National Haiku Writing Month 2013

It's on now! Write a haiku-a-day this month -- the shortest month for the shortest genre of poetry. Do it at home by yourself, or join hundreds of folk doing it on-line through the Facebook NaHaiWriMo page here. Michael Dylan Welch is doing daily prompts to spark our senses -- this week was all about food. Here's my highlights:



fantail song . . .
this bird's nest of
angel hair pasta

'pasta' prompt

duck egg blue that look in his eyes

'eggs' prompt

the spice

in his argument--

lightning moon

'spice or spices' prompt

All you need to know about NaHaiWriMo can be found on the main site here: https://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo/ Enjoy!

With Cherries on Top

Super stoked to find that the pdf book of haiku and senryu from the 31 Different NaHaiWriMo Prompters in August 2012 is available now for FREE download! With Cherries on Top: 31 Flavors of NaHaiWriMo, edited by Michael Dylan Welch can be found here. 

I'm grateful to have the following four haiku included (hubby has one in there too!) along with so many other writers from the online haiku community. Thanks to Michael for the ideas and for putting them into action; thanks to the 31 daily prompters, and thanks to all those who took part in the Facebook haikufest that is NaHaiWriMo.


laundry day . . .
when did my feet
last touch the sand

     (Sand prompt from Vincent Hoarau) 


                              growing dusk . . .
                              the stillborn calf
                              is taken away

                              (Birth prompt from Christina Nguyen)

the lion in her  full moon

     (Lion prompt from Alegria Imperial)

                              psychiarist's office—

                              the painting of a boat
                              hung off-centre

                              (Boats prompt from Alison Williams) 



P.S. Also available for FREE download is the pdf book of small stones from Mindful Writing Day, edited by Fiona Robyn and Kaspa. You'll find that here. Enjoy all the weekend reading! :)

31 Different NaHaiWriMo Prompters in August 2012

An announcement from Michael Dylan Welch - creator and organiser of National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo):

Dear NaHaiWriMos,

I’m pleased to let you know that, for the month of August, 2012, I’ve asked 31 different people to provide a single writing prompt for reach day of the month. I’ll be announcing the prompts each day, so you’ll discover not only a new writing prompt, but also learn who the day’s prompter is for each day. These 31 prompters include many of our past monthly prompters, plus a number of new folks. The prompters and prompts have all been selected, and the prompts are varied and fun, so August should be a particularly enjoyable month -- and hopefully a little different, to shake things up a bit.

Now, to make this idea even more fun, I’ve asked each of the 31 daily prompters to monitor all poems posted and to select at least five favourite poems written in response to their prompt. I’ve asked them to select haiku and senryu only (no haiga, but poems used in haiga can be considered). To be selected, poems should be previously unpublished (we'll assume so). So please post your best haiku and senryu, because the daily prompt providers will be on the lookout for their favourite poems from what you post (prompters, please also include one of your own poems if you write about your own prompt). If all goes well, I’d like to turn this into a PDF-format book that everyone can download for free. How does that sound?

In case you were wondering, I’m still working on the February book, which will be a grander and much larger print production. I plan to get that wrapped up by the end of August, but there are still a lot of variables. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience on that project -- I’m making progress.

Meanwhile, regarding the August project, I’m mentioning it now in case any of you have questions. Ask away! And maybe mentioning it now will also build anticipation. Shucks, you might even want to encourage friends to join us. Please do!

Thanks to all of you for your enthusiastic ongoing participation in NaHaiWriMo! Isn't this place a hoot?

Michael Dylan Welch

The NaHaiWriMo community Facebook page

Rengay Fever!

Ever since my long-time on-line haiku friend Cara Holman asked if I wanted to write a rengay with her back in February, I've been hooked! We have since written eight rengay together and all have been published or have been accepted for publication. And I must say we are pretty pleased with ourselves! It's not only great fun, but a really good learning experience, and it's kept me writing through though times when I wasn't otherwise regularly putting pen to paper.

