Happy Holidays!

I created this book Christmas tree for Elliot Books and I'm so stoked with how it turned out. Oh, and before I forget - here is the December page of the haiku calendar I did with my husband for this year. (click to enlarge)

 

Haiku first published in The Heron's Nest Volume XV, Number 2 (June 2013)

Well, it's been a crazy year with lots of twists + turns. And for those that haven't caught up - I stepped down as editor of the haikai section of the NZPS magazine. Onwards to 2015.

I wish you all the best for a safe + happy holiday season, and a creative new year ahead. Blessings!

November Calendar Page

Here's the current page of the 2014 calendar my husband and I did for our family. (Click on image to see enlarged view.)

 

 

thoughts of home

the air sharp

with sea salt

 

I didn't think I'd get a calendar done this year, but even with all that's gone on these last several months the itch to create one was still strong. So glad I did it, and my family members that have already seen it are loving it. I hope you've been inspired to create some of your own Christmas presents this year, in whatever form that takes. Maybe even pop a haiku in a card, or two. Enjoy! :-)





Almost

Yes, almost! Our house is almost ready and we hope to move back in next weekend. Wow, what a long 5+ months it has been since what hubby and I called home was severely storm damaged. Now it's all fresh, clean and new and I can't wait to settle in to our country retreat once again.

Here's the September 2014 page from the calendar hubby and I did together for our family last year. Looking forward to getting back to this!

(Click on image to see an enlarged view.)

August Calendar Page

August 2014 - Calendar of Haiku & Photography by Kirsten Cliff

Can't wait to get back to this! Looks like it will be September at this stage. Doing my best to hang in there. (Click on image to see an enlarged view.)

Here's a pic from my birthday: Hubby made me a 'Happy Birthday' sign in Spanish. :-)

The t-shirt was one I purchased with some birthday money, and I was so pleased it arrived in time for me to wear it on the 31st. As well as being a rockin' tee (I love Frida Kahlo!), it was my way of giving a little on my birthday. It's a Shave for Cure supporter t-shirt designed by WORLD, and $17.50 from the sale went to Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand. Yay!

Roofless: 3+ months on . . .

July 2014 - Photo & Haiku by Kirsten Cliff

Here I am finally writing a post for my birthday month of July. I was really hoping that hubby and I would be back home by the 31st, but it's not to be. Thankfully I have lots of good news to share . . .

Firstly, a remission milestone: I found out last week that I've been downgraded from three-monthly clinic visits to six-monthly. That is progress, folks! Still monthly blood counts, and a special blood test every three months for molecular studies. But all in all I'm moving further away from cancer. Phew!

As to the progress on my home: we now not only have a new roof, but all the internal walls and ceilings have been erected, as well as some parts of the flooring that needed repair. It's all looking much more like a house now, instead of a barren womb.

I'm told that plasterers are starting this week (that may be "Gibb-rockers or stoppers" to some of you not in NZ). After that it will be internal and external painters, kitchen and carpet installers, plumbers and electricians. Such a big job - I'm so glad I'm not the one organising it all!

The good news includes our contents claim being settled in full, too. All that the insurers said they would repair they have; all they said that they'd replace they have; the rest has been paid out to us to buy the things we need. So yes, you guessed it - I plan to shop it up on my birthday tomorrow! :-)

Many of my fellow poets have their birthdays in July, and here I'll just mention a few. Margaret Dornaus invited poets to write a moon haiku or tanka in celebration of her birthday. You can read the results on her blog here. And Chrissi Villa is asking poets to join in her birthday fun by writing a poem for her inspired by the music that you'll find at the top of her blog here. There will be prizes - find out more about it on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/704682542937953/

It was also my late Granddad's birthday on July 10th. I wrote this tanka during the summer, the last months of his life:

dreading
the call that says
he’s gone …
two petals left
on the last poppy

A Hundred Gourds 3:3 June 2014

Moondrunk

Wow, a month since I've posted here. That's how exhausted, strained, stressed and busy I've been. But things are looking up. Decisions are being made. I'm writing again, and submitting again. Have just started a summer kasen with two other poets and am looking forward to working and playing my way through that process. Collaboration is good for my soul.

moondrunk

we speak of God
in whispers . . .
my ache for touch bathed
in the music of his eyes

Skylark 2:1 (Summer 2014)

 

My haiku journal, which I also used for recording all manner of creative thoughts and ideas, was thoroughly soaked when a big storm left my home open to the elements this Easter. Mid-week I went in search of a new journal, and after 5 shops I finally found the journal that spoke to me.

