Category Archives: #bloggingcommunity

by | November 29, 2023 · 10:53 am

Light Snow, Week 2: #TankaTuesday

This is the 2nd week of the Light Snow season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

Colleen gave us our kigo phrases for this week, as well as the poetic form. We were to write three dodoitsu, a form of Japanese poetry, following a 7-7-7-5 syllable count pattern.

  • #1: “early winter dusk”
  • #2: “chilly north winds blow”
  • #3: “warmth around the hearth”

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afternoons lose light sooner

coyotes prowl for dinner

gloom collects in my kitchen

early winter dusk

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chilly north winds do not blow

we balance in luxury

no longer hot, but not cool

air gentle to touch

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though today’s weather is fair

tomorrow will be chilly

and then we’ll be grateful for

warmth around the hearth

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Care December will be starting day after tomorrow at Everything Art. Every year, Kasia who runs EA offers this free self-care and intuitive art “course.” Every day we get a video with art prompt and self-care tip as well as a brief nature experience. The only thing she asks is that we donate what we can to Action Against Hunger.

In preparation for the Care December experience, I made myself a little junk journal with a pretty cover. For the journal, I used a New York Life brochure. The staples didn’t hold so I bound it with a shoe lace. The cover is denim from an old pair of jeans, plaid fabric from a dress Grandma made for me when I was twelve, and an applique I had for my daughter’s wedding junk journal that I did not use. I wish the colors came out truer in the photo, but it’s this early winter daylight, I guess. The applique and lace are the same hunter green. The greens in the plaid are rich. And the denim is a true dark denim blue. So this image is a dud, clearly.

Each page is prepped for usage with gesso or collage.

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by | November 21, 2023 · 12:58 pm

Light Snow, Week 1: #TankaTuesday

This is the 1st week of the Light Snow (November 22 – December 6) Shosetsu 小雪 Northern Hemisphere & Fine Weather: Shoman 小満 Southern Hemisphere season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

For a kigo word I chose turkey because even though we have spectacular summery weather right now, it is Thanksgiving week–even in Arizona! I decided to try a new to me form, tanka prose. I hope I did it right.

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Grateful for Our Blessings

Once again our family will meet for Thanksgiving amidst the beautiful Phoenix weather. How grateful I am that we can be together. There will be ten plus one this time. The “plus one” will be brought by DIL and son . . . and is due in two months (or so).

under bluest skies

with bare arms and cheeks sunkissed

we come together

kids bring turkey and gravy

we offer fixins with love

gray scale photo of a pregnant woman
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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by | October 24, 2023 · 1:28 pm

First Frost, Week 1: #TankaTuesday

This is the 1st week of the “First Frost” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

Although we don’t have a first frost in October ever in Arizona, and some years no frost at all, there are other aspects of the season that we do share with the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, as Colleen points out. She mentions Halloween and All Saints. I, of course, think of Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. Two years ago I created a nicho to celebrate the day and the lives of my kitties who had passed over the rainbow bridge. https://writersite.org/2021/10/06/making-after-loss/

This year I bought a Count Dracula costume for my black cats. I wanted to capture Meesker’s little white fangs, but unfortunately, he is not a model. My daughter had to add in the fangs for me. Meet Count Meeskula!

My old lady Kana, on the other hand, is quite the ham. She loves dressing up. She does not have fangs, though. Meet Countess Grannyula!

So when I saw that black cats for luck is a kigo I knew I would write about them!

MEESKER AND KANA

We’ve entered

a time to ponder

new darkness,

more shadows,

and celebrate the season

of lucky black cats.

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by | October 20, 2023 · 5:15 am

Winter Flowers: #TankaTuesday

This is the 2nd portion of the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

At this time every year in Arizona, we pull out the “summer flowers,” the annuals that we plant in May. We replace them with “winter flowers.” Usually red geraniums are featured, as they are this year. In the last few years we have much fewer choices than we used to have. This year, we had even less choice–and the red geraniums don’t look very good. I hope they perk up once planted. Today is the day we plant!

The topic of my tanka is our winter flowers.

Our summer flowers

have drooped and browned by the house.

Today we release

them from the earth to make room

for winter’s colors.

I made up the kigo “winter flowers” because it is such a part of this season.

On another note, I heard yesterday that my poetry collection Rooted and Winged, which was a Book Excellence winner, is Runnerup in the PenCraft Book Awards 2023. Woot!!!!

On another note, I don’t know how about anybody else, but I am feeling very drained and saddened over world events. I am also horrified by the anti-Semitism rampant on Twitter/X. I’ve joined Bluesky and am only following writers and people I know. Friends, if you want to join, I have a couple of codes. First come, first served.

