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

NaHaiWriMo house week...day 23, 24, 26, 27 & 28

I lost quite a bit of momentum in NaHaiWriMo postings when I left to attend the Haiku India meet at Pune and though I had intended to catch up after coming back, couldn't quite succeed in doing it.

The theme of the final week was "house" and here are the few that I managed to slip in.


February 23 - Prompt - BEDROOM

waking up

in the old double-bed

the space between us

February  24 - Prompt - BATHROOM

cold shower-

a dolphin's leap

on the bathroom wall 

February26 - Prompt - CLOSET

child's closet-

following the ant trail

to the hidden chocolates

February 27 - Prompt - GARAGE

spring dusk-

the heat in the backseat

of the garaged car

February  28 - Prompt - KITCHEN

morning glories

through the kitchen window

Dad's off-key song 



 
 

NaHaiWriMo color week day 15,16, 17,18, 20

February 15 - Prompt - ORANGE

Submitted  to a journal



  February 16 - Prompt - RED

taillights 

disappearing-

last bus

February 17 - Prompt - BLACK

 courtroom trial-

the incessant cawing

of crows

February 18 - Prompt - GREEN

grasshopper

by grasshopper-

the garden greening 

February 20 - Prompt - WHITE

fragrance of starlight mogra flowers in her hair

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 14

February 14 - Prompt - HARBOUR

crescent moon-

a dinghy glides in 

between docked ships

 

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 13

February 13 - Prompt - SHADE TREE

mahua tree in bloom-

on the Gond woman's cheeks

the rising colors 

NaHaiWriMO outdoor week - day 12

February 12 - Prompt - RIVER

anchored boat

the river

lapping

lapping

 

(This photo is from our trip to Ashtamudi, Kerala backwaters )

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 11

Prompt - February 11 - WOODS

woodland brook-

if silence were

green 

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 10

Prompt - February 10 - GARDEN

dew on the grass-

the cat circles

the first crocus 

 

 

Purple crocuses by M.Stephanie Kellerman

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 9

Prompt : February 9 - GLACIER

between the sky

and glacier-

the ragged edges

of silence 

 

NaHaiWriMo outdoor week - day 8

The second week at NaHaiWriMo, Michael Dylan Welch tells us, is going to be the outdoor week.

The prompt that begins this week is: HIKING

hikers' moon -

out of darkness

a tea shop's lights 

(image credit: Karen Winters)

NaHaiWriMo food week - day 7

Prompt - February 7 - MILK

daydreaming the smell of burnt milk

(image credit:The bowl of milk by Berthe Morisot )

NaHaiWriMo food week - day 5

 Prompt - February 5 - VEGETABLES

teenage love-

slicing one green tomato

in two

NaHaiwriMo food week - day 4

 Prompt -  February 4 - SPICE/SPICES

turmeric moon-

on every page of Ma's cook book

a smear of gold

NaHaiWriMo food week - day 3

Prompt - February 3 - CHEESE

extra cheese topping-

the waitress

in a high-slit skirt

NaHaiWriMo food week - days 1 & 2

February NaHaiWriMo has begun again on Facebook, with the administrator, Michael Dylan Welch as the prompter  for the month, as has been the custom every year...and the theme of the first week is "food".

Prompt for 1st February -  PASTA
and my response :

                                                                          

        
Fettuccine with friends-
the strands of our conversation
smeared with sauce
                             

                 

Prompt  -  2nd February -EGG/EGGS

cupping 

the blue egg in my palms

warmth of moonlight  

February NaHaiWriMo - Day 29 - leap

So we come to the end of the February NaHaiWriMo with the prompt"leap", "leap year" or "leap day"!

The prompts throughout the month haven't been easy, but i managed to scrape through and enjoyed the whole experience of writing, reading and commenting and being commented on.
To be able to meet all the challenges successfully without missing a day... that too was reason for huge satisfaction!

Looking back though it seems that though i started strongly, (even if i say so), halfway through the month i lost the punch,my haiku beginning to get more and more flat. Maybe i couldn't connect with the prompts or i just overstretched myself, but my haiku limbs definitely started cramping!Probably what i need right now is a short break from haikuing...though i know i won't be able to stay away for long!

Many thanks to all my haiku mates who participated with me and egged me on whenever i lagged behind. Thanks much to Michael Dylan Welch--Nahaiwrimo's founder and this month's prompter!

And before I go, the final haiku of this month ;

spring day
the shimmering green
of the dragonfly's leap

February NaHaiWriMo - Day 28 - Haiku generator revisited

The haiku generator again. We had had a torrid time with this prompt last year during Terri Hale French's tenure and i had blogged about it here. Due to its populaity among the poets, Michael Dylan Welch thought it would be a good idea to use that prompt again. So there we were again in that madhouse where we had to write our own version/take based on the computer-generated haiku that this site threw at us. I looked at around twenty or so haiku in the hope of finding something that i could make some sense of. In the process i found such gems as these :

impersonal barbed
boatman poses, poses
orchid jangles, swift

and,


echo submerges
cheaply, lifeless oaks rusting
icicles fornicate

Then i settled on this:

azalea drips

wetly, malodorous some
oaf palpitates, cool

and this was my version:

despite
the empty mailbox--
azaleas in bloom

Also this,

scarecrows hesitate
sadly, oafs forgetting doors
recuperate, dim

And my version

scarecrows nodding...
he again forgets
his house number

which i later changed into:

pointing towards

his way home
scarecrows

Oh boy, am i glad that today's prompt is behind me now!! And if you ask me why i landed up with oafs every time, i have no idea!

February NaHaiWriMo - Day 27 - Bad Haiku

Twenty- seventh day and the prompt for today was "bad haiku" , having exhausted the alphabets now. Bad haiku always comes easy to me and i dug out this one from a few years back

distant gunfire
sends men scurrying...
thunder erupts

Also wrote this one quite effortlessly:

old dog barking at all things new
zip it

February NaHaiWriMo - Day 26 - Z

And so we come to the last letter of the alphabet, Z . The prompt was "zip". Not too easy and after writing and discarding quite a few none of which was postworthy, finally i settled on this.

to zip
or not to zip...
this damaged l̶i̶f̶e̶ file

February NaHaiWriMo - Day 25 - Y

Y for "yellow". A much saner prompt, the only rider being, the word "yellow" had to be mentioned, not only implied in the haiku. This was what I wrote:

a yellow breeze parting the grass three ducklings