My own contribution will be in haiku; here’s why. When I first came across haiku, I was puzzled by its brevity, and, given the size, the disproportionate impact it had on me. There was something in this form that attracted me in mysterious ways, enough to start me reading it and, much later, trying my hand at writing it.

Then in January 2011, I joined the small stones project (A River of Stones, then), focusing, noting, and writing down an immediate experience from my day; in February 2011, the National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo for short), and felt I had found something precious, an area of writing and thinking that with study, practice and discipline would be rewarding to me.

And so it proved to be. This coming together of daily attending to my sensory experience of the world, and putting it into words, shaping it to the short form of haiku, became both an invaluable experience and a developmental practice, a sort of daily meditation on a material, physical input. The essence of this experience was not in the mind (where I lived for many, many years), but in this lived moment where, for me, both the work and the rewards were found.

So I didn’t need to think twice when it came to choosing a theme for the blog carnival Language / Place, #14. My contribution will be in the form of haiku. Yours might be in the form of a short story, a flash, a non-fiction piece, a travelogue, a recipe, an image.

Listen, taste, feel the weight, and lightness of the world and share this experience with us. Does a place associate in your mind with a smell, an image, a sound? Does a taste, say of aniseed, of olives, of papaya define a place for you? Do bird song, drumming, waves move you? Where do you stand on body odor? And how do you react as a writer? Do you have a voice recorder, notepad, or the back of your hand on the ready for recording your experience? Is the result a ‘small stone,’ a flash, or haiku? Do you have a Proustian gene in you? Perhaps a non-fiction piece detailing a sensation-awakened memory? Tell me. Tell us. I can’t wait to hear from you!

If you have already written something on this theme, great. Please submit your link(s). If not, and you are looking for inspiration, then have a look at The Haiku Foundation website: lots of (haiku) moments to inspire you, including Per Diem: Daily Haiku.  In March, my selection of sense-based, mainly non-visual haiku will appear, illustrating not only how good these sense-based poems can be, but also how the senses interconnect, each one stimulating one or more of the others. There is a digital library on the site with free books to download and enjoy, discussion boards, calendars of events and contests and more.

There is the ‘official’ NaHaiWriMo coming up in February once again, too. Perhaps you might like to join and write a haiku a day. Michael Dylan Welch has set up this site with iinformation about haiku and the NaHaiWriMo facebook community. I joined last year doubting I could keep it up. Well, I haven’t. I have been writing not one but several haiku a day! (FB community site here)

If you didn’t join the January Small Stones project, no need to worry! You can keep your senses alert with a little help from Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita Thompson’s  Writing our Way Home

Fiona and Kaspalita’s blog is full of ideas on how to record polished moments of experience. You could start from here:

Other contributions, not restricted to this theme are, of course also welcome. Submissions will open on the 1st of February and close on the 10th of March.

For information on how to submit your links to you posts see here

The blog roll of those taking part in the blog carnival so far can be read on Dorothee Lang’s BluePrint blog site.

Also, “Gray morning (haiku),” in the notebook of the Asahi Haikuist Network, edited by Prof David McMurray, here.

According to the announcement, the winning poets will be granted a 7 day stay for two people in Capoliveri (on the Elba) and will attend an awards ceremony in May 2012. I feel honored to be amongst those chosen for the anthology. Now please cross your fingers for me to go to the next phase, I’d love to visit Elba.

The list of the anthology selections of international haiku poets can be seen here.

And if you are wondering what and where is Capoliveri, you could start from this site here.

I am looking forward to the anthology!

Delighted to find out today that my haiku received Honorable Mention in The 15th Mainichi Haiku Contest!

‘fish kites’ can be found on page 13 of the PDF announcement See here

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flowering only

in soft moonlight—

dragon fruit

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In anticipation of the year of the dragon, a delightful collection of dragon haiku edited by Aubrie Cox, of Yay Words! The language of Dragons is heart-warming, playful, witty, and wonderful.  I am delighted that one of my own dragon haiku made it there. The entire collection can be downloaded as PDF from Aubrie’s site, here.

the writing on the wall

illegible

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November / December 31, 2011 “old calendar” Kukai, Sketcbook, 6th place, tied.

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old calendar

the sum of my hopes

fading

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in my old calendar

you came first

seedlings

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November / December 31, 2011 “old calendar” Kukai, Sketchbook, 10th place, tied.

