Category Archives: Haiku

100 Days of Summer, Blog, Haiku

‘World Cup Final’ 1st Place in CKK

Football,Africa,
Handmade Football

Thrilled to place 1st in the 125th Caribbean Kigo Kukai on the theme ‘World Cup Final!’ Congratulations to Mark Gilbert, Martha Magenta and all participants for such a good game! Many thanks to the organiser Gillena Cox!

world cup final
the old couple holding
hands

Many thanks to the anonymous commentators:

COMMENT 1: A warm, touching haiku
COMMENT 2: In a crowded stadium this haiku focuses in on one couple – the word ‘final’ suggests it might be their last match
COMMENT 3: A modern fairy-tale ending, with they lived ever after. The old couple has won.
COMMENT 4: Sporting tournaments bring people together and you imagine this old couple have been watching their team play for many years. Maybe this is the first time they have attended the actual final.
COMMENT 5: Though this world cup final has not yet been played, I find the poet’s imagination is very vivid. A moment of anxiety has been captured vividly.
COMMENT 6: Like #2 (lullaby) in reminding us that there is more in the world than the World Cup (Full disclosure: I’m one half of an old couple myself).

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Photo from ‘Whatever you think about football‘

99/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings

100 Days of Summer, Blog, Haiku, Other Writers

“Ammersee Symposium” in honor of VSSA (IV)

Last weekend, VSSA IV, the fourth international quadrennial symposium on Visual Search and Selective Attention, took place in the Bavarian School of Public administration, Holzhausen, nr. Utting, on the shores of the beautiful Lake Ammersee. I wrote a haiku sequence in honor of the symposium using themes and terms from the talks and social life of the meeting. I understand this haiku sequence was briefly projected on screen before the concluding session of the symposium.Ammersee Symposium haiku

98/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings

Blog, blog items, featured, Haiku, of this world

‘Of This World,’ receives HSA Merit Book Award (books published 2017)

Delighted to announce that my book Of This World (Red Moon Press) was awarded a merit book honorable mention in the Haibun category by the Haiku Society of America! 

HSA Merit Books Award

Heartfelt thanks to Michelle Elvy, Jim Kacian, Clare MacQueen and Johannes S. H. Bjerg for their help and support with bringing this book to life.

While waiting for the judges comments and public announcement by the Society, here is more information and praise for the book:

Of This World

Stella Pierides has cultivated a terse, idiosyncratic style in her haibun that is instantly recognizable, and as a consequence is one of the shining lights of this burgeoning genre. Of This World certainly is, but it also takes us out of the world at large and into private spaces we feel privileged to witness. A unique and satisfying read.

 

Red Moon Press
Amazon Europe
Amazon UK

I am grateful for the generous comments:

This is how it’s done! Stella Pierides — in a hushed voice — takes me through what it is to be human — and part of the human history from the roots of Western culture in Diogenes’ tub to the ‘modern’ human — with all the questions and doubts, the uncertainties that come from that.

— Johannes S. H. Bjerg, Writer

Of This World’s marvelous, emotionally resonant haibun are steeped in the grace of the garden, rooted in a physical reality so sensuous that you can smell the fragrance of baking bread, of olives and garlic, of lemon and magnolia blossoms — and yet they also spiral on the updraft of metaphor as poet Stella Pierides ‘put[s] our hearts in the shoes of the hummingbird.’

— Clare MacQueen, Editor-in-Chief, KYSO Flash

A treasure trove of language and image. Pierides walks through dark streets of history, through alleyways of memory – emerging in shiny, unexpected places. Compact, urgent and closely observant, these minute offerings will captivate readers of both poetry and short fiction. An enormously engaging collection.

— Michelle Elvy, Writer and Editor

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Of This World
ISBN: 978-1-936848-80-5
Pages: 124
Size: 6″ x 9″
Binding: perfect softbound

Blog, Haiku, Other Writers

Book Stuff

Book Stuff: swaps, gifts, small talk is a (closed) Facebook group founded and administered by poet Gillena Cox. It is a place to highlight and share our work: whether already published or to-be-published/forthcoming.
Today, I was thrilled to see Gillena’s post, reproduced here with her permission:

Books,In the Garden of Absence, Ekphrasis,
❧✿❧Saturday Share # 42❧✿❧
Stella messaged me telling me she wants to send me 2 of her books, so i sent her my snail mail address. I received her gifts on 14th June 2018. Both these publications resonate well with me, since i am an ’empty-nester’. My husband left our home wanting to broaden his horizons. When they were ‘broad enough” he returned to Trinidad and opted to live in a house owned by his mother. My children left our home wanting their own space, when they thought, they were “big enough”. All of these leavings, i handled gracefully, giving each one, my blessings. What does this have to do with gifts from Stella, well…
Her haiku mirror life – the non linear journey, of evolving stations. Her themes of loneliness, absence and the capacity to be creatively alone are her flag poles. We are given insights into views from her garden, just when she opens her door, at the market place. We are treated to light bouncing off aubergines, flowers opening and coquettish butterflies. Ordinary yes. Yet peculiar to her, Stella the haiku poet. These scenes she freezes for us readers , leaving us in awe.
My favourite from the book ‘In the Garden of Absence‘
“on the clothesline
three skirts four blouses
missing you”

❧✿❧

‘Ekphrasis: Between Image and Word‘ is a collaborative work of [painting], of oils and words. Stella’s daughter [Maria Pierides] uses her oil and mixed media, Stella her words. Beautiful pictures are given to us, resulting from the creativity of these two. They paint for us the pictures of nature and her fickle heart. By her colour, sound, seasons.
My favourite is #21 ‘Colours surround me, swirls. Oil and mixed media on canvas 60 x 60cm’ To which Stella replies
“blue note
the baker’s dog
howling”

THANKS AGAIN STELLA for these sweet treats.
much love
gillena
❧✿❧Its Saturday Have a good one❧✿❧

Thank you, Gillena, for your generous comments.

 

100 Days of Summer, Blog, Haiku

70/100 ‘waiting for the tide’ #100daysnewthings

A hot, humid day. I’m looking at cooling photos like this one from a visit to Wells-next-the Sea, North Norfolk.

There’s always a cooling breeze there. I can almost feel it. A sort of teleportation…

waiting for the tide

that’s not waiting for me—

children crabbing

Wells-next-the-Sea,

70/100 #The100DayProject #100daysnewthings

Blog, Haiku

‘seeing with the heart’ 58/100 #100daysnewthings

sunrise—
a measure of seeing
with the heart
.
2 challenges in one!
This is a #photo #haiga responding to the new book which includes a chapter on #haiku from the Haiku & the Brain project !
58/100 #100daysnewthings and #the100dayproject.
book,haiga,psychology,
It is also my book cover for day 2 of the book cover challenge! I accepted the challenge from Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy to post covers of 7 books that I have read! No explanation, no reviews, just the covers. Each time I post a cover I’m expected to ask 3 of my friends to take up the challenge as well.
I know that this is a difficult request, as not every friend likes challenges, and even those who do, find it difficult to finish all challenges…so to make it easier for everyone, I’m suggesting here if a friend likes the idea to take it up, and tag me, so that I follow their book covers…

Blog, Haiku, Journals 2018

‘In Good Company’ in Frogpond 41:1

2 Comments

Frogpond JournalI am filling out the form with a trembling hand. I am gripping the pen a bit harder than usual and the letters look tense and angular. Why? I am opting out of organ donation. As simple as that. I am not donating my eyes to anyone. And when it comes to my heart, I want to have a say in who receives it.

 

 

late autumn—

aboard the last boat

home

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Frogpond 41:1