Updates: Haiku, Tanka Prose, House . . .

The first of three of my haiku appears in Pulse: voices from the heart of medicine this week. You can check it out on the site here and take a look around the rest of the issue while you're there. Submission information can be found here (scroll to the bottom for haiku).

I'm currently racing to meet a May 1st deadline for a commentary I'm writing on my tanka prose, The Taste on My Tongue, first published in Skylark. I usually don't leave things until the last minute, but I had been busy for the past six weeks and knew I had time to do this in the last two weeks of April. Then the roof came off, and here I am. The piece is for Haibun Today and will hopefully include reactions re its meaning from those that have since read it. You can read the tanka prose in question here and send me your thoughts by email here. I can't guarantee that what you send me will end up in my article. But if you'd like to be part of it then please send it through by the end of Monday 28th. I'd love to read your response! :-)

Last but not least, an update on my home. Well, we made it to page 3 of the regional newspaper, Waikato Times, as well as our local Matamata Chronicle. Read the web version here, complete with pic. The insurance assessor has been through both our home and contents claims and we're waiting to hear back. Meanwhile hubby and I are still living at my parents, but hope to move into more long-term temporary accommodation next week. It could be months before we get home, and there ain't no poetry coming to me yet . . .

Nightlight

Somehow I knew about them before I arrived in Japan. But I was beginning to realise it was the small ones that I should be wary of. The big ugly black ones, that you could clearly see inching along the roadside, were much too heavy to scurry up surfaces. The charming little red ones however, would suddenly appear on the wall behind the customer you were with. I would jerk and point, though only my fellow foreigners seemed to cringe at the shocking sight.

godless month . . .
I dream of riding a horse
into my childhood home,
all the family waiting
and expectant

We foreign girls started sleeping with the light on. It seemed the only solution. I was not going to lie in that top bunk with red cockroaches running around my head. Japan was not going to beat me. I needed the money, and anyway, I wanted to hide from real life for a while.

between snowfalls . . .
I wasn't meant to
find a love like this,
my slight resistance
not lost beneath languages

A Hundred Gourds 2:3, June 2013

A Hundred Gourds Haiga

A Hundred Gourds 2:2 March 2013 (click on image to enlarge)

The June 2013 edition of A Hundred Gourds is now online. I'm in there with two haiku and a tanka prose piece, along with work from many other wonderful poets. Get stuck in! :-)

The Taste on My Tongue

I'd travelled by train to the well-known Harajuku purely for the piercing experience. Tongue piercing, that is. Or a nipple, if you were game and your tongue was already adorned. Sitting upstairs in the studio, I could hear the sounds rising from the busy streets below. Markets overflowed with people and wares. The city had a good vibe. It was a place for the young and trendy. And pierced.

doorstep slices

of white bread, with the Marmite

I brought from home—

morning sun strains

through curtains never opened

I was the next in line and watched with interest: a Japanese boy sitting in a raised chair, his tongue protruding with an X marking the spot. A large cork was positioned under his tongue and held firmly in place ready for the thick needle to puncture it. I held my breath as the piercing needle came down and the boy’s tongue curled around it, surprised at the assault. A blur of hands, then a shiny gold bar was poking out from the boy’s mouth as he paid and tried to say arigato.

stirring

my cappuccino

with a cinnamon stick—

imitation is something

they do well here

Five minutes later I was awkwardly announcing, “It didn’t hurt as much as having my nose done.” The friend I'd come with was lying on a high bed having Xs drawn on her left nipple. Her lengthy black hair looked scruffy against the white pillow. I seemed to be leaning over her in protection, and couldn’t help but watch as her areola changed from a smooth yielding circle into its tight brown peak. This was a welcome distraction from my own discomfort. That is, until I had to avert my eyes from the sharp needle penetrating it.

before work

a quick bite to eat

at the noodle bar—

from pictures, we both order

the same meal every time

My tongue didn’t hurt much, but it sure was a strange sensation. Imagine someone’s forearm stuffed in your mouth: the fist pushed hard against your palate and the elbow jutting down forcefully into the soft base of your mouth. Not much room left for your swollen tongue, so enlarged that your teeth have now firmly sunken into the sides. How was I going to eat?

first sip of grappa

sometimes love burns

last sip of grappa—

but he's still on my lips,

the Italian I met in Japan

Skylark: A Tanka Journal 1:1 summer 2013

touch wood

facing away
from the morning sun
in the bonds
of a silent friendship
my shadow       my grief 

the early bird catches the worm. a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. make hay while the sun shines. the grass is always greener on the other side. only fools go where angels fear to tread. don't worry, be happy. shit happens. beggars can't be choosers. you can't have your cake and eat it too. if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. out of the frying pan, into the fire. that's the pot calling the kettle black. make love not war. hugs not drugs. give peace a chance. communication is the key. the truth will set you free. no news is good news. cat got your tongue? 

this exhaustion
fills me up
& surrounds me . . .
every word carries
the weight of tears 

let the cat out of the bag. when the cat's away, the mice will play. the cat who got the cream. money makes the world go round. money is the root of all evil. life's a bitch, then you die. anything that can go wrong will go wrong. up shit creek without a paddle. it's just a phase. keep calm and carry on. just do it. break a leg. dream big. love they neighbour. no man is an island. time waits for no man. a stitch in time saves nine. out of sight, out of mind. an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. the writing is on the wall. you can't teach an old dog new tricks. you've made your bed, now lie in it. it'll be all right on the night. tomorrow's another day . . . 

the strain
of a spider's web
across my cheek—
dividing life into before
and after leukaemia 

Haibun Today, Volume 7, Number 1, March 2013

 

A Happy Haiku Holiday Season . . .