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candlelight

how pale the moon

looks

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Choice haiku, Karina Klesko, US, Sketchbook, “Light a candle”

Choice Haiku, John Daleiden, Sketchbook, “Candle in the Wind”

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power cuts

in this wind a candle burns

too fast

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Choice haiku, Karina Klesko, US, Sketchbook, “Light a candle”

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electric candles—

so, I record

my prayer

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Choice haiku, Karina Klesko, US, Sketchbook, “Light a candle”

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prayer candle—

she puts her lips

to the icon

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Choice haiku, Karina Klesko, US, Sketchbook, “Light a candle”

Choice Haiku, John Daleiden, US, Sketchbook, “Candle in the Wind”

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diamonds

sparkle in your eyes

candle flame

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Choice Haiku, John Daleiden, US, Sketchbook, “Candle in the Wind”

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All Choice Haiku poems can be seen here and here

full moon tea

my book of beasts

lies open

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tea leaves —

a fate worse than

cuticles

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kallikantzaroi—

drinking tea they forget

the World tree

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Three haiku included in Aubrie Cox’s collection Tree with Trolls, in her blog Yay Words. Twenty seven poets saying, in their own unique way, Happy Halloween! And thank you Aubrie!

bee hive 

where the workers never

strike

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Sketchbook 6-4, Editor’s Choice Haiku, John Daleiden: Life in the Mostly Unexamined World (scroll down)

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eternal life
only the roaches
come close

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in my salad
a green caterpillar—
life lesson

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Sketchbook 6-4, Guest Editor’s Choice Haiku, Bernard Gieske : A Glimpse into the Past (scroll down)

and Editor’s Choice Haiku, John Daleiden: Life in the Mostly Unexamined World (scroll down)

Here it is:

starry night—
growing old
together

Delighted also that several of my fellow haijin from NaHaiWriMo did so well, esp Terri Hale French (1st), Michelle Harvey, Cara Holman, and others…

Two other haiku I submitted received no votes! Food for thought, of course.

The entire thread can be read by clicking here

So pleased that my haibun ‘Drawings’ was accepted by Contemporary Haibun Online!

‘Drawings’  is now online on Contemporary Haibun Online,  ’The Quarterly Journal of Contemporary English language Haibun.’  My piece can be read here

(My haiku is in the section ‘From the notebook’)

The Mainichi Daily News, 29 August 2011. (‘warm morning’)

escarp, the ‘ selective, twitter-based review of brief poetry and prose’ (‘glacial’)

Red Dragonfly, Melissa Allen’s, excellent mainly haiku blog, (‘dark waters’ and ‘iridescent wings’) and

Asahi Shimbun, in David McMurray’s column The Asahi Haikuist Network, on the 19th of August 2011 (‘grey skies’ and ‘watermelon’)

2. The Language/Place collection, issue #8 is out. Put together by Walter Bjorkman it  is a delight to read. Contributions from around the world!  My post Haiku from Lake Ammersee is included along with photographs, poetry, all different kinds of meditation on the spirit and the poetry of place. Visit and see! wbjorkman.wordpress.com

Melissa Allen, of  ’Red Dragonfly‘ featured  my haiku ‘tomato’ and ‘silkworm’  in her regular column Across the Haikuverse, No. 20 and No. 21 editions, respectively. An honour to be included there. What more could a haijin want?

Haiku buzz: My haiku came 6th and 7th in the Sketchbook Kukai (peer-judged contest) in the May/June 2011 issue. Sketchbook is a ‘Journal for Eastern and Western Short Forms.’ I am very pleased with the result; this was my first ever kukai! Watch this space…

Two of my haiku on the thread ‘Vegetables’ set by the editors of Sketchbook magazine, were picked, together with others, to be featured in the Editor’s Choice haiku thread. They were also featured in the Guest Editor’s Choice, of the same edition.  You can read the haiku in my blog here.

For one more of my haiku translated into French see my earlier post here

Melissa Allen’s blog is a must read if you are interested in Haiku, Haibun, Haiga and related forms. Informative, and fun to read, it will blow your socks off; it will surprise and delight you edition after edition. Go and see…

Also in my news: my very short story (vss) ‘Cruelty’ has been selected to be included in the Upper Rubber Boot Books anthology of work from Seven by Twenty. The anthology will be named 140 And Counting, and is expected to be released as an e-book by the end of 2011.

Finally, forthcoming:

Haiku ‘Vineyard’ in Shamrock, the Haiku Journal of the Irish Haiku Society

Haiku ‘Zen Garden’ in ‘A Handful of Stones’

Flash Fiction in 52250 A Year of Flash: ‘Fishing’

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project. In the words of its founder, Maureen Thorson, NaPoWriMo commenced in 2003, when she decided to take up the challenge (modeled after NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), and challenged in turn other poets to join her. Since then, she writes, the number of participants grew larger every year, and many writers, organizations, national and international, take part.

Well, phew! What a challenge, though, naturally, the daily poems are, and can only be first drafts. And, cheating a bit, I plan to use some of the haiku, senryu, and micropoems I will be writing for the NaHaiWriMo challenge; or at least versions of them.

Meanwhile, many thanks to Maureen Thorson for her brilliant idea and sustained effort. Indeed, congratulations Maureen!

For simplicity’s sake, I will be using my main blog (on which I post on various other issues) for posting. I will be giving links to other places I home my little ones in. Join me on this journey. Or better still, join the NaPoWriMo and write them yourself!

The waiting for Alexandrias 40: In the Shade of the Lemon Tree is getting longer. Voxhumana-books has gone on hiatus. My publisher has been seriously ill for some time, and is now no longer able to continue with the work. I am very sad about Philip’s fight with cancer and wish him all the best.

I will keep you posted about the book when I have more news. Meanwhile, I hope to see you around this blog and twitter (@stellapierides.com) for short stories, haiku and other forms of prose and poetry.

