All posts by Stella Pierides

Stella Pierides, British poet, writer and artist of Greek descent. Books include: Of This World (2017) and In the Garden of Absence (2012), both Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award winners, and Feeding the Doves (2013). Stella served on The Haiku Foundation Board of Directors. She concieved and co ordinated the feature Haiku for Parkinson's for The Haiku Foundation.
aros, Blog, Other Writers

Small kindnesses Blogsplash on the 27th of November 2012

On Tuesday the 27th of November I’m joining the Small Kindnesses Blogsplash, writing and posting about small kindnesses.

In connection with the reissue of Fiona Robyn’s eponymous novel, writers and poets are teaming up to think about the “small kindnesses” of everyday life. Are you taking part? Join me, Fiona Robyn, and many, many others around the world on November 27th to share and celebrate the small kindnesses in our lives!

Fiona says, “All you have to do is write something about being kind – a memory of someone who was kind to you, a list of kindnesses over the past week, or something kind you did for someone else. It’ll be a celebration of kindness in all its forms, especially those little kind acts that make all the difference”

Interested? join the Facebook event here

More information here

Blog, Haiku, NaHaiWriMo, News

“With Cherries on Top”

A new downloadable book was made available on the 16th of November 2012 by Michael Dylan Welch, writer and poet, and founder of the NaHaiWriMo site and FB community. Titled “With Cherries on Top: 31 Flavors of NaHaiWriMo,” it is a sparkler of haiku, senryu, and micropoetry. It is excellently designed and presented, with fantastic photography, and also well-proof-read by Christina Nguyen. A haiku fireworks to enjoy on many a winter evening.

Image Credit: Michael Dylan Welch

This is how Michael Dylan Welch introduces it:

“In August of 2012, the NaHaiWriMo page on Facebook featured daily writing prompts from 31 different prompters. Each prompter selected at least five of his or her favourite poems written in response. Michael Dylan Welch selected from these poems to produce the online PDF book, With Cherries on Top: 31 Flavors from NaHaiWriMo”

This book is available for free download, from www.nahaiwrimo.com

I am honored to have a few haiku of my own included, and to have been one of the 31 prompters of the month!

aros, Blog, Haiku, NaHaiWriMo

‘Syntagma Square’ #14 November 2012

Syntagma Square
a marble head rolls
off its plinth
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NaHaiWriMo prompt: landmark
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For Syntagma Square see here
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This poem alludes to G. Seferis’ lines (see below) about the ‘Greek problem’ of ‘having’ to live up to their
ancient ancestors…and not knowing how to, of course.

I woke with this marble head in my hands;
It exhausts my elbows and I don’t know where to put it down.
It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream.
So our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again

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From Mythistorema, copied from wiki
The link here

Blog, Haiku, NaHaiWriMo, News

In the Garden of Absence – Thank you!

While my first book of poetry, “In the Garden of Absence” is at the printers, being fitted into its paper dress, smoothed, sewn, and shaped physically into a book I can hold in my hands, I’d like to say

a huge thank you to Michael Dylan Welch for his generous Afterword “Presence in Absence.”

Also  a huge thank you to my daughter Maria Pierides for her permission to use one of her paintings, “Welsh Hill,” for the book cover, Maria Pierides and Rubin Eynon for designing the cover, and Thomas Geyer for his help with formatting the print edition.

Special thanks to the members of the nurturing NaHaiWriMo Facebook community (now over 1000 people!) for their continuing inspiration, warm support, and encouragement.

aros, Blog, Haiku, NaHaiWriMo

‘winter grass’ and ‘winter reeds’ #12 November 2012

1
winter grass
feeding the lost pigeons

2
winter reeds
a dove becomes
my friend
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‎NaHaiWriMo prompt: peace

Interesting to be reminded today that doves and pigeons,
together with the olive branch have been used as
symbols for peace, love, lust as well as the human and Holy spirit since
antiquity, and featured widely in ancient Greek
mythology, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and other religions
and cultures.
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On another note, haiku #1 is a two-liner. I did try to twist it
into the more usual three- and one- line shapes, but
it wouldn’t listen to me.

Blog, Haiku, News, Publications

‘eating rhubard’ in Haiku News

My haiku in the Haiku News, Vol. 1 No.43 (8 November 2012)

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“Haiku News is a weekly poetry journal which publishes socially engaged haiku, senryu, tanka and kyoka, pairing each poem with a news article to forge links between the poetic, the personal and the political.”

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I paired the following article from The Independent newspaper “Teen spirit: What’s it really like to be a teenager?”
with the follwoing haiku:

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eating rhubarb
faster than it grows
young love

.

Blog, Haiku, News

‘Autumn loneliness’ in Asahi #2 November 2012

Now my scarecrow has a wife! At least in the poem “Autumn loneliness”! Thrilled that my poem is included in the Asahi Haikuist Network, edition 2 November 2012, From the Notebook section! Scroll down slowly, enjoy great poems by poets you know on the way!  Click here

I have copied the absolutely wonderful  illustration from the Asahi Haikuist Network page in the Asahi Shimbun below, assuming it is OK to do so (I’d be more than happy to remove it immediately, if it infringes any copyright  or other rights).

(Illustration by Mitsuaki Kojima)

And here is David McMurray‘s reading of the poem:

“Hardworking farmhands in Germany sometimes need help finding partners…”

*

Autumn loneliness

a farmer makes a wife

for his scarecrow

aros, Blog, featured, Haiku

Happy Mindful Writing Day!

Here is my own  ‘smallstone’ of the day!

 

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here is the now — 

this smalls stone I hold

in my hand

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This is the first ever Mindful Writing Day; it is organised by Kaspa & Fiona at their blog ‘Writing Our Way Home‘.
Visit them to read what the other ‘stoners’ are writing, and better still, email them your own stone!


	

	
	




	
	

				

			aros, Blog, Haiku
		

			
Day of the Dead

		

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cemetery pines


whispering among the needles


the gentlest of songs


Margaret Dornaus, poet, writer, and teacher, as well as haiku-doodler in her own words, has put together for the third year running a wonderfully moving collection celebrating the Day of the Dead, also known in Catholic circles as All Saints’ Day. It is a privilege and a treat to be included in it, as well as to read poems by several poet friends from all over the world who answered Margaret’s call.


Visit her post and read the poems. There is a tanka I particularly like, written by Margaret for Hortensia Anderson. I love the thought in it: now Hortensia is dead, Margaret can only know her through the scent of her blooms, her poems.


Happy Halloween!