A taste of the cherries on top

If you think I'm going to blog today like my many other blogger friends have done already, about the free downloadable e-book "With Cherries on Top" edited by Michael Dylan Welch, featuring some selected haiku and senryu from August NaHaiWriMo, then you are absolutely right! The collection looks fabulous,as it is, with artwork  by Michael Dylan Welch himself and contains nearly 200 poems by 73 poets who participated in NaHaiWriMo that month, with the best 5 or more poems for each day being selected by the 31 different prompters themselves.But what is remarkable about the book is the astounding quality of the poems. I had always known there were many gifted poets in this community and many excellent poems get written every month in response to the prompts. In August, the number of participating poets were even more and perhaps because everybody wanted to excel, the level of the poems went up many notches higher.

The poems featured in the book are already hand-picked.Still I'd mention here a few which i thought were brilliant just to whet your appetite(for those of you who are yet to read it).

The prompt "Karumi" perhaps produced the most amazing poems.  Here are a few.

sun dance

not touching the ground 

not touching each other

-Stevie Strang

(I wish i wrote that, Stevie Strang.)

the little sister 

and the big sister--

wild summer grasses

Vincent Hoarau



dappled sunlight 
dragonflies linger
over his grave

Pris Campbell

 I had not quite captured the essence of karumi, but after reading these poems, now i know what karumi is.



And what can i say about this one? It made me smile, it made me cry.

 From the prompt love,

summer night

my daughter asks how long

I might live

Dawn Apanius

The next two are also from love,

shooting stars 

the gap in our ages 

just too big

Sheila Windsor

a sparrow's song

colors the breeze...

having you near

Asni Amin

Consider these two from tidepool,
 

tide pool  clumps of mussels sipping starlight on the rocks

Kathy Uyen Nguyen

tide pool-

my heartbeat 

settles

Jayashree Maniyil

And this stunning one is from sand,


 

divorce decree--

the remains of a castle

taken by the tide

 Michele Harvey

The following ones from grass and enlightenment respectively.

a very wise man
a bit of wild grass
in his hair

Vincent Hoarau

meteor shower

for a split second

I know

Annie Juhl

And this very moving one from birth,
 

growing dusk...

the stillborn calf

is taken away

Kirsten Cliff

"Breath-taking" is how i describe the next one, the prompt was surrender.

wherever

 the morning takes me--

white butterfly

Claire Everett

This incredibly beautiful one is from seam,

between the meadow

and conifer forest-

a seam of elk

Deborah Barbour Lundy

and this absolute stunner from childhood in summer.

cotton-candy clouds--

days when I am

one of the butterflies

Christine L.Villa 

 This one is simply delightful...from the same prompt childhood in summer.

farm pond

kneedeepkneedeepkneedeep

in frogs

Susan Murata

Don't miss this one,(prompt boat)

my kayak

opens and closes

the glassy lake 

Carole MacRury

And this,(prompt time)

 shiva call--

the steady sweep

of the second hand

Mark E.Brager

Finally this one , from healthcare.

everyone

with a different quiet-

chemo lounge

Edgar Hopper

 I'd have liked to include many more, but that would be giving away the whole show.

So if I've got you sufficiently interested by now, you could view or download the book.here. And let me remind you, I too have six poems tucked in there under the prompts tide pool, lion, chili pepper, seam,forgotten things and  moon viewing.

Happy reading!

August NaHaiWriMo - final week

Whew! That was some week! Some month! Cara Holman started the week with a gentle prompt, but after that it was an uphill struggle for me. I don't know if they were really so hard or it was just me who found them so, because of my nagging health problems which won't let me focus on anything, but anyway, I am happy that I stuck it through and here are my poems for the final week.

August 25 - " summertime childhood memory" - Cara Holman

raising caterpillars
until one day
the blue moth

August 26 - "time" - Jessica Tremblay

faint heartbeats-
the old clock
ticking away

August 27 - "beatles song" - Johannes S.H.Bjerg

This one was particularly difficult for me, not being well-acquainted with the beatles' songs. But everybody else enjoyed it hugely.

let it out
and let it in,
Hey Jude, begin-
the movements you need
for your frozen shoulder



blue moon-
two of us sunday driving,
not arriving...

