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winding road to nowhere rituals
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Blithe Spirit 23:2, 2013
Category Archives: News
‘warm days’ Modern Haiku, 44.2, 2013
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warm days wrapped up in a word too many
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Modern Haiku 44.2, 2013
‘ivy’ in Modern Haiku, 44:1, 2013
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ivy clinging to the tree trunk her long nails
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Modern Haiku, 44:1, 2013, p. 109
FLASH MOB 2013
I am taking part in the flash story event, FLASH MOB 2013, celebrating International Flash fiction Day. A sort of literary carnival and international competition in one, with over a hundred writers of flash from around the world taking part by posting short stories in their blogs.
If you love flash fiction, then this is the best place to browse for stories – and if you don’t know anything about flash, this is the place to start! Click here
My own story is in the European writers section here
‘spit polishing’ in Haiku News Vol. 2 No 17
spit polishing
her scuffed shoes—
war child
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Haiku News, Vol. 2 No. 17: Karma Tenzing Wangchuck, Stella Pierdes, Michael Henry Lee
May 13th, 2013
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First appeared on NaHaiWriMo
‘screeching tyres’ in Blithe Spirit 23:2
screeching tyres
the red camellias
in her front garden
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Blithe Spirit, vol 23:2
‘poems in waiting’ in Issa’s Untidy Hut
poems in waiting
the years I lost for fear
of chrysanthemums
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9 May 2013 Issa’s Untidy Hut
‘poacher’s moon’ Haiku News 6 June 2013
poacher’s moon
a crocus knows how
to wait
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Haiku News Vol. 2 No. 20: Sandip Sital Chauhan & Stella Pierides
‘spring tides’ A Hundred Gourds 2:3 June 2013
spring tides
the doctor keeps wiping
his nose
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A Hundred Gourds 2:3 June 2013
‘deluge’ and ‘clothesline’ Shiki Kukai May 2013
deluge the remains of dignity
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Shiki Kukai, May 2013 Kigo entry: 3 pts
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clothesline
the Persian rug in a cloud
of dust
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Shiki Kukai, May 2013 Free Format entry: 5 pts
‘hot day’ in Moongarlic, issue 0, May 2013
hot day –
on the train only the dog
meets my eye
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In the new Moongarlic E-zine
edited by Sheila Windsor and Brendan Slater, issue 0, May 2013, p. 15
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(First credit: In the Garden of Absence, Fruit Dove Press, 2012, p.16)
Haiku Matters!
I was delighted to be invited by Colin Steward Jones to guest-blog for the Scotland based Gean Tree Press. Since its inception, its blog, Haiku Matters! has been a hotbed of intellectual storm, liberal thinking, and wisdom… all about haiku.
I posted my first, introductory guest blog post on Haiku Matters! today! More to come soon, as I’ll be blogging for the whole month of May. On the menu: a walk or two, a bit of reading, playing with a couple of wild and not so wild ideas, reaching out to and from other genres, while touching on issues relating to the reader all along. Our reader, ourselves as readers, other poets’ readers.
If you have the time, do visit, take a look, and share your own point of view…
(Picture: Creative Commons)
‘storks’ nest’ Kernels, Spring 2013
storks’ nest
the chimney sweep
holds his breath
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Kernelsonline, Premier edition, Spring 2013
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‘The Price of Youth’ in Contemporary Haibun Online, April 2013
‘The Price of Youth’ appears in Contemporary Haibun Online, April 2013, vol 9, no 1 and can be read by clicking here
The text is also copied below:
The Price of Youth
The hairdresser swirls and swings her ample hips to the music, her flesh quivering. I catch my reflection in the mirror, lips hanging downwards, and shocked, I make a conscious effort to lift the corners of my mouth. She swipes a hand-held mirror like a credit card behind my head, beaming, proud of her work. I smile back spontaneously, pleased with her work too.
young again
this old seed-head approaches
a new year
‘Seasons’ in Contemporary Haibun Online, April 2013
‘Seasons’ appears in Contemporary Haibun Online, April 2013, vol 9, no 1 and can be read by clicking here
It can also be read below:
Seasons
His eyes sweep the coffee table, taking in the piles of books, the envelopes, the dust. For a moment, I regret I didn’t put them away earlier, didn’t polish the surfaces.
His gaze returns to rest on me calmly, as if he hadn’t been collecting information for our younger colleagues to talk about. I recall one of the others telling me he’d noticed I kept an atlas on my desk for seven years. What of it? What else could I do before Google maps?
We, the older generