Back to blogging

The last day of the first month in 2017; NaHaiWriMo on Facebook, which has become an annual ritual for me over the years, is going to begin in less than 24 hours and logging in to my forgotten blog after ages, I find my last blog post was written 366 days ago!! That says it all. About how the last year went. At least haikuwise.

I had been crazy busy with the editing and compiling of naad anunaad : an anthology of contemporary world haiku, for the greater part of 2016 and also 2015. It was Kala Ramesh's dream project; she is the chief editor and worked really hard to bring it all together; but we, too, had put in a ridiculous amount of work. Especially doing the pub credits freaked me out totally.However, the book was finished and launched in Pune in September last year. It has been an enriching experience, but it also took away a large chunk of time, leaving me with none at all to pursue my own writing.Even after September, I haven't been able to pick up the pen and write anything; or if I have written, I don't remember it at least. Vinay Ravindranath was the prompter for NaHaiWriMo in January and I had intended to do the month as a sort of warming up for the event in February, but there also I drew a blank.So here I am, set to take the plunge in NaHaiWriMo from tomorrow, like I do every year,but this time with a lot of misgivings and a severe lack of self-confidence that comes with days and days of non-writing. Something tells me this year it's going to be a struggle; a rattling journey. So wish me luck, folks, that is,if anybody is still following my blog.

sipping 

from a chipped china cup

winter rain

That time

Once I used to write a  small stone every day in January and haikued to NaHaiWriMo prompts all throughout February each year.Apart from participating in activities, sometimes month-long, on others' blogs.  I also tried to meet most of the deadlines in many of the journals. These days I struggle to merely put pen to paper and can only rarely stir myself enough to submit my work anywhere. I know all this has got to change,but when? Can I clear the clutter from my mind? Can I shake myself out of this stupor to take on the NaHaiWriMo challenge on Facebook starting tomorrow?

scent of sea-
down the winding path
the crab and me

Shiki kukai October 2015

Just as I had become almost resigned to playing the bridesmaid in Shiki kukai contest, out of the blue came this recent kukai results and to my (first)utter disbelief and (later) delight, I find my name as the winner in the free format section!! So, finally...

And this was the winning entry in the FF section, the topic was "SPARK".

last sparks

from the dying embers...

my hand in his

Shiki kukai August, 2015

This was my entry in the shiki kukai kigo section last month and managed to get a fifth place.
The prompt was : starlit night.

starlit night...

no longer looking

for words

Shiki kukai July 2015

And also the ku that was placed third in the Kigo section.
The prompt was : Tropical night/summer night

the faint curve

of a bare shoulder-

tropical night

July 2015 shiki kukai

The verse that managed to get only 4 points in the free format section.

 The theme was "quiet".

rolling wheat fields...

the fragrance of noonday

quiet

Shiki kukai, June 2015

From Shiki kukai ,free format section.
The subject was "insect metamorphosis".

a cicada shell

full of night...the emptiness

 that lingers

June 2015

World haiku review

I know I've been neglecting my blog. But I promise to change.And for a starter, one of my poems published in the current (June, 2015) issue of World Haiku Review. Actually, it's my debut in the journal.

thrush song...

who am I 

to figure you out

(Honorable mention in the shintai section)

NaPoMo, April 30

Darkness
wet with
the sound of the waves

With these lines, Santoka had me hooked. And afterwards, as I found and read more of his poems, I became totally mesmerised with his poetry.

Twilight -  the sound

of a sad letter

being dropped in a postbox

Taneda Santoka has not been accorded a place among the greatest Japanese masters,the quartet of Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki.Yet who else but this beggar-monk poet could have written this verse?

whiteness of the rice,

red of pickled plum,

these treasures...

Nobody but Santoka could have made us listen to the rain like this:

even the sound of raindrops

has grown older

I was moved by the depth of his anguish when he wrote:

slowly, slowly
falling into ruin
my final autumn

And my seduction was complete, when I read this.

when I'm dead

and gone

rain on weeds

NaPoMo, April 29

Kobayashi Issa has been by far the most loved and most popular poet among the Japanese masters. His snail,cat, sparrow, spider;  or the thatched hut...everything has been emulated and rewritten multiple times and will continue to be so.

Here are just a few of  my favourites:

my dead mother—
every time I see the ocean
every time...

The distant mountains

reflected in the eye

of the dragonfly

on the tips

of my outstretched toes...

billowing clouds

A poor box,

four or five pennies,

evening rain

When I go,

guard my tomb well,

grasshopper

NaPoMo, April 28.

no bridge

and the sun going down--
spring currents

Although I had always thought that I liked Issa the most among the famous quartet of Japanese masters, yet I find the pages of the little notebook that contain my favourite haiku, filled with the verses of Buson more than anybody else's. Yosa Buson, the second among the greatest Japanese masters,lived from 1716 to 1784 and was a painter of distinction as well as a poet which explains why his poetry is so vivid and sensuous, so rich in visual detail.

old well

leaping for a mosquito

a dark fish sound

young bamboo trees

at Hashimoto -- the courtesan,

is she still there or not?

       I go
you stay;
       two autumns.

NaPoMo, April 27

A wanderer,

so let that be my name--

the first winter rain

With only four more days remaining for the national poetry month to come to an end, there cannot be a better time to remember Matsuo Basho, widely recognized as the father of haiku and the greatest of the Japanese masters. He always wrote in a style that is simple and natural, yet with "a trace of the pathos of  the beautiful mortality".

With a warbler for
a soul, it sleeps peacefully,
this mountain willow




Along this road,
not a single soul-- only
autumn evening

And finally, this magical one:

the sea darkens--
a wild duck's call
faintly white

NaPoMo, April 26

I hadn't planned anything for today, so this poem just flew in and kinda perched itself on this page. So, here is Emily Dickinson.

It's  All I Have To Bring Today

It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Emily Dickinson

NaPoMo, April 25

And we cannot leave Oscar Wilde out of NaPoMo, can we?

After all the inwardness of tanka and poetry of death and loss, let's just revel in these images.

Symphony in Yellow

 An omnibus across the bridge

Crawls like a yellow butterfly

And, here and there, a passer-by

Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay

Are moored against the shadowy wharf,

And, like a yellow silken scarf,

The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade

And flutter from the Temple elms,

And at my feet the pale green Thames

Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

Oscar Wilde 

NaPoMo, April 24

I don't know who is the author of this poem,or from where I picked it up, but it was sitting there in the list of my favourites. If anybody is aware of it, please let me know.

there are two types

 

there are two types
of loss –
one that removes
each worn
shoe slowly and
with precision,
the other
squirming
out of the
day’s combat
boots with
decisive
abandon

Poet unknown

NaPoMo,April 23

Another tanka by Larry Kimmel who remains one of my all-time favourites.

a name and an epitaph

blurred by green moss--
life in the end

little more than a dash

between two dates

Larry Kimmel

NaPoMo, April 22

To love or not to love, either way, who could be better than Neruda?

Sonnet Xvii

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

NaPoMo,April 21

The "tall ship sailor" and tanka poet M.Kei has such an amazing wealth of work, that I find myself at a loss about which one to choose for today's post. Yet choose I must and this is my selection.

the slattern houses sag

on a mean street in a small town,

floral sheets for curtains

cinder blocks for steps

and the fetid smell of despair

M.Kei

And because I wasn't able to resist...this one,too.

things that come

 with the fog:

horseshoe crabs,

tall ships

and wandering hearts

M.Kei

NaPoMo, April 20

Another Indian poet with whose work I've become familiar only recently, but it's easy to understand why he is regarded highly among peers.

sometimes

she wears my spectacles--

I wonder

do they help her

to see my point of view?

A. Thiagarajan

NaPoMo, April 19

Again this may not be one of her best, but it resonates with me so much!
Here is the face of Indian haiku and tanka, Kala Ramesh.


.

at twilight

the forest I know

by sight

becomes a forest of sound...

cicada summer

Kala Ramesh