Saturday, February 21, 2015

when february is here - NaHaiWriMo, third week

The third week at NaHaiWriMo was all about nouns and since haiku is, more often than not, written about nouns, many among us must have had sighed in relief,but though it started innocuously enough,later on in the week, we were again left struggling. At least, I did. The easiest words are sometimes the most difficult to write to. The prompts were: Nest, Nickel,Nosebleed (yes, that's right, nosebleed it was), Neon, Nuance, Notebook and Newlywed.

A few that I managed to write:


nickel moon
the shine
in the beggar-girl's eyes




neon sky
the pavement sleeper mumbles
in his dream


cloudless sky
how the blackbirds fill it
song by song


Newly Married--
the car idling 
by the tiger-lily bush

Sunday, February 15, 2015

when february is here - NaHaiWriMo, second week

Into the second week and if I had thought things would become easier after the adverb prompts, I was soon proved wrong.This week's prompts were all about adjectives and they were: Native, Nuclear,Novel (not as a noun, but as an adjective, mind you), Northwest ,Numeric,New-fangled and Neuter.

Here are a few of what I wrote in response.

trailing lily roots-
the boatman sings
in his native tongue


nuclear family
the button
in the new-born's hands


northwest wind-
the desert-rimmed eyes
of the camel

loft ladder
seven wobbly steps
to the stars







pencil shavings-
all these days
without a poem

Sunday, February 8, 2015

when February is here... NaHaiWriMo, first week

February,known as the shortest month for writing the shortest form of poetry, has been synonymous for me with NahaiWriMo since  2012. Though NaHaiWriMo continues on Facebook throughout the year,February is special as NaHaiWriMo founder Michael Dylan Welch himself is the prompter this month with a new prompt each day and many old and new poets in the haiku community join in and take up the challenge."Challenge"...hmm, you can say that again, because MDW is a real tough and ruthless prompter and it gets really challenging to tackle the prompts he throws our way day in , day out. Yet that must be the reason why NHWM is on its 5th year and I am doing it for the fourth year in a row.And if you're not participating in this February event, yet inquisitive about it , read on.

This year all the prompts star with the alphabet "N" (as part of a continuing alphabetical series. Last month Chrissi Villa's prompts had all started with "M" and next month it would be "O" and so on.) and we were informed that in the first week, they would all be adverbs Though I had sat and made a list of all the N-words we are likely to encounter in the course of this month, I had never bargained for this twist in the tale.

However, these were the prompts for the first week and my own rather feeble responses to some of them.

1st Feb:  NOW

now...
the distance between
me and my teacup



2nd Feb:  NOISILY

hard rain
how noisily he strums
the guitar




3rd Feb:  NERVOUSLY

midnight gravel crunch
the way the old house
stiffens




4TH Feb:  NAKEDLY


storefront mannequin so nakedly the dawn



5th Feb:  NONSTOP


nonstop the woods till the cicadas' end



6th Feb:  NONCHALANTLY


no thoughts
of tomorrow...
falling petals




7th Feb: NEAREST

paper boat
the poem that found
the Polaris

Sunday, February 1, 2015

January NaHaiWriMo - fourth and final week

The final week of January at NaHaiWriMo and Christine Villa smoothly steered us from the relatively easier prompts to the not-so-easy ones.
The prompts were Mulberry,Milk,Mailbox,Maple,Magnet,Meteor, Mimosa, Medley and Melon.There was another prompt on the final day-- Magic -- which I missed. Here are the ones I attempted.



mulberry silk
cocooned in the fragrance
of grandma



night fog--
the chai at the highway inn
topped with thick cream



spilling out of the mailbox emptiness



lingering
in the maples
sunset




the heat...
van Gogh's sunflowers
cling to the fridge door




shooting star
a plink
in the glass chimes



mimosa
the blush of its blossoms
stain the sky



backyard chatter
the bulbuls
in the momosa


somewhere
in the melon patch
the moon




Finally,thanks, Chrissi, for this month of enjoyable prompts which helped me particularly, to get back in the habit of writing a haiku daily, on the eve of the big February NaHaiWriMo month.