The November challenge at Parkinsons.Art involves rewriting a given poem in our own preferred form.
Here is the tanka I wrote in response:
the mist and I cold, lingering, and silent… under the park bench a handwritten missive, advice from a brave heart
The eighth issue of Juxtapositions: Research and Scholarship in Haiku is out. JuxtaEIGHT is a themed issue on “haiku and wellness,” with several articles, interviews, and resources addressing this theme. And it includes two contributions by yours truly: the article “Parkinson’s Toolbox: The Case for Haiku” is now available to download (pp 37-61), as well as a description of Haikupedia from the Resources section of Juxtapositions: Check them out here https://thehaikufoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/juxtaeight.pdf
I copy below the Abstract of the Parkinson’s article:
Parkinson’s Disease (PD)—the fastest growing neurodegenerative condition worldwide—affects a wide range of motor and nonmotor functions. At present, there is no cure. Only symptomatic treatment is available, aiming to improve quality of life and slow progression. The aim of this paper is to recommend haiku as a therapeutic tool helping with symptoms and, potentially, rate of progression. To this end, following a brief description of PD, and its symptoms grouped under two areas of loss resulting in life diminishment, I touch upon the general role of art and literature in augmenting pharmacological treatment of the disease, before focusing on some of the qualities of haiku (in the process of writing as well as the created poem) that collectively make haiku a containing vessel that can hold and transform the distress associated with the disease into a more bearable experience.
Starting to prepare the garden and plants for winter. Several plants will be taking refuge in the greenhouse, where a heater will be protecting them from the frost’s cruel bites. Others will be toughening it out in the beds, with only a thick cover of straw.
For the first time, I will be planting garlic. I got the reading done, added a bed just in front of the greenhouse, and in a week or two, I will be planting. In the greenhouse, there will be potatoes growing in pots, salads, and herbs. Oh, the excitement! The excitement!
Having written an article on Parkinson’s and Haiku (Parkinson’s Toolbox: The Case for Haiku), I am playing with the idea of sequels. Such as? Well, Parkinson’s Toolbox: The Case for Gardening; Parkinson’s Toolbox: The Case for Table Tennis; Parkinson’s Toolbox: The Case for Felting! You get my gist. Between planting garlic, practicing serves, writing, and soaping wool there’s no time for apathy. Right? For now, at least…
On this Volunteer Appreciation Day, I’m happy to be included in the beautiful anthology from The Haiku Foundation titled “Our Garden.” Thank you, Jim Kacian, Julie Blos Kelsey, and Theresa Cancro!
The anthology can be found here: https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/6497
harvest moon a falling leaf catches the light
we take it for granted this world of flesh and freedoms… floating bookshop
crossing the Brecon Beacons clouds and I . in South Wales (and thinking of Marlene Mountain)
the bead of sap running down the pine… my old haunts
fire extinguisher after the long drive my burning feet
open door air inflates the alveoli
extreme heat a bead of sweat rolls into my eye
Parkinson’s the slowly advancing desert . HSA Members’ Anthology 2021
following the ball's trajectory ping pong
washing day a story behind each mark .
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soon to retire he fills his calendar with seed starting charts
If you are wondering what happened to the greenhouse…here it is! With its shade net hat, as it is very hot here, reaching 93 Fahrenheit or more.
Still work to be done to the surrounding area, but the greenhouse works already. We’ve sown various seeds in eggshells and egg boxes, planted rosemary cuttings, tomato and cucumber plants…Well worth the time and effort …
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mid-summer the fragrance of roses in the air .
The beautiful roses are from a friend’s garden.
(Fragrance from memory,)
does it matter if I change my mind onion skins
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My haiku in Charlotte Digregorio’s Daily Haiku blog. Many thanks to the editor for re-printing the poem (Modern Haiku, 45:2, 2014).
Good Friday the distance between heaven and earth
how to still my swaying… freeze frame
Sixty years ago, she swallowed her grandmother’s most valuable possession: a ring, the only object to have survived the forced expulsion from their ancestral lands. The very ring that her grandmother, every night before bed, kissed and raised to the sky as if God needed the daily reminder that he had let her down.
Since that day of the half-accidental ingestion, and for two years afterward, the child was forced to use a potty, so that her grandmother could search its contents for the ring. To no avail.
In the summer of 2021, however, the ring exited the girl—now a grandmother herself—as if of its own volition. Effortlessly. The symbol of her family’s pain that her muscles had smothered, had been released. She heard the sound and to her astonishment, saw the ring lying at the bottom of the toilet bowl. Feeling nauseous, and while trying to steady herself, she accidentally pulled the chain that flushed away her long-held secret. She caught a glimpse of the ring before it disappeared in the swirling water to join the big, open sea.
letting go—
hunger for Scheherazade’s
stories
*
In Drifting Sands Haibun, issue 14, March 2022
Otherwise known as Eurotunnel!
tin soldier on the smoldering pile spring frost
Pleased to see that my “duvet” found a home in Blithe Spirit, vol 32, no 1!
Happy to have won third prize in The Haiku Foundation February 2022 Kukai
theme: icicle
icicle . . . how long will he take to forgive me
— Stella Pierides (51 points – 4; 3; 2; 5; 3)
Remarks below are by Dee Evetts, THF Monthly Kukai Commentator. He is an internationally known haiku poet and author of “The Conscious Eye” series on contemporary themes in Frogpond in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
I find that a great deal is implied here. It is winter. There has been a falling out, and apparently a felt culpability on the part of the writer. Possibly the weather (or another circumstance) has forced the couple or pair to be together when they might otherwise have chosen to put some distance between themselves –– at least for part of the day. There is a prevailing silence, and at best, monosyllabic and toneless exchanges when strictly necessary. This is one of those “suit yourself” kind of domestic stand-offs. It is true that I am embroidering –– even weaving my own version of the poem. Another reader will come up with a different story. What counts is that the poet has given us room to speculate, while at the same time giving us the very concrete image of the (how gradually?) thawing icicle.