August 28 - "wishes/dreams" - Pamela Cooper

blowing
on an eyelash-
the path of a wish

August 29 - "health care" - Dave Serjeant

This one was closer home.

all the pills
by my bedside-
who needs a moon?

August 30 - "fence" - Terri Hale French

first light-
a shoe stuck
in the barbed wire fence


fence gate-
where she waited for us
to come home

August 31 - "moon viewing" - Alex Benedict

blue dusk-
she lifts her veil a little
to view the moon

So that's how the month ends. And looking back, it seems I have been writing mostly about moons throughout the month!

For the month of September, Johannes Bjerg is providing the prompts and going by the first few days' prompts , this month is going to be such an awesome one!I would have loved to participate this month as well if i could, but something tells me perhaps it's time to step back for a while ...

August NaHaiWriMo - 21,22,23,24

Fellow NaHaiWriMo-an Jayashree Maniyil thinks the Nahaiwrimo this month is nothing less than a 'bootcamp' experience and I absolutely agree with her. The prompts keep on coming at us thick and fast like bullets and get tougher by the day. Sample the prompts for these past four days and you'll know.


August 21 - "driftwood" - Kathabela Wilson

I responded with a haiga for this and the next prompt.

picking driftwood
for the campfire-
which song shall we sing tonight?

August 22 - "forgotten things" - Alan Summers

This one was a killer alright.

lightning moon~
i don't remember
the scars at all

August 23 - "heat" - Pris Campbell

Sounds simple, but perhaps not so simple, particularly if one is trying to avoid writing about the weather.

coal-black eyes-
the colour of his anger
white-hot

August 24 - "seam" - Susan Murata

Again very deceptive. Not being a seamstress,I found this very difficult to write about, until cricket cameto my rescue.

seamless-
the highway
into the horizon


dating a seam bowler-
so many ways
this night could end

Hopefully, the prompts would get easier by the next week.
And before i forget, i am happy to say that i was awarded a HM for the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival(VCBF) haiku invitational. Michele Harvey was the winner and quite a few of my nahaiwrimo mates won HM and sakura awards.

August NaHaiWriMo - 17,18,19,20

We are more than half-way through August Nahaiwrimo with the prompts getting even tougher. Hardly had I gotten over 'enlightenment' and the 'birth'ing pains, when my dear friend Alee Imperial Albano decided to spring the 'lion' upon us.I do not know about others, but I had to pull out a fair amount of my hair to come up with anything about lion. In the end, it was fun though. Here are all the prompts for these four days.

August 17 - "lion" - Alee Imperial Albano

circus lion-
his yawn bigger
than his roar

homecoming-
in autumn clouds
the goddess astride the lion

August 18 - "boats" - Alison Williams

One of my all-time favourite prompts. Ended up writing quite a few and set them aside for a rainy day. These two are the ones I posted at Nahaiwrimo.

writer's block-
my canoe stuck
in duckweed


dragged ashore-
the boat stained
with setting sun

August 19 - "humidity" - Susan Delphine Delaney

humid day-
the clothes-line
begins to sag


humid day-
a ladybug crawls out
of the air-conditioner


more and more humid
every day-
tomorrow's prompt on my mind

August 20 - "surrender" - Chrissi Villa

A beautiful prompt, although not very easy. After much writing and rewriting, this was the one I decided to go with.

yielding
to this dark,dark night
candle wax

August NaHaiWriMo - 13,14,15,16

The prompts for these 4 days at Nahaiwrimo were all great, but hard to write about nevertheless.