 

Having a beautiful journal is not necessary for writing, but lots of the nice things we have we don't need, but they inspire us. The smallest things can bring joy. I hope you find a haiku / writing / creative dreaming journal that speaks to you. Maybe it's one of the ones that I created to help bring a little joy into this world. View them here in my online shop, Haiku On: http://www.cafepress.com/haikuon/11141019

 

June - winter for New Zealand, and being mid-year, a good time to take stock of where one is at. Through Facebook I'm participating in a month of daily "Abundance is . . ." (fill in the blank) to shine light on things I'm grateful for and to notice the abundance all around me. A haiku and two tanka of mine came out in A Hundred Gourds this month. I'd completely forgotten about them with everything that's been going on, so it was a nice surprise to find my work amongst the pages. And of course, there's the calendar of haiku and photography that I did with my hubby this year, for friends and family. Below is the June  2014 page, by Cameron Elliot:

 

 

Haiku & Photo by Cameron Elliot



In Situ

Here is the May page of the calendar of haiku and photography that I did with my husband. I've taken a photo of it 'in situ' at our new, long-term temporary accommodation, which we moved into on May 1st. It's so great to have our own place again, even if we don't know for how long we will be living here. And "here" is Kihikihi, Te Awamutu in my brother's recently vacated house, and not far from the support of my parents.

Haiku & Photograph by Cameron Elliot (haiku first published in Kokako)

 

duck flight

this grey stump

no longer unnoticed

 

As far as our Matamata home goes, things are starting to move along. Plans are being drawn up by an architect for a new roof - one that can stand the high winds we catch up on our Hobbit hill. The place is being stripped out - carpets, plaster board, etc. - and then remodelling and decoration will begin from there. I miss the beautiful views of mountain and sky, the ducks laughing away at this time of year, and the places I know so well. Time to make some new memories. :-)



April Calendar Page

My apologies to all of my readers out there for letting my blog fall silent this month. I have big plans in the works and they've taken up most of my creative time. But I thought I'd at least put up the April page of the calendar I did last year with my husband, for our friends and family. Enjoy!




April 2014 - Photo & Haiku by Kirsten Cliff (click on image to enlarge)

Some good news to share: the haiku I choose as the winner of the NZPS Haiku Competition (junior section) last year has been shortlisted for a Touchstone Award. I nominated this haiku by Harry Frentz and am delighted to see it's made the cut. You can read my judge's report here and find The Haiku Foundation shortlist here. Congratulations to all the shortlisters!

Long Gone

long gone
the songs of yellowhammers
and shining cuckoos . . .
a day early I flip the calendar
to next month's page

A Hundred Gourds 3:1 (December 2013)

Calendars, T-shirts, Chapbooks, Positivity: It's a Haiku Life for Me!

Welcome to March, dear readers! Below is this month's page from my 2014 calendar of haiku and photography, which I did with my husband this time round, for our family and friends. Hubby, Cameron Elliot, took this photo last year in Cambridge, and his haiku is previously unpublished. (click to enlarge)

Haiku & photo by Cameron Elliot

February was a great month for me on the haiku front. I put out my first poetry chapbook, thinking of you, as a gift of love for Valentine's Day. (Read my post about it here.) My eChapbook of twenty haiku and tanka on the theme of love is free to read and download here. Enjoy! And don't forget to pass it on.

I also began an online shop called Haiku On where I'm selling t-shirts, cards, and later this year, my 2015 calendar. Haiku poets around the world have responded favorably buying "Trust me, I'm a haiku poet" and "Every Haiku is an Act of Environmental Activism!" t-shirts. I am so grateful for the support I've received from the haiku community on my new venture. More t-shirt designs coming soon! If there is something that you'd like to see in the shop that isn't there then please ask, and I'll try to create it for you.

I've also been flooding my Facebook page with positivity this month, and doing a daily post on what I'm grateful for each day. It's been amazing to see people's positive response, and even joining in with the gratitude posts. I couldn't have wished for better. :-) Come join me!

