Tag Archives: Haiku

by Luanne | September 6, 2023 · 5:15 am

Synonym Haiga #TankaTuesday

This week’s #TankaTuesday by Colleen Chesebro is to write a syllabic poem using synonyms of the words “quiet” and “seek.” I decided to try a haiga, although that is a little dangerous.

A haiga, in its original form, is a Japanese painting with a haiku in it. The text and image work together. The reason I think it’s “dangerous” for me to try this form is that my mixed media fun leans more abstract, so some people might not think this is a haiga. However, I am experimenting here because I like the idea of blending text and image.

I used “silence” for quiet (as a noun) and “pursued” for seek.

There’s a lot of truth in this haiga: we never really had a monsoon season this year, and yet it’s now September. How will we get to fall if we don’t have monsoons to shift the balance? We have to actively pursue fall by decorating with pumpkins and eating pumpkin ice cream.

pile of pumpkin — Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

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by Luanne | August 22, 2023 · 5:15 am

Summer Daisies #TankaTuesday

It’s been a long time since I wrote posts based on Dawn Raffel’s memoir, The Secret Life of Objects. The idea is to write about an object that evokes memories.

I’ve blogged a couple of times about the vacation trip I went on with my parents when I wasn’t even four years old yet. We drove from Michigan south and visited Louisiana and Texas, among other states. Some of my most vivid memories from the time period were in New Orleans. I will always associate the city with sidewalk painters seated at their easels, the brushes that were extensions of their hands, and of course their fascinating canvases.

When I visited my mother in April to help her pack up some items before her move into the apartment building at her retirement village, I discovered this painting, long forgotten and gathering dust in Mom’s basement. My parents purchased it on that trip to New Orleans, and it hung for years in their living room. I shipped it home to myself, and now it hangs in my living room, reminding me of that vacation and the colorful, exciting world that existed outside Kalamazoo.

Colleen Chesebro’s prompt for #TankaTuesday is to use at least one kigo word in a syllabic poem for the current season, which in Arizona is summer. Colleen explains a kigo: 👉🏻 What is a KIGO? A kigo is a season word used in haiku and haibun (the haiku portion).

She provides a possible list of kigos. Daisies are not on the list, perhaps because many think of them as spring flowers. However, daisies are also summer flowers! So many types: Chrysanthemum*, Marguerite, English, Gloriosa, Shasta, Cape, Oxeye, and Gerbera. I prefer Gerbera because unlike the other varieties they are completely non-toxic to cats! *this variety is on Colleen’s list

Here is my haiku:

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by Luanne | June 26, 2023 · 7:55 pm

Syllabic Synonyms: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested writing a syllabic poem using synonyms for the words OPEN and CLOSE.

When the sun unfurls

in the rosy morning sky

the owl shuts her eyes.

In my haiku I used unfurl as a synonym of open and shut as a synonym for close.

Speaking of animals I have a cat poem in a new anthology of ekphrastic poetry published by Moonstone Press. It can be purchased here if you like ekphrastic poetry. https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ekphrastic-poetry/423

By David Ryckaert III – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15541707

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by Luanne | May 3, 2023 · 6:52 am

Ekphrastic Contrapuntal Tanka String with Haiku: #TankaTuesday

Colleen at Wordcraft poetry suggested this prompt today: to write a syllabic poem using this 19th century painting as inspiration. She mentioned how it looked like the girl is on her cell phone. For a time it was hard to unsee that cell. But then, after I saw something hanging down from the “cell phone,” I realized how important our own world views are to how we see something. As I researched, I read that Hitler loved the paintings of this artist, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, and made his work Nazi favorites. But the artist (blessedly) never lived long enough to see the Nazis come to power or to know the name Adolf Hitler. All these different perspectives are where my poem today comes from and it is what complicates the form, creating an ekphrastic contrapuntal tanka string with haiku.

I’m sorry that the poem had to be a screenshot as I couldn’t make it stay on the screen otherwise. If you click on the poem image a couple of times you might be able to make it larger. Please let me know if you can read it or if I need to figure out something else. Any ideas would be appreciated.

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by Luanne | March 7, 2023 · 12:03 pm

#Tanka Tuesday and Poetry Reading

See below for the video that goes with this fireplace photo.

Today Colleen’s prompt for #TankaTuesday involved writing a syllabic poem using a photo by https://secondwindleisure.com/about-me/ as a prompt.

I’ve been wanting to try a cherita, which is 3 stanzas–one line, two lines, three lines. So this is what I came up with.