There is something special and unique about writing in this way. It's kind of like a prompt but not quite; it's so much more than that. It's a conversation through time and place (Cara is in America and we write via email), it's a poetic dance that moves me to new heights, it's a wake up call to look deeper into haiku and Nature and relationship. I love it! :)

The first two rengay that I wrote with Cara have just come out in A Hundred Gourds (AHG) and can be read here - The Scent of Pine and Turning a Corner. I still really enjoy reading these two pieces, especially after a break away from them. This was the first time I've been in AHG as I'd never submitted there before. Please check out the publication if it's new to you.

The first rengay that we had published appeared in Aubrie Cox's Yay Words! project, fox dreams. You can read Dream Catcher here. Cara and I have just written another rengay for the new Yay Words! project, which has been accepted by Aubrie. To find out how you can get in on the fun, read Aubrie's latest call for submissions here. I also wrote a rengay with Aubrie last month; my first with a different partner. We will submit this for publication soon, and then I look forward to writing some more!

The biggest rengay task that Cara and I have taken on was to write about our cancer experiences: me with leukaemia and Cara with breast cancer. We came out with a rengay sequence comprised of four rengay that was at times hard to write, but that seemed destined to be written. We are very proud of this work and the places it took us, and are very happy to have it accepted by LYNX: A Journal for Linking Poets for their October 2012 issue.

So what next? In a couple of weeks I will be at the New Zealand Haiku Conference Haiku Festival Aotearoa 2012, where I'm taking the Introduction to Renku workshop with Sandra Simspon. She has just sent through some notes on the form 'junicho' and asked us to write some possible hokku to start us off on the day. And if you're a rengay writer, then don't miss this call for submissions by Michael Dylan Welch for a 20th Anniversary Rengay Anthology. Cara and I will definitely be getting ours submitted! Talk about rengay fever...

How Did Your NaHaiWriMo Go?

I quietly wrote my haiku-a-day for NaHaiWriMo this February: I didn't follow the prompts by Michael Dylan Welch on the NaHaiWriMo Facebook page, and I didn't blog about it. Unfortunately, I did miss two days mid-way through due to illness, but as I wrote two haiku a few of the days throughout the month, I have come out with more than 29 at the end of it all, and am pretty pleased with my lot.

March 1st signals Autumn in New Zealand, and so it's time to share the March page of my calendar... 

March 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

The photo was taken at McLaren Falls near Tauranga last year, and the haiku was written on this blog during April's NaPoWriMo last year. You can click on the image for a larger view. Enjoy!

February Round-Up - A Month of Ups and Downs

Ah, February - the month of NaHaiWriMo (National Haiku Writing Month).

My enthusiasm waxed and waned throughout the month on this project. I did write a haiku-a-day for the whole 28 days, but it wasn't always satisfying, and sometimes done begrudgingly, or in desperation just before midnight!

However, I did write some haiku that I'm really proud of and will happily send in to haiku journals near and far. Some can be edited to rise up to a higher standard and some have already turned into tanka.

Challenges like this make you extend yourself as you have to find creative ways to respond to a prompt, or just to the daily practise when many other things may be going on in your life. This is why I will continue to participate in such projects, the next being the July river of stones challenge.

See my half-way through post for some more thoughts on the process. You can also read about when I set myself the challenge of writing a haiku-a-day for a whole year in 2007-2008 here.

Now that it's over I shall return to going with the flow and writing when the muse strikes. What I will continue is my daily reading from Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan. Read my post about that here.

Funnily enough, I have easily written a haiku, or more, each day since NaHaiWriMo finished: must be the release of the pressure! But of course it was the challenge that helped hone my awareness of the haiku moment back to what it was before my writing stalled last year through cancer treatment.

February was also the month of a devastating earthquake in Christchurch, a large South Island city. Please see my blog post about it and read the haiku shared in the comments section, especially several by Michael Dylan Welch of his experiences in the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco.

Please feel free to share you own poems, haiku or other. I know poetry has been a great healer to me over the past year with my illness and I hope this opportunity to share will go a small way to helping others affected by the past two week's events.

