Carpe Diem – looking at Basho’s karumi – “under the trees” – May 27, 2015

Pencil Oil Sketch

clouds and cold wind
near Murano’s main canal
hot cappuccino

along the docks
gondolas and motorboats
ancient and modern

© G.s.k. ‘15

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Today’s episode on Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is dedicated to the haiku style invented and promoted by Basho known as karumi.  He began using this style in his later life, trying to reach a certain lightness which the word karumi alludes to.  He travelled far and wide to promote this style and lost some of his followers who didn’t feel comfortable writing in the style:

“One of Basho’s major objectives was to find new and apt associations that made the reader rethink reality and the connectedness within. Association is very important in Basho’s work, he used it very often.

….it seems Basho was trying to write poetry that was less emotional. Basho seems to have believed that it is the verb that carries the emotional baggage of a poem. The poems he considered to exemplify the concept of karumi best are the ones with few or no verbs.
In our times this technique of writing haiku without a verb produces what is pejoratively called “grocery list”-haiku.”

Chèvrefeuille

The following are examples of karumi used by Basho:

ki no moto ni shiru mo namasu mo sakura kana

under the trees
soup and pickles
cherry blossoms

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

wakaba shite om me no shizuku nuguwa baya

young leaves
I would like to wipe away
tears in your eyes

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

was it a bush warbler
poop on the rice cake
on the veranda’s edge

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

glass noodles
few slices of fish
plum blossoms

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

hydrangea
a bush is the little garden
of a detached room

© Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold)

And here is an example of the style illustrated by Chèvrefeuille’s inspired haiku:

slowly a snail seeks
his path between Cherry blossoms
reaches for the sky

© Chèvrefeuille

Murano’s statue – riddle haiga – May 26, 2015

Murano haiga

 

I was in a quandary trying to figure out how to approach today’s Carpe Diem Haiku Kai about using the riddle technique, illustrated with two great classical haiku,  when I discovered I could actually write two riddles!

This one was the second and I decided to turn it into a haiga.  Below is the haiku our host Chèvrefeuille, composed for today’s episode which you can find following the above link:

winter garden
colorless and ugly –
spring flowers

© Chèvrefeuille

Wordless Wednesday – Experiments – April 29, 2015

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai – GW Post – April 8, 2015

Today at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, we are talking about haiku structure … that is the various structural forms in which a modern western haiku can be written.  There are the classical 5-7-5, then the 3-5-3 and finally free form haiku.

The first two structural forms try to imitate the Japanese onji – and the problem is that more often than not one can find oneself writing haiku which is stilted, since most western languages are not phonetic and are not based on sound like the Japanese language is.  So today, Chèvrefeuille on the Ghost Writer post has asked us to try the three forms of haiku – sort of try them on for size!

(I spent the last week-end at Venice.  We decided to visit the islands of Venice instead of the city proper – specifically Burano, Torcello and Murano.  This is one of the photos taken there with which I will try to transmit the emotions of that day.)

over the canal
the gull looks for warm havens
cold winds are blowing

– shivering
a sharp cold wind blows
all seek heat

Murano
from the bridge – observe
even the gull looks cold

© G.s.k. ‘15

Silent Sunday – April 5, 2015