Carpe Diem has had a series of posts linking haiku with sculpture. This may be something of a departure for writers, like myself, who have looked to the natural world for inspiration, but it has given rise to many really interesting poems.
I found it quite a challenge but it opened up new ideas and ways of seeing.
cool lawn; bronze sculpture;
graceful struts entwine upwards;
metallic tango.
Above the burning
hills: false clouds of smoke. The land
made ready for growth.
A recent prompt from Carpe Diem is a rare kigo, ‘burning the hills’.
On the surface this doesn’t seem very kigoish, but in Japan farmers burn the old grass off the hillsides in preparation for planting – thus it is a kigo of Spring.
Chevrefeuille’s blog, Carpe Diem, has a fascinating article on the Ise Shrine, one of the most important sites for the Shinto religion.
The haiku challenge is to write about it, but I’ve never seen any Shinto shrine, so my poem is more about a shrine of the mind.
A soft breeze whispers
in the eaves of the temple;
frost on the roof melts.
I took this photo while on holiday some weeks ago. I noticed the flower among others not only because it’s a beautiful rose, but because it is so pink – ultimately pink. I thought the tiny beetle was sort of cute, too.
Having made a contact with pinkness I looked around to see if anyone has celebrated it in poetry. Sure enough there are a good many poems on the subject.
Poem Hunter has a list. The one that most suited this post is:
This Peach is Pink with Such a Pink by Norman Rowland Gale
This peach is pink with such a pink
As suits the peach divinely;
The cunning colour rarely spread
Fades to the yellow finely;
But where to spy the truest pink
Is in my Love’s soft cheek, I think.
The second verse is about white, so I leave that out.
Then there’s Emily Victoria’s blog called Poetry in Pink, but her poems aren’t actually about pinkness.
Color by Christina Rossetti starts with pink, but then goes on to other colours.
Color
What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain’s brink.
Taking the trouble to put work online and make it free for everyone is an act of true generosity. Thank you ShortStops for a great read.
Structo issue 15 is now online, in its entirety, to read for free. This most recent issue features 11 short stories, 17 poems, a feature on cover on design, an interview with three of our favourite cover designers and another with the ex-poet laureate of North Korea Jang Jin-sung. You can find more details, as well as bonus material such as audio recordings, at the issue page.
To mark the occasion, the physical issue is currently discounted from £7 to £5, so if you want one before they sell out, now’s the time! Head here to pick up your copy. That said, the most valuable thing you can do is read the magazine and tell a friend about Structo, as magazines like ours thrive by word of mouth. Share and enjoy.
Thirty days has September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
Which has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.
I was reminded of this old rhyme when I switched on my computer this morning and realised that I’d forgotten the leap year.
We get a whole extra day – to do what? In my case much as I always do; write, cook, gardening – perhaps not today as it’s so cold, read – currently A Killing Frost by R D Wingfield and fiddle about – something I’m good at.
I thought I’d see if anyone has commemorated this calendrical oddity in verse.
Hello Poetry has a section on leap year poetry. Some of the poems don’t seem to have much to do with the date, but perhaps something that only occurs occasionally stimulates the imagination to look at other rare happenings.
Let’s be like leap year.
Let’s leap through time
A nice idea from Monkey Zazu.
Reading Juice is well into the spirit of things with all kinds of leaping, not just the day. Kangaroos, frogs, crickets and others get in on the leaping, hopping, jumping act.
The only serious poem on the subject I’ve come across so far is Jane Hirshfield‘s Ode to the Leap Day on Brainpickings site.
Today has been a sunny day where I am, but cold; the forecast lately has promised snow, but it hasn’t actually arrived. My meditations on the subject of snow ended with this tangka.
Fine snow falls slowly
onto the old, cracked tarmac –
gently, politely.
The road can’t resent this slight
covering, too thin for comfort.
Picture from Pixabay.
I’ve been away on and off for over a month, which is why there’s been no action on this blog. I plan to get back into posting and sharing from now on.
First, a belated Happy New Year to all my readers. I hope you’ve had a great winter so far.
While roaming around the sunny streets in southern Spain and looking for subjects for haiku, it occurred to me that the haiku I’m familiar with all come from further north; from autumn harvests and snowy winters. This isn’t a necessary feature of any poetry, so I looked again at where I was and what was around.
The year’s shortest day;
oranges ripen under
blue and cloudless skies.
Another Carpe Diem challenge and this time one open to an even wider range of responses than usual. To check out some of the ways others have interpreted the prompt go to the website and follow the links – an exploration well worth taking.
The prompt comes from a haiku by Cor van den Heuve, a well-known American haiku writer.
This is his:
reading a mystery
a cool breeze comes through
the beach roses
One could speculate for hours on the exact meaning – what mystery? a book, or something more profound? I wondered, too, what beach roses are, but a quick google answered that question.
This theme is so rich I wrote several haiku using it, but finally settled on the following as being truest to the original.
Reading a mystery
in the garden; a blackbird sings;
mystery resolved.
e a m harris 