Each quarter, the editors pick and highlight in an anthology the best of the stories written on each week’s theme. The current edition also includes art work, readings, and reflections by some of the writers on their creating a particular piece and the ways they went about developing their take on the theme.

Beautifully and professionally edited, assembled and illustrated, it is well worth visiting, and reading. As you will see, the editors have put an incredible amount of work into “twentysix.”

I am honored to have two of my short stories included: on theme #25 “A private person” and on theme #26 “A hair raising story.”

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You can read the anthology here

My stories in 52|250 can be read here

I am particularly pleased because the competition caught me in the middle of writing my second novel, When the Colours Sing, set around the Blue Rider movement – it fitted so well. 

The five winners: Marty Smith, Lauren Tamraz, Sarah Spencer Pokla, Benjamin Vogt, and Stella Pierides.

The IHLR is a review of poetry and literary non-fiction published six times per year by Texas Tech University. I am going to follow them and read what they are getting up to from now on!

You can find the results of the competition together with my poem here

I quote from “virtualnotes,” where this particular blog carnival originated:

“The idea of “> Language > Place” is to create a collaborate virtual journey through different places, in different formats, and with different languages included – the main language is english, yet the idea is that every post also includes snippets or terms of other languages, and refers to a specific place, country, region or city.”

For more information and how to join this monthly event, here

Oh, yes, and I took part too!

15 November 2010

52/250 is a project involving around eighty writers from all over the world who made the commitment to write and publish weekly, flash fiction stories for a whole year: 52 weeks, 250 words max! There is a theme for each week, and contributors can suggest themes to the editors.

I joined during week number 25, and my first flash appeared on Friday 5 November 2010. It is a short story about two individuals who see themselves as “private” persons. You can read it here.

The 52/250 project feels like a very encouraging, inspiring and warm place to be. I am going to hang out there… so, watch this space!

Winter Picture started its life at the North London writers’ workshop Word for Word, after a writer circulated photographs she had taken of a snow sculpture: two human-like figures made of snow on a Hampstead Heath bench. In my poem, the sculpture became a war-torn couple… read it and see.

Mystery Train was inspired by a photograph used as a writing prompt in the Tuesday poetry group of Word for Word. The photograph was of Elvis, on a train platform at the beginning of his career in the 1950s… so soon after the War…

The refugee grew out of a scene in my novel “Alexandrias 40: In the Shade of the Lemon Tree.” A refugee from Smyrni lies in her hospital bed in Athens, unable to join the other patients; she is forever caught in her own private despair.

Check out this link.  And feel free to comment!

5 October 2010

Murnau Moor

I am delighted and  honored! My micro-poem They send light to Earth was chosen to be the first piece to be published by new e-zine @textofiction.

Brand new, “Textofiction is an online literary publication dedicated to bringing the best writing in under 140 characters.”

Read my micro-poem and think, it packs a lot in. Better still, let me know your thoughts about it! Read it here

Date of publication: 29 August 2010

Frisian Lands

I brought back from my holiday this picture of the Frisian landscape  ( I’ve never seen so much sky! ) and a freshly-penned poem. Read it in escarp, “a text-message-based review of super-brief literature.”

The poem was published in escarp,  a text-message-based review of super-brief literature (www.escarp.org).

to be published in 2010 by Vox Humana Books http://www.voxhumana-books.com

“In these tales of love, loss, and survival, Pierides embroiders a tableau detailing the lives of a refugee family in Athens, circa 1957. The novel is set in the house of the family on Alexandrias Street, where they came to settle years after their flight from Smyrni, now Izmir, Turkey. Framed by this house — a concoction of tin, cement, wood and mud, a paradise, a refuge and a prison to those who nestle in it — they struggle to come to terms with their predicament, attempting to establish themselves in Greece. Without idealising its characters, the novel unfolds — a tragicomic story, full of ethnic colour, warm sensuality and psychological insight. The book encompasses the “Catastrophe” of Asia Minor, the Greek Civil War, accusations and blackmail, adoption and betrayal, as well as the refugees’ love and bitterness towards their country. The characters’ traumatic past and struggle for survival, in a country that is both home and hostile to them, requires their ability to tap into psychological resources of generosity, masochism, denial and ruthlessness — and above all — humour and forgiveness. In a quick-paced narrative straddling both the genres of novel and short story, Stella Pierides recreates a world within a world, miles apart from the well-trodden tourist trail to Greece.”

“…Vox Humana Books…eclectic literature with a human voice”

Soul Song, in Poetry Monthly International, issue 15, January 2010 (p. 18). [Poem] http://www.poetrymonthly.com/15 PMI January 2010.pdf

The Refugee, Winter Picture, and Mystery Train, to appear in  Vox Humana Literary, Spring Issue, 2010. [3 Poems] http://www.voxhumana-lit.com

Girl, in the print Journal  Off the Coast, International/Translation Issue, Spring 2009. [Poem]

Song of the Aegean, in Poetry Monthly, issue 150, 2008. [Poem]

Stella’s short story “The Accident” appears in the print issue 4 of “The Quiet Feather” out now.