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week five - submitted a free verse poem into the Spirit First Meditation Poetry Contest (first time submitting here) results out by March 31st
• AND submitted a haiku to Poem Cellars (first time submitting here) closed Feb 5th
• week six - submitted ten small stones to Fiona and Kaspa for the river of stones book and had one accepted
• AND submitted a previously published haiku to the HSA Haiku Wall (you can read about that here)
• week seven - submitted 10 haiku to Frogpond (first time submitting here) won't know outcome until after submission deadline April 15
• week eight - submitted a tanka to Haiku News and awaiting outcome
• AND submitted six tanka and six haiku to Presence (second time submitting here) and had four tanka and a haiku accepted for Issue #44 (May 2011). The haiku was written during NaHaiWriMo :)

I have written three further haiku for my collection (exploring my leukaemia journey) and created two more collage-style haiga, to make a total of 25 pieces. I also made two multi-media canvases this month using acrylic paint, origami, stickers, transfers and brads, which was something new for me and a most enjoyable process. See photos of my artwork below.

With my photography this month, I've been trying to get some good shots to submit as cover art for Four and Twenty. I've also been working on getting my cover art image ready for Kokako 15 (due out September 2011). I'm very excited about having my artwork feature on a haiku journal and hope to do more of this type of work in the future (not that it can really be called 'work'!)

No major plans for March except to continue with submitting to a poetry journal or competition at least once a week. So far so good on this resolve. Also, meeting with my local poetry group, Pacific Poets, Sunday 6 March, where we will be sharing poems we have written in response to the recent Christchurch earthquake.

Kia kaha to the people of Christchurch: my thoughts and prayers are with you daily.



My Art is My Heart

 


Peace is the way of my Heart



Breaking News of the Haiku Variety

Finally some good news!

I found out on Friday (while visiting Haiku NewZ) that one of my haiku was selected for evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2010, edited by Jim Kacian and the Red Moon Editorial Staff (Red Moon Press, 2011).

The exciting thing about appearing in the annual Red Moon Anthology is that you don't submit your haiku: it is chosen from the pool of haiku that is published internationally each year.

This from Johnye Strickland in her review of the 2008 anthology:

The key to the selection process for all works nominated by the editorial staff was that they should be considered to be "of exceptional skill." Those making the final cut had to receive approval of the editor-in-chief, as well as votes from five of the ten staff editors (50%). My PhD dissertation didn't receive this much scrutiny.

And these thoughts from Michael Dylan Welch in his 2000 essay A Survey of Today’s English-Language Haiku Activity:

Also of note in the last four years are annual anthologies published by Red Moon Press, primarily edited by Jim Kacian, that aim to collect the very best haiku poems published each year. Though the selection process remains flawed and the editor includes too much of his own work, this annual publication is beginning to serve a very useful purpose in attempting to collect the best haiku in English each year.

I am pleased as punch that I made the grade and promptly bought two copies of evolution from the Red Moon Press website.

My haiku sits alongside other New Zealand haiku poets: Ernest J Berry, Owen Bullock and Andre Surridge. And here it is: 

coming home
to an empty house
so many stars

Copyright © Kirsten Cliff
First published in Kokako 12 (April, 2010)

Hello February and NaHaiWriMo!

February is National Haiku Writing Month or NaHaiWriMo and has been set up by acclaimed haiku poet Michael Dylan Welch.

I will be writing a haiku a day in February "...the shortest month- for the world's shortest form of poetry" in my Mslexia Writer's Diary. I hope to come up with some stellars now that I've re-honed my observation skills with a river of stones.

Here on Swimming in Lines of Haiku I will post one of my print published haiku each day for your reading pleasure. I hope you will stop by to enjoy the fun, and maybe share a haiku of your own.

I'll still be posting any good competitions, publications, books, etc., that I come across - so stay tunned. And a wrap-up of January is coming soon!

Still Trying to Wrap Your Head Around Haiku?

Then this is the article for you: Becoming a Haiku Poet by Michael Dylan Welch. It's everything you need to know to get started, set out clearly and with examples.

While at his website, stop and take a look around. There is much to read and ponder.

And if you're up for a challenge, Welch has started NaHaiWriMo - a haiku a day for the month of February. That's only 28 days people!