December 2012 - Kirsten's Calendar of Haiku & Photography

The end of the year is upon us and it's time for me to look back and see if my ideas for 2012 came to fruition. My poetic leanings for this year were to:

• Make haiku and tanka a part of my everyday life -- I've certainly done this with having my own haiku calendar on my kitchen wall this year, the December page of which you see above. (See the pages for each month of 2012 at my side-bar link Kirsten's 2012 Calendar of Haiku & Photography.) I've created a second calendar for 2013 with all new photos and haiku, which I look forward to my family seeing for the first time come Christmas; and of course, having it on my own wall for the year. I also wrote haiku in cards this year, and made cards with haiku on them, giving them to family and friends. And I added haiku to the odd email or other message here and there, when I felt it might be appreciated. You can also read the post I did for New Zealand's National Poetry Day here about how I get my daily dose of haiku.
• Write more linked haiku and tanka verse -- Yes! All up this year I wrote 13 rengay with Cara Holman, all of which have been published, and three of which have been submitted to the rengay anthology. I had never written rengay before this and have found it very inspiring and enjoyable. I also wrote one rengay with Aubrie Cox, which was published in Kokako, and has been submitted to the rengay anthology as well. Mid-year I was part of a group that wrote a junicho; most of us for the first time. This was quite a different process to writing rengay, and a steep learning curve, but definitely something I would try again. The result of our efforts "Cold Sun" is in the December issue of A Hundred Gourds. Last, but not least, I wrote a tanka sequence with Margaret Dornaus, which was published in LYNX. This was another rewarding experience, and another first for me. We hope to write more together in the future.
• Write more haibun and tanka prose -- I wrote the most of these forms in a year than I ever had, and read a lot too! I decided that two of my haibun were worthy of polishing up and presenting to editors, and gratefully both were accepted; one in Kokako and one in Contemporary Haibun Online. Tanka prose I found a bit trickier and only in the last few weeks have I finalised two that I think are of a publishable standard. The first has been accepted to Haibun Today, and I'm waiting on news for the second. Needless to say I'm super pleased with my efforts and definitely want to keep writing more. I'm still interested in writing a poetic memoir in this fashion, although I'm keen to write it about a different time in my life than I'd originally conceived. Watch this space!

I did lots of other things in haiku-land for the first time, too, this year, like participating in kukai, judging a competition, and collaborating on photo-haiga. It's all made for a well rounded year of fun and challenges and learning and friendships. I'm looking forward to more! :)

There is a lot I'm interested in pursuing next year: collaborations of all kinds, finalising putting my first collection together, and entering the most haiku and tanka competitions I ever have in 12 months!

What will actually happen?

I don't know, because what I do know is that I can't do it all. I'm actually only a few submissions away this year from having done, what would work out as, one submission a week (which I did as a minimum in 2011). My coffers are running low. So it's a big period of concentrated writing that is needed right now. See you soon...

Here's to a happy haiku holiday season to all my readers!

May you eat, drink, write and be merry. :)

Goals Or Poetic Leanings?

I'm loathe to make any solid goals poetry-wise this year. I wore myself out in 2011 with my personal challenge "to submit poetry to a publication or competition every week for the whole year". I'm going to write an article about it for the New Zealand Poetry Society magazine, a fine line, so that others might learn from my madness. I think I'll call it: My Year of Submission :)

This year I'm more about leaning in certain directions with my poetry. I want to experiment more, play more with the writing, with the poetry and it's different and wonderful forms. Not that 2011 didn't see me do the most amount of poetry writing I'd ever done in one year. Just the four PAD (poetry-a-day) challenges I participated in alone (all for the first time) produced many haiku, tanka, small stones and longer poems, many of which have since found homes outside of my computer, and my head!

But I definitely need to deal less with submitting in 2012, and so far I've done just one submission a month, letting several "deadlines" pass me by. I'm just not that into it this year. Call it submitter's burn out. And a "so-slow-that-it-might-as-well-be-going-backwards" Internet connection :(

So here's my poetic leanings (not goals!) for 2012, and beyond:

• To make haiku and tanka more a part of my everyday life by putting poems in cards, for example: I've done this in hubby's Christmas and birthday cards, and my parents wedding anniversary card, so far. As I enjoy making my own cards, this practice just adds to the uniqueness of the gift and is always appreciated by those who receive them.
• To write more linked haiku and tanka verses: I did my first solo linked haiku verse as part of hubby's Christmas present, which I framed for the wall. I've also written three tanka sonnets this year, which I really enjoyed and will send off for hopeful publication at some stage. The tanka sonnets in particular really sparked my imagination, and I know I will write more soon.
• To write more haibun and tanka prose: I've written a few of these over the past few years but really want to write more seriously in this area (as I keep promising myself I will!). You see, I have an idea for a poetic memior, which I would write as my thesis for a Master's in Creative Writing. I figure I have a few years to get really good at haibun, or kiss that little "goal" goodbye. I'll be taking two haibun workshops at the Haiku Festival Aotearoa in June, which will give me the inspirational boost that I'm bound to need mid-year.

That's all I've got for now. Feel free to lean along with me...

Submitting to Haibun Today

I submitted my first ever piece of tanka prose (which is like haibun but with tanka instead of haiku) to Haibun Today last week. This was my submission for week 15 of 2011. It was my first time submitting work to this on-line publication, edited by Jeffrey Woodward, with New Zealand's own Pat Prime as Assistant Editor.

I received a quick email reply from Jeffrey, which was unfortunately a rejection, but a very encouraging one. And I will be submitting work here again in the future. You can find the submission guidelines here, and lots of helpful articles and interviews here. And don't forget to check out the current issue!