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by | October 11, 2023 · 5:15 am

“Cold Dew” Season: #TankaTuesday

This is the “Cold Dew” season for Colleen Chesebro’s #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

All Northern Hemisphere Weather is Not Similar

When I was a child in Michigan I loved fall because by the end of idyllic summers I was bored and ready for a change. My neighbor had a huge garden, and he let us harvest his pumpkin patch. He would gather his corn stalks and tie them together into teepee-shaped shocks. The air began to cool and the maple trees would turn red, the oaks yellow. My father and I would rake the falling leaves into piles. Then I would jump in the crunchy heaps and pretend to be Joan of Arc burning at the stake. Before my father lit the piles, he would pull me out, shaking his head at my dramatics. As an adult, I moved out west, away from the vivid seasons of Michigan. Today I live in Arizona, where it is October 11 and still 100F degrees.

Time to carve pumpkins,

Halloween Jack O’Lanterns,

and swim in the pool.

My kigo (season) word is “pumpkin patch.” I wrote a haibun because I wanted to convey more information than I could in most syllabic forms. This is because of the contrast between the idea of the “Cold Dew” season and the reality of October 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona.

orange pumpkins on a field
Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya on Pexels.com

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by | October 5, 2023 · 2:17 pm

Week 2 of the Autumn Equinox: #TankaTuesday

This is week two of The Autumn Equinox (September 22 – October 7) Shubun 秋分 for Colleen Chesebro’s new #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons.

My kigo (season) word is Homecoming as in high school and college Homecoming events. This is one I have made up, but for me it represents mid-Autumn, the Autumn Equinox. I have a second kigo for a second poem. I used bonfire because although we had them both summer and fall, the fall ones were the ones that seemed magical, almost mystical.

I wanted to choose a syllabic form that is new to me, and I was intrigued by one that Colleen shared last time.

From the 24 Forms/kouta:

The kouta is a popular Japanese verse form of the Muromachi Period, 14th thru 16th century. They resurrected the lyrical song as a geisha song in the late 1800s and it’s still popular today. Koutas were originally meant to be sung out loud, like many other old forms of poetry. Techniques like assonance and consonance would fit right in with the form, but they aren’t required.

The kouta has several variations, though always short in only 4 lines a 5th line is sometimes is added. Themes reflect ordinary life and often use colloquialisms and onomatopoeia. The most popular are love songs. 

We write kouta in four lines but sometimes five, that tends to celebrate the average person’s everyday life in song. 

Colleen Chesebro

The kouta lines are always an odd number of syllables, usually 5 or 7 mixed, such as 7-5-7-5- or 7-7-7-5.

(untitled)

My son in a new black suit, (7)

daughter in semi-formal, (7)

their dates the first future glimpse. (7)

All are shiny smiles. (5)

Bring on Homecoming! (5)

(untitled)

One year we had a bonfire (7)

post our winning game. (5)

The smell of woodsmoke, night breeze, (7)

the high point before (5)

the descent toward winter. (7)

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I looked up toward to see if it is one or two syllables. Two!

blaze bonfire campfire dark
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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by | September 28, 2023 · 5:15 am

Date Harvesting for #TankaTuesday

Colleen Chesebro has created a new #TankaTuesday challenge based on the 24 Japanese seasons. The season right now is The Autumn Equinox (September 22 – October 7) Shubun 秋分.

My kigo (season) word is date because dates are harvested in Arizona only in the months of September and October. Here is my reverse etheree:

DATE HARVESTING

Under the leafy fronds of the date palms

the molasses-rich, honey-sweet fruit

hangs in heavy grape-like bunches.

Pickers with nets try to skim

whole bunches off the tree

without getting spiked

by fierce needles.

These sweet dates

are worth

risk.

smiling man holding branch with dates
Photo by Radwan Menzer on Pexels.com

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Switching now from autumn to spring, I have an ekphrastic poem up at Visual Verse here: https://visualverse.org/submissions/paschal-moon-at-midlife/. You can see the artwork that inspired it also. Or you can read the poem here (and the link at my name goes to all the poems and stories I’ve had published at this site):

PASCHAL MOON AT MIDLIFE

Luanne Castle

Release yourself from heavy
coats and boots of winter,
wiggle the toes and sense the air
scouting your arms and calves.
Consider the mud puddle, slide
the long grass along your tongue.
Sing in response to the sweet-
sweet-sweet of the cardinal.
In darkness imagine your guide,
the moon a bountiful platter
mirroring pink phlox-covered hills
of your imagination. Relieve
your mind of artificial restraints.
Let it loose into the unknown.

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by | July 3, 2023 · 12:51 pm

Season 5 Episode 14:  Luanne Castle on A Poet’s Voice

“Note how the red rose,velvet worn by early frost,clings confidentlyto its own treacherous stem,never accursed by mirrors.” Luanne Castle Welcome to …

Season 5 Episode 14:  Luanne Castle on A Poet’s Voice

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by | June 17, 2023 · 1:43 pm

Sally’s Smorgasbord Features Our Wolves

A big thank you to Sally Cronin at Smorgasbord Book Promotions for featuring Our Wolves today on Summer Book Fair 2023.

Smorgasbord Book Promotions – Summer Book Fair 2023 – #Poetry #Fairystories by Luanne Castle, #Mystery #Thriller N.A. Granger, #Shortstories D.L. Finn

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