I can hear the thunder and spray before I see it.

Then it appears before me in its many textures
of wood and stone and the glorious movement of water.

As I stand on the viewing platform overlooking all,
the mist parts from the water, rising up toward 
the blue sky, hugging me in its wet embrace.

Then I started to question if a cherita was really syllabic poetry because you don’t count the syllables, so I quickly came up with a haiku to make sure I’m covered!

powerful water
sheeting down to be as one
with its still-wild self

The publisher, Alien Buddha Press, of Our Wolves has created a YouTube playlist of authors reading from their new books. I read four poems from the chapbook. Oh, and if you do check it out, watch for when I say the most UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNIEST thing. Hint: it has to do with whether Antarctica has folk and fairy tales.

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Wolves-Luanne-Castle/dp/B0BTKNP31D/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8PAK9E03LTBV&keywords=our+wolves&qid=1677978570&sprefix=our+wo%2Caps%2C355&sr=8-1&asin=B0BTKNP31D&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

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by Luanne | January 6, 2013 · 11:46 am

Another Meaningful Moment

At the end of the week I travelled to Los Angeles to visit my daughter. She had surgery on an ovary on Friday (all went well), and I stayed this weekend to take care of her. My small stone for Friday is of a personal nature because it took place at the medical center. But yesterday I shopped and cooked for her, and my small stone turned out to take place during the cooking.

She owns a cookbook by Giada De Laurentiis called Everyday Pasta. I made Rotini with Salmon and Roasted Garlic for dinner. I added steamed asparagus cut into two-inch pieces. It didn’t last long and was the first real food my daughter could eat.

After dinner I made Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables (see photo above), and it was also a big hit.

Here is my small stone:

Inside the onion are circles inside circles. Halving the zucchini, I notice the small seeds which lie dormant. The mushroom caps plump like ovaries. Even the peas are small spheres into themselves.

After the penne dish, I made devilled eggs.

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Tagged as Creative Nonfiction, Haiku, Memoir, Nonfiction, Old photographs, Online Writing, Poem, Poetry, Short prose, Writing, Writing Exercises

by Luanne | January 4, 2013 · 5:20 am

Let’s Try a Month of Meaningful Moments

Have you heard of the Mindful Writing Challenge for January 2013? I read about it on Writing into Radiance and loved the concept. It’s about being mindful of the physical world. To foster that appreciation, write one “small stone”–a very short prose or poetry piece–which responds to beauty one encounters that day. Actually, it’s not just beauty–that’s my leap. And my mistake. Don’t look only for beauty.

Their short version is very simple:

1. Notice something properly every day during January.
2. Write it down.

The idea is to write one a day for the month of January. It’s your choice how to share or collect your pieces–singly or in a group.

OK, I admit it: I was still confused after I digested this idea. What did small stones look like? Loose pebbles? A gravel pit?

From reading up on the notion still more, it seems that Haiku is fine, but so are a couple of descriptive lines which evoke the experience for readers.

I tried one on January 1:

Against the sky’s palm,

black sprigged ropes crisscrossed

until a boom ignited a thousand birds

scattering abroad, alone

OK, so it’s not a poem. It’s not very good. But it begins to capture the experience for me. By focusing I can be “in the moment” with the birds. If I wanted to begin a poem from this image, I’d have to figure out how to convey that empty-handed feeling after the birds are gone. Then I risk going into the “one in the hand” cliché and that’s the end of the poem.

On January 2, I tried another:

The mountain splits the sunlight in half, and the oleander tree, its leaves glittering as though wet under bright rays, sidles up to the bare January tree which waits in shadow, dry and brittle. The sun slips a degree, illuminating the green leaves which reflect onto the bare trunk of the tree next to it. Now both trees shine.

I wasn’t sure what kind of tree that was, winter-naked as if it were Michigan here in Arizona. It just looked like January. I guess I can omit the word January.

The next day I felt frustrated and wanted to spend more time on my moment and less on figuring out what a small stone looks like.

Light tricks skewer the ground. I’m not sure where to step along the wash, barricaded by shadow and scrub. Stumbling on a half-buried boulder, I try to right myself, but there’s nothing to clutch and I fall. As I haul myself up, I’m haunted by the weight of what isn’t there.

Lots of shadows and light and black in my early January stones. I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet, but I started having fun walking the wash for this last one, so I will keep trying until I get my gravel pit.

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Tagged as Creative Nonfiction, Haiku, Memoir, Nonfiction, Old photographs, Online Writing, Poem, Poetry, Short prose, Writing, Writing Exercises