March is already full of haiku and tanka promise. I have a haiku in the March issue of The Heron's Nest here.See a collaborative haiga here that I did with Seánan Forbes, which appears in the March issue of A Hundred Gourds. We hope to do some more collaborating this month. I've been asked to write a commentary for Haibun Online about my tanka prose piece, The Taste on My Tongue, which first appeared in Skylark 1:1. And I'll be adding more to my online shop Haiku On - Taking you on a haiku journey. Stay tuned . . .

Welcome to 2014!

What better way to start the new year than with the first page of my calendar of haiku and photography, which I did jointly with my husband this time round. Below is actually the view from our lounge at this time of year, often complete with a herd of dairy cows chewing their cud. Just click on the image to see an enlarged view and to read Cameron's previously unpublished haiku. Didn't he do well?

January 2014 haiku & photo by Cameron Elliot

If you're a regular reader of Swimming in Lines of Haiku you'll probably notice that I've changed the look of the blog for 2014: a fresh, clean slate to start as I mean to go on. And before I do I'd like to take this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to all my readers and supporters, to the editors that have accepted and published my work, to those I've written and celebrated with, to those who bought my desk calendars and New Res anthologies: Thank you so much! Let's do it all over again.

Wishing you all the best for a year ahead of reading and writing, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the festive season. If you're looking for a way to kick-start your writing year then join in the January 2014 Mindful Writing Challenge. Maybe I'll see you there! :-)

Writing My Way into 2014

Just two days ago I posted that I didn't have any writing goals or plans for 2014, and that I'd just wait and see where poetry took me. Well the Universe has provided . . .

Yesterday I was invited to take up a place as Writer-in-Residence at the New Pacific Studio Artists' Residency Centre in the Wairarapa (NZ) for one or more weeks. I'm so very excited to be offered this new opportunity.

And what an honour to be invited! A writer's residency is something I've dreamed of doing for years. Now I just have to figure out how I can make it work for me, as the residency is only partly subsidised.

I do have a project idea in mind, so am seriously considering my options over the next few weeks. And maybe my poetry will pay its way there . . .

This week I decided to take the plunge and offer my 2014 desk calendar up for sale to the New Zealand haiku community. This calendar is separate from the one I've made (with my hubby) for my family as Christmas gifts this year.

For my desk calendar of haiku and photography I've used some of my favourites from 2013 and added many new haiku and photo combinations to create a year of beautiful haiku moments. I'm delighted to write that I already have orders totalling 10 calendars, with still a few days left for folks to order, and I'm feeling great about this result.

I put myself out there and so far, so good. At least quite a few people out there in Kiwi land will have my haiku calendar on their desks in 2014, and that is a truly wonderful thought!

Photos of my Christmas cards coming soon . . .

December Daze

Things have gotten hectic this month. Even if you're not a big Christmas person you certainly can't help but get caught up in the rush of others as they proceed to shop, celebrate, and ready themselves for the big day. All this extra buzz and busyness makes things like supermarket parking difficult and appointments for haircuts hard to come by, even in a small country town!

So you'll find me at home making some Christmas cards for family and putting the finishing touches on my 2014 calendar of haiku and photography, which I invited my hubby to be a part of this year. We have six months each and it's pretty cool to have our two styles represented within the pages for our family to enjoy.

Below is my last calendar page for 2013. Click on image to enlarge.

I achieved some big things this year: the biggest of all being completing my first poetry collection and sending it in to the Snapshot Press Book Awards. It will be a long few months yet before I hear anything back about the contest, but it's exciting enough to have fulfilled my goal and the rest is out of my hands for now. 

Another big highlight of my writing year was being part of A New Resonance 8: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press). I still have copies of this for sale, so please get in touch if you'd like one to give as a Christmas gift to yourself or to someone else. Just send me an email.

2013 also included writing tanka sequences with Pamela A. Babusci and Seánan Forbes (a delight); judging the junior section of the NZPS International Haiku Competition (great fun); coming 5th in the open section of the NZPS International Haiku Competition (yay!), and editing a month of dream haiku thanks to The Haiku Foundation's 'Per Diem:Daily Haiku' feature. Hard to believe it's all coming to an end . . .

So, what does 2014 hold? In regards to the writing realm I'm not sure, but stay tuned!

My November Calendar Page

(click on image to enlarge)

This shot was taken about this time last year just down the road from where I live. The haiku appeared in The Heron's Nest volume XV, number 1 (March 2013). Love this page! :-)

You can find other pages from my 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography here, and the 2012 one here. Enjoy!

October's in the Air

October page: 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography (click to enlarge)

See other pages from my 2013 calendar here and my 2012 calendar here. It really is time to start on 2014 . . .

My Month of Dreams has Begun!

Finally September is here and so my month of Per Diem haiku has started over at The Haiku Foundation website. You can read my introduction to "Dream Speak" here, and view the first haiku on the home page here, which will change every 24 hours.

(click on image to enlarge)

Above is the September page of my calendar. The picture is taken from the end of the road where I live. A busy first of the month with my mum's 65th birthday today, and also Father's Day in New Zealand. I hope your September 1st contained some haiku, some good laughs, and some yummy food, just like mine did! :-)

"A" is for August and Apple and Art

I thought it was about time I posted some more of my calendar pages. August is below:

(click on image to enlarge)

My 2013 calendar of haiku and photography was created by me for my family. You can see all the pages to date on this new page: Kirsten's 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography

Kirsten's 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography: First Quarter

We're a quarter of our way through the year already and I haven't revealed any of the pages from my 2013 calendar yet! So here's a catch up of the first four months (click on images to enlarge):

January 2013 Haiku & Image by Kirsten Cliff

February 2013 Haiku & Image by Kirsten Cliff

March 2013 Haiku & Image by Kirsten Cliff

April 2013 Haiku & Image by Kirsten Cliff

As with last year's calendar (see here) I used images that I thought my family would enjoy, and haiku that I thought they'd 'get'. I hope you've enjoyed this taster of what's to come throughout 2013. More soon! :)

Decemeber Haiku Share: The Week That Was #1

The first week of Cara Holman's December Haiku Share has finished. Below are the links to the seven days of posts, and the haiku I have shared each day. I hope you enjoy reading all the haiku as much as I have been, and maybe you'll come and join us this week! (Here's the link to the latest prompt - night sky)

December Haiku Share - Day 1

coming home
to an empty house
so many stars
– Kirsten Cliff

Kokako 12, April 2010
evolution: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku (Red Moon Press, 2011)

December Haiku Share - Day 2

suspended
from an evening cloud
the mountain
–Kirsten Cliff

the taste of nashi: New Zealand Haiku (Windrift, 2008)
Bay News, Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Waiariki Institute of Technology 2010 Calendar

December Haiku Share - Day 3

drifting fog
where does the dream end
and I begin
–Kirsten Cliff

“Dream Catcher” rengay with Cara Holman, Fox Dreams, April 2012 (edited by Aubrie Cox of Yay Words)

December Haiku Share - Day 4 

extinguished
after love-making
a single candle
– Kirsten Cliff

paper wasp 17:3 (October 2011)

December Haiku Share - Day 5

summer again
the dress I wore
to hospital
– Kirsten Cliff

‘All the Words that Mean Cancer’ rengay sequence with Cara Holman, LYNX 27:3 (October 2012)

December Haiku Share - Day 6

as I begin to sing
in my head
the sparrows scatter
– Kirsten Cliff

Kokako 9, September 2008
Waiariki Institute of Technology 2010 Calendar

December Haiku Share - Day 7

fallen blossoms –
loading empty beehives
on the truck
– Kirsten Cliff

Kokako 8, April 2008

Peacocks and Dandelions

Here are two of the pages I made for my 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography that didn't make it into the final cut . . .

Click on image to enlarge.

I think this is the first image I put together when starting out planning for my 2013 calendar. I really like this combination, but in the end I couldn't find the right place for it. The haiku above was first published as a one-liner on DailyHaiku here. Our neighbours are horse breeders and have peacocks roaming amongst their fields. We don't see them as much as we'd like, but we hear them making their distinct call, more especially in summer. Hubby found this peacock feather on our property not long after we'd moved in. I first photographed it for a tanka that I wrote for Hortensia Anderson, in memoriam (you can read that post here).

Click on image to enlarge.

This would have been another summer page, but in the end, I created ones that I liked better. This photo was taken on our property after my husband alerted me to the butterfly. The fence is between us and a cow paddock, and the cows often push through the fence, shifting these posts, to get to our grass. The haiku first appeared on DailyHaiku here. I first paired this photo with another haiku that I'd written as part of a rengay with Cara Holman, "The Scent of Pine". You can view the post here.

I look forward to sharing the pages that comprise my 2013 Calendar of Haiku & Photography here beginning January 2013! :)