For My Birthday . . . Give A Little

The last few years here on my blog I've done some sort of giveaway for my birthday. This year I'm encouraging you to pay it forward, and below are some of the deserving causes that are close to my heart at the moment:

During my 4+ months of inpatient chemotherapy for APML leukaemia I had countless transfusions of blood and platelets. They literally helped save my life, from day one of my diagnosis, in March 2010. So please, if you are willing and able, do go and give blood at your local centre. You can find out more about giving blood in New Zealand here.

For those of you unable to give blood for health reasons (like me!) or are just squeamish at the thought, please consider a monetary donation to one (or both!) of the below fundraising projects:

Firstly, emerging writer and fellow sufferer of ME/CFS (commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is raising money to go to London to collect her well deserved prize. Anna Sjardin-Killick (of Annie Blackberry Jewellery) has not once, but twice, won the Write Your Own Christie competition by writing two winning chapters for this worldwide contest, where entrants submit a chapter for an Agatha Christie-style book. You can read more about it on Anna's blog here: http://dreamingwithagatha.wordpress.com/

As Anna says on her write-up:

Through 16 years of illness I have seen many dreams die. One of my dreams has now come true: I have won an Agatha Christie writing competition. An even bigger dream? To meet Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew, at a special dinner in London.

After years of chronic illness myself (plus cancer!) I can totally relate to Anna's story. I wish her all the best for following her dream all the way to London where she should take her place at the winners' dinner with Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew, and the publishers. I know she has almost reached her fundraising goal, and I hope this will help boost her over the line.

Support a fellow writer in her success. Anna is certainly a generous soul herself doing giveaways of her jewellery all the time through Facebook, of which I was one of the lucky winners last year.

Donations to Help Anna Meet Mathew can be made here: https://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/helpannameetmathew



The second fundraising event that I want to draw your attention to is for a Habitat For Humanity house building project in Fiji. This time last year I had just returned home from Fiji having spent a wonderful six days on Castaway Island for my brother's wedding. (You can read my post about it, complete with haiku and photos, here.)

During the trip from the airport to the island resort, I got to see the less fortunate places of those living in Fiji, and I've always thought that I wanted to give something back. Also, with what's happened to my home this year, the Habitat For Humanity cause seemed a perfect fit.

So please join me in donating to Nicola, on behalf of Habitat For Humanity New Zealand, who is going with a team to Fiji in September to help build a house for a family there. Donations are being collected here: https://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/NicolaFiji



givealittle.co.nz provides Zero fees fundraising for New Zealand, thanks to the Telecom Foundation. 100% of what you donate gets through to your cause on Givealittle. I hope you can help! :-) It's a great way to celebrate my birthday.

 

rising wind

my worries drift out

to the horizon

 

 

May you let yours do the same. ~Kirsten Cliff

100 Tanka by 100 Poets

Cover & inside art by Ron Moss

Yesterday I received my copy of 100 Tanka by 100 Poets of Australia & New Zealand. It's beautiful!

My tanka included in this fine collection is:

planning out wedding
in the hospital chapel
while I have chemo
I am not dying
but a part of me is

Published in Presence #44 and Take Five vol 4


 It was also mentioned in the introduction by Kiyoko Ogawa (co-editor 2010-2011 Poerty Nippon 1967-2011) who wrote:

"Kirsten Cliff's tanka of 'our wedding / in the hospital chapel' sounds sad, yet her shadowed love must be all the more pure and profound."

This fine collection is edited by Amelia Fieldon and Beverley George of Australia and Pat Prime of New Zealand.

Reading through the tanka last night I was blown away. So good, so moving, so delicate. I'm over the moon to be included within the pages. And dare I say that tanka is edging ahead of haiku as my first love . . .

too much

I wonder what it would be like not to speak aloud for a whole day. No words. From my mouth. For twenty-fours hours. No songs, no soliloquies, no swearing. Out loud. No language of love or lament or loathing. Out loud. Or in whispers.

I'm sure I say more than is necessary. Maybe most of us do. But could I make it through a day without talking? And what would I learn from doing so? Is it possible to be overwhelmed by such an experience, by too much God? Or is there only goodness to be found through such a practise?

chemotherapy all the people I've lost along the way

 

contemporary haibun online vol 8, no 3 (October 2012)

 

 

By The Light

          the day after chemo
          he reads by the light
          of his cellphone

a handful of stones, Thursday, 24 November 2011

While I Have Chemo

          planning our wedding

          in the hospital chapel
          while I have chemo
          I am not dying
          but a part of me is

Presence #44 (June, 2011)

Tanka and photograph © Kirsten Cliff 2011