Carpe Diem #1808 LOVE acrostic challenge

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend. I had a busy weekend because I had to work. I am at work now, but have my coffee-break, so I have a little time to publish our new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai.

This month our theme is LOVE and for today I have chosen a nice challenge for you. I love to challenge you to create a  so called "acrostic" dodoitsu. Let me first tell you what "acrostic" means:

An acrostic is a poem (or other form of writing) in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet.

An "acrostic" haiku example, acrostic: ONE:

Only eyes for you
Naked she lays down on the beach
Everlasting love

©️ Chèvrefeuille

sunny beach

But today I love to challenge you to create a Dodoitsu, that's a 4-line Japanese poetry form, let me tell you a little bit more about the Dodoitsu:

Dodoitsu is a form of Japanese poetry developed towards the end of the Edo Period. Often concerning love or work, and usually comical, Dodoitsu poems consist of four lines with the syllabic structure 7-7-7-5 and no rhyme or metre.

An example of a Dodoitsu:

One Night

one night I searched for a star
what I found was a full moon
now my every day is
full of shooting stars

© Ben Gieske (2012)

So the goal of this challenge is to create a Dodoitsu with the "acrostic" LOVE, the first characters of every line need to form that word.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 16th at noon (CET). Have fun!

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #115 Transformation ... a sone for a pillow

!! Open for your submissions tomorrow, Sunday February 9th, 2020 at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a (belated) new CDHK Weekend Meditation. It wasn't possible to publish on time, through circumstances. This weekend I love to challenge you with a new Transformation episode, that wonderful special feature in which the goal is to re-create a given haiku into a tanka.
This weekend I have chosen for a haiku by a not so well known haiku poet, Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941).

Kawabata Bosha

Bosha is a not so well known haiku poet, a contemporary of Shiki and a devotee to Basho, as we already can see in his haigo, Bosha.

Let me tell you first something about this not so well known haiku poet. Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941) was born on August 17 in Downtown Tokyo.His family name is Kawabata Nobukazu. His father had a great influence on his haiku career. His grandfather and his mother worked in a hospital and as a child it was his wish to become a doctor himself.
His stepbrother was Kawabata Ryush (Ryuushi), who later became a famous painter of traditional Japanese Paintings (Nihonga). Bosha himself was also a great painter.

At age 17 he started to use the haigo Bosha. He later became a most beloved student of Takahama Kyoshi and worked with the Aogiri Group. But his lung tuberculosis became worse and he died at a young age in 1941. On the evening of July 16 he died, this was his Jisei (death-poem).

ishi makura shite ware semi ka naki shigure

a stone for a pillow
me, just another cicada ...
so shrill, like crying

© Kawabata Bosha

cicada

A beautiful Jisei (death-poem) I would say. As read this Jisei I immediately thought about a haiku written by my sensei Matsuo Basho. In a way the haiku by Bosha was I think inspired on a haiku by Basho.

That haiku was the following:

the deep stillness
seeping into the rocks
the voice of the cicadas

© Matsuo Basho

Did you know that the life-circle of a cicada is 17 years? Could it be that our 17 syllables counting haiku was inspired on the life circle of the cicada? As that is true than haiku is for sure the poetry of nature.

Well ... enough talking.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions tomorrow Sunday February 9th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 16th at noon (CET). Have a wonderful weekend full of inspiration.

Carpe Diem #1807 Two Hearts Become One

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Love is the ultimate emotion. I think we all agree on that. Love is positive energy and uplifts our hearts. The ultimate energy of love is ... "two hearts become one". We see that in our children for example, but there is another "thing" that can do that ... dancing ... especially the Tango.

So to inspire you I love to share a wonderful piece of music:

Isn't it wonderful?

dance of deep love
she, my lovely wife, sways
dancing the Tango
passionate couple of youngsters -
dance of deep love

© Chèvrefeuille


This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 12th at noon (CET). Enjoy!

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday #12 a last leaf

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My excuses for being this late with publishing our new Tan Renga Wednesday episode. This special feature is to challenge you to create a Tan Renga from a given haiku by adding the two-lined stanza.

For this Tan Renga Wednesday I have ran trhough the archives of CDHK and found a haiku I created for the Autumn Retreat 2017, Departure, I think it's a nice haiku and I think it can become a marvelous Tan Renga.

A Last Leaf

a last leaf
swirls on the wind towards the east -
first snow falls gently

© Chèvrefeuille

This Tan Renga Wednesday is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 11th at noon (CET). Enjoy the challenge.

Carpe Diem #1806 Unconditional Love

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our Haiku Kai. This month I love to challenge you to create haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry forms themed LOVE. Today I love to challenge you to create Japanese poetry themed "Unconditional Love".

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love ... is the love without limitations, everyone can give Unconditional Love.

in the garden
first cherry blossoms bloom
cherised by the sun

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 10th at noon (CET).

Carpe Diem #1805 Introducing our new Theme ... Love month

credits logo

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new episode of our wonderful Haiku Kai. We are here to create and share Japanese poetry and this month our theme is Love. This month we celebrate Love in all its beauty. I have chosen this theme because of the fact that we celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th, but also because I love to explore Love as a theme for haiku.

Love ... we all can relate to it I think, it's not only the love between people, but also between plants, flowers, insects, animals and the love for something. I love my wife and kids, but I also fell in love with haiku back in 1988.

As you all know haiku is about nature, deeper meaning and so on. Tanka once was the poetry of love between people, it was used as a kind of secret love-letter, and is therefore known as a love poem. Haiku ... is mostly not seen as a love poem, but this month I hope to explore it ... together with you all. Are you with me?

Love is a challenge (photo © Sachar Gilad)

Love is one of the most important emotions I think, and Unconditional Love is what we need here on our planet, because unconditional love has no boundaries and will always reach out to other people around you and around the world.

without boundaries
I open my heart to spread love
on wings of birds

© Chèvrefeuille

With love we can reach out towards people around us. Love is really the only way to spread peace all over the globe.

Spread love,

Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 9th at noon (CET)

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #114 Renga With ... beach diamonds

!! Open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a new weekend meditation here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, that nice special feature for the weekend. I think you all have noticed that I didn't publish on last Thursday and Friday, my excuses for that, I had a very busy (and tough) week, so I hadn't time to publish on those days.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Renga with several haiku poets. Your task is to add the two-lined stanza towards it. You can choose your own "line-up", but have to start with the haiku I will give first. So this Renga With ... is a kind of Hineri, with a twist.

Here are the six haiku to use, the first given haiku has to be your hokku (starting verse) and is a beauty created by Jane Reichhold (1937-2016).

beach diamonds
a new day crystallized
in sunny surf foam

© Jane Reichhold

cold spring breeze
makes the cherry blossom shiver
one heartbeat long

© Chèvrefeuille

The wind from Mt. Fuji
I put it on the fan.
Here, a souvenir from Edo

© Basho (Tr. Ryu Yotsuya)

watch birth and death:
the lotus has already
opened its flower.

© Soseki Natsume (Tr. Soiku Shigematsu)

dervishes whirling
- seeking a higher consciousness
third eye opens

© Chèvrefeuille

flute melodies
across green ocean waves
spring meadows

© Jane Reichhold

Six wonderful haiku to work with I think, not an easy task, but I think and belief that you all can do it. Enjoy this Renga With ...

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday February 2nd at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 9th at noon (CET). Have a great weekend.