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.

Carpe Diem Time Glass #21,

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Sunday again ... time for our weekly time challenge CD-Time Glass in which you have to respond on a given prompt and a given image with a haiku (or tanka) within 24 hours. This week I have chosen for a prompt which fits our central theme impressionism.
As you now when it is foggy the world looks spooky and very different ... it's almost as if you look at an impression of your own world. So this week's prompt is FOG.



 

What a wonderful image for your inspiration I think ... a spooky town to help your muse to catch a haiku or tanka.

 

You have to respond within 24 hours so this episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until Monday February 16th at 7.00 PM (CET). So you have just 24 hours to respond.



Carpe Diem #669, Scream

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are going further with our exploration of impressionism here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. And today I have an impresionism/expressionism (?) painting which you either like or dislike.
"The Scream" is a very wellknown painting and as I stated above you like or dislike it. I am one of the people who dislikes this painting, but I know there are many people who like it, maybe that's because of the idea behind it. Let me tell you a little bit more about the ispirational background of this painting by Edvard Munch.

Credits: The Scream Edvard Munch

The original German title given to the work by Munch is Der Schrei der Natur ("The Scream of Nature"). The Norwegian word skrik usually is translated as scream, but is cognate with the English shriek. Occasionally, the painting also has been called The Cry.  
In his diary in an entry headed, Nice 22 January 1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image:

[...] “One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.” [...]

This memory was later rendered by Munch as a poem, which he hand-painted onto the frame of the 1895 pastel version of the work:

I was walking along the road with two friends
the sun was setting
suddenly the sky turned blood red
I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence
there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city
my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety
and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

© Edvard Munch

Among theories advanced to account for the reddish sky in the background is the artist's memory of the effects of the powerful volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, which deeply tinted sunset skies red in parts of the Western hemisphere for months during 1883 and 1884, about a decade before Munch painted The Scream.
This explanation has been disputed by scholars, who note that Munch was an expressive painter and was not primarily interested in literal renderings of what he had seen. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the proximity of both a slaughterhouse and a lunatic asylum to the site depicted in the painting may have offered some inspiration. The scene was identified as being the view from a road overlooking Oslo, the Oslofjord and Hovedøya, from the hill of Ekeberg. At the time of painting the work, Munch's manic depressive sister Laura Catherine was a patient at the asylum at the foot of Ekeberg.

Edvard Munch (Source: Wikipedia)

In 1978, the Munch scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange, sexless creature in the foreground of the painting was inspired by a Peruvian mummy, which Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was buried in a fetal position with its hands alongside its face, also struck the imagination of Munch's friend Paul Gauguin: it stood as a model for the central figure in his painting, Human misery (Grape harvest at Arles) and for the old woman at the left in his painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (Source: Wikipedia)

I don't know if this painting is impressionism, but as I look at it and read the behind story then I think it's surely an impressionism painting ... the sexless creature has no real human features and the surroundings look more like an impression than the real world.

through the night
screeching tires resonate against the walls -
a hazy moon

(c) Chèvrefeuille

Well ... I hope you did like this new episode and I hope it will inspire you all to write an all new haiku (or tanka) impression ...

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until February 18th at noon (CET). I will try to post our next episode, bathing, later on.

Carpe Diem Sparkling Stars #18, John Stevenson's "the train"



Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

What a joy to create another episode of our special feature Sparkling Stars in which I introduce haiku written/composed by classical and non-classical haiku poets. Haiku which are in my opinion little stars, little sparkling stars.
For this episode I have sought for a non-classical haiku poet who's born in 1948 and lives in New York. After a brief biography I will share three haiku composed by him. I love to introduce to you John Stevenson.

John Stevenson (born 1948) is from Ithaca, New York. He lived in Buffalo for eight years, New York City for four years and has been living in the Albany area since 1980, where he has raised his son and worked as an administrator for the New York State Division of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (1980 - 1987) and Office of Mental Health (1987 to present).
From 1966 to 1972 John studied visual arts and theatre and from 1969 to 1975 he worked as an actor, with day jobs ranging from library aide to supervisor of a security patrol at Rich Stadium. Now he alternately bores and exasperates his son by commenting, while they are watching movies or television, “I worked with her. I worked with him.”
Since his first encounter with Playback Theatre in 1990, a form of theatre in which members of the audience tell stories from their own lives which are then enacted on stage, John has been completely absorbed with it, helping to start Pentimento Playback Theatre Company in 1992 and performing with them since then. A similar thing happened in relation to his poetry. His first publication was in 1956 and he has written poetry regularly since then. He encountered his first haiku (at a Playback Theatre conference) in 1992. Since then he has written almost nothing but haiku, senryu, haibun, rengay and renku.

John is a member of the Haiku Society of America, Haiku Poets of Northern California, the Yukei Teikei Haiku Society, and the Route 9 Haiku Group. (Source: Haijinx)

John Stevenson

Here are three haiku composed by Stevenson all three are about trains and I have tried to organize them to a little story:

the train picks up speed,
in a paper coffee cup
concentric waves

the river always
out there in the dark
late train home

coming home
on the train
... the backyards

(c) John Stevenson

An awesome trio I think ... it brought a haiku by Shiki in mind which we have used for prompt in our big five month July 2014.

smoke whirls
after the passage of a train -
young foliage

© Masaoka Shiki

All wonderful haiku with train as the theme in common, so I love to share one of my haiku with this same theme hidden in it with you all, maybe you can remember this haiku, because I wrote it earlier in July 2014 in response on the above haiku by Shiki.

under the full moon
the screech of a steam engine -
cherry blossoms shiver

© Chèvrefeuille

First Steam Engine Train

The goaL Sparkling Stars feature is to write a classical or non-classical haiku inspired on the haiku given, it's similar with our CD-Specials, but I love to challenge you all to use the classical (5-7-5) rule for the haiku. I didn't succeed in that, but maybe you can do it ... better. !! I have started a new weblog Carpe Diem's Tanka Shrine ... !!

This episode of our Sparkling Stars feature is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until next Saturday February 21st at noon (CET).