August 13 - "love" - Gillena Cox

Love is always a beautiful subject for poetry or prose, but how do you haiku about it? My response was this:

how to describe
that green corn moon-
first love

August 14 - "enlightenment" - Carlos Colon

This must have been the most difficult prompt so far this month. I wrote:

whichever way i turn no escaping the streetlight in my eyes

and

sitting cross-legged waiting for the penny
to drop

August 15 - "chilli pepper" - Paul David Mena

An easier prompt, though i wanted to write about the colour...but that would have to wait.

lunching
with the in-laws...
hot chilli pickle

August 16 - "birth" - Christina Nguyen

Another tough one, next only to enlightenment! These were my responses:

grain moon-
her hand
on her belly

and


eighth month-
through her window
the ripening moon

In case you are feeling confused about 'green corn moon', 'grain moon' and 'ripening moon', these are all different names for the August full moon.

August NaHaiWriMo - 9,10,11,12

We are almost at the end of the second week at Nahaiwrimo and i have been able at last to get some sort of momentum going. The prompts were interesting and these are what i wrote in response to them.

August 9 - "tide pool" - Patty Hardin

tide pool-
finding you again
and yet again


holding the stars
the sea left behind-
tide pool

August 10 - "grass" - Melissa Allen

meadow grass between my teeth the pungent taste of summer



rain quail
through grassland mist-
a call from an ex

August 11 - "water melon" - Stella Pierides

new moon-
scooping out the flesh
from the watermelon

August 12 - "holiday activities" - Annie Juhl

climbing the hills,
skipping across streams-
on Google maps

You can find out all about the ongoing NaHaiWriMo prompts here.

August NaHaiWriMo - 5,6,7,8

From day 5th to day 8th on August Nahaiwrimo... here are the prompts and my responses to them.



August 5 - "exploration" - Michael Nickels-Wisdom

after the spacecrafts
the moon probed
bat by bat

August 6 - "hope" - Johny Baranski

someday
I'd write that poem...
kurinji in bloom

August 7 - "star myths" - Linda Papanicolaou

North star,
your dreamless eyes-
a nightjar's cry

August 8 - "spider" - Sheila Windsor

spent blossoms
caught in a spider's web-
pathway to old age home

You can find all about the August Nahaiwrimo and the 31 different prompters here.

August NaHaiWriMo -(1, 2, 3, 4)

August Nahaiwrimo has started with a bang and here are the prompts and my responses to them for the first four days.

August 1 - "heart" - provided by Kat Creighton

a sparrow's heartbeats-
holding the new-born
close

August 2 - "full moon" - provided by Judith Gorgone

One of my all-time favourite prompts, yet strangely, i couldn't come up with much. Wrote and discarded at least ten of them and finally settled on this one.

full moon-
turning the key
in the latch

or

turning
the key in the latch-
full moon

(revision suggested by Freddy Ben Arroyo)

August 3 - "sand" - provided by Vincent Houreau

beach holiday-
resigned to the sand
in my soup


and


sand dunes
as far as the eyes go
you, you and only you

August 4 - "karumi" (lightness) - provided by John Carley

in the wake of the waterfowls the lightness of ripples


and


unknown seabird-
the anchor rope tilts
ever so slightly

August NaHaiWriMo

My participation in Nahaiwrimo for the month of July as well as the past few months has been only sporadic, due to many extraneous reasons and I was only beginning to wonder about my plans for August, when i came upon this announcement : 31 different prompters for the month of August.
I was hooked immediately. And i think, so would be you if you read this.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/nahaiwrimo/31-different-nahaiwrimo-prompters-in-august-2012/387470974651323

Though i am doubtful how far i'd be able to keep to my commitment of writing a haiku throughout this month, I sure am going to give it a try.Not only it gives me an opportunity to rejuvenate my flagging creativity, but it is also going to be exciting to guess each day who is going to be the next prompter! We are sure to have Cara Holman one of these days! Is Melissa Allen going to be there too? I hope she is! Haiku Elvis (Carlos Colon)? And who else , apart from the past prompters?

Kudos to Michael Dylan Welch for coming up with new ideas which keeps this site so lively and buzzing all the time!

So don't just stand on the sidelines...join me on NaHaiWriMo starting tomorrow!