I have chosen "Canna Lily", and it is a gorgeous flower.

Canna Lily "Firebird"

The cannas in your garden will keep you ensured of colour around you from spring right through to the end of summer. And the colour that semi-dwarf Canna 'Firebird' provides is one you will want to be there for a good long while. This plants tall spikes bear a clump of bright red blooms at the top which open in succession. Cutting old stems will ensure that the flowering continues as long as possible. Canna 'Firebird' has long upright blue green leaves which set off the flowers to perfection.

fireworks in my garden
canna lillies blooming in bright colors
I feel rich

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submisisons and will remain open until August 15th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend meditation later on. For now ... have fun and enjoy the "fireworks" in your garden.

Carpe Diem #1720 Zinnia

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our wonderful "field of flowers" month here at our wonderful Haiku Kai, the place to be if you like to write and share Japanese poetry with the world. I am grateful that CDHK is still alive and kicking and I am so glad to see even new faces, new names appear here ... that makes me proud.

Zinnia

Today I have chosen a nice prompt, "Zinnia". You’ll find zinnias in nearly any color you’re looking for—pink, orange, yellow, red, white, purple, and more, meaning there’s probably a beautiful option to fit the vision of nearly any gardener. As an annual, they will only last one season, but they put on quite the display while they’re around. Zinnias grow well and look great in a number of settings whether it’s in a garden, container, or window box. Because of their beautiful shape and vibrant colors, zinnias are also very popular as cut flowers. (Zinnias grow and bloom from March to October).

Look at the above image of "Zinnia" it's really a game of colors ... awesome don't you think so too? I have to say that I didn't know this flower, but I like it very much. So I have tried to create a haiku about it:

winter's twilight zone
first colors in the backyard
zinnias are blooming

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 14th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... enjoy a rainbow of zinnias.

Carpe Diem #1719 Daisies ... Troiku challenge

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are busy with creating a bouquet of field flowers here at CDHK. Today I have another wonderful prompt for you and I think a nice challenge to work with. Today I have chosen "daisies" as our prompt and I love to challenge you to create a Troiku with a given haiku.

Here is the haiu to create your Troiku with, it's taken from my personal weblog on haiku and I wrote it back in 2012 for a weekly theme weblog titled "Haiku Heights":

around the mansion
daisies standing strong together
after the storm

© Chèvrefeuille (2012)

daisies standing strong together

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 13th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... enjoy the daisies in your neighborhood.

More about Troiku you can find above in the menu.

Carpe Diem #1718 Bougainvillea (CD Imagination)

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode in our wonderful CDHK-month "Field Of Flowers", only today I have chosen not a "real" field flower, but a flowering bush called "Bougainvillea". The Bougainvillea is often seen as wall decoration against white walls, mostly in the more southern countries, like for example Spain and Turkey.

Today I love to challenge you to create a Japanese poem inspired on a given image, so you can say this is a CDHK Imagination episode. Ofcourse you can use your own image, but it has to be an image of the Bougainvillea.

Here is the image for your inspiration:

Bougainvillea (image found on Pixabay)

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 12th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem #1717 Sunflowers

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our "Field Of Flowers" month. Today I have chosen "sunflower" to work with. I have written several haiku about sunflowers, so I will give you a few examples:

bruised sunflower
it bowed its head to deep -
departure of summer

in the light of dawn
sunflowers reach to the blue sky
praising their Creator

© Chèvrefeuille

And a last one from my archives:

broken sunflower
torn apart through a rain storm -
puddles on the path

© Chèvrefeuille

I love Sunflowers, they look like suns and they bring me a lot of joy, just like the sun. I hope you all are inspired to create haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry about sunflowers.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 11th at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #96 Little Ones ... Sedoka

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday August 4th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the first weekend meditation of August 2019. This month our theme is "Field Of Flowers", but that's not the theme for this weekend meditation. For this weekend meditation I have chosen to challenge you to create an other kind of Japanese poetry ... Sedoka. I will explain what Sedoka is.

For this "special feature "Little Ones" I have created a new logo and maybe I will use this special feature more often here at CDHK, not only in the weekends, but maybe also as an extra feature on weekdays.

For this logo I have used a renown Japanese woodblock by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and it's titled: Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave.

Maybe you can remember that special feature "Little Ones" that I used often here at CDHK, maybe if you are a long time member you will surely know that special feature.

Sedoka:

A Sedoka is an unrhymed poem composed of two katauta. A katauta has three lines with the syllable pattern 5-7-7 and is complete in itself and able to stand alone. A Sedoka therefore has the syllable count: 5-7-7, 5-7-7.

In order to be correct, each katauta must be able to be read independently, but also create a cohesive singular work in the Sedoka. Often a Sedoka will address the same subject from different perspectives.

An example:

dark clouds cloak the night;
chilly winds creak gnarled branches,
grasping as bony fingers.

disturbed raven squawks
at frightened children - screaming,
then laughing - they throw him treats

© James Dean Chase

Face In The Mirror (image found on viewbug) (image © beamiyoung)

Here is a Sedoka I wrote several years ago:

behind a veil of clouds
she hides her bright face
she ... the queen of night's sky

in the mirror she looks
at her once beautiful face
mother of two boys and girls

© Chèvrefeuille

I think it's a nice Japanese poetry form and next to haiku and tanka, I think Sedoka fits us all. Try it yourself.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday August 4th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 11th at noon (CEST). Have a great weekend!

Carpe Diem #1716 Poppies

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at the 2nd episode of our new CDHK month August 2019. This month we are "creating" a field of flowers, all prompts will be flowers that we can find in the fields around us. We will see a lot of beautiful flowers ... Today I have chosen "poppies" to work with.

Today I love to start with a "reprise" from an episode of one of my other weblogs, Basho Revisited. So a haiku by my master, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and a little background on it.

shira geshi ya   shigure no hana no   saki tsu ran

white poppy
it must have bloomed
from a wintry shower

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

As you can see ... this haiku is in Kanshicho-style. Let's take a closer look at the Romanji text and count the characters (syllables).

shi-ra ge-shi ya (5 syllables or characters)
shi-gu-re no ha-na no (7 syllables or characters)
sa-ki tsu ran (4 syllables or characters)

And now let us look at the English translation. Is that also in Kanshicho?

white poppy (2 syllables)
it must have bloomed (5 syllables)
from a wintry shower (5 syllables)

The English haiku is also in Kanshicho. Kanshicho is just another way of writing haiku.  In our Western world we use our own way of translating the Japanese haiku and that's not always following the classical syllables-count. So maybe we can say that all Western haiku are in Kanshicho?
Well maybe, but as you and I know, in the Western world we have a lot of classical written haiku, sometimes convulsively counted to serve the rules of the classical syllables-count 5-7-5. I am not a fan of that classical style, counted verse, but I do like to write them sometimes. To me the classical way of writing haiku is very difficult. Maybe that's because English isn't my mother tongue.
By the way. The haiku written by Basho, the one in this episode, was published in a three-volume collection of haikai by Ochi Etsujin in 1717.

At Basho Revisited I try to create haiku inspired on the haiku by Basho trying to "touch" the same tone and sphere. So here is the haiku I created:

at sunrise

poppies still redder

sacrifice for God

© Chèvrefeuille

Awesome! Gorgeous haiku in Kanshicho-style. Hope you enjoyed the read and of course the whole episode.

To conclude this episode I have another haiku for you:

one summer day

poppies coloring the meadows -

raindrops start to fall

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... a nice one don't you think so too? This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until Auhust 9th at noon (CEST). Later today I will publish our new weekend meditation, so today ... two episodes to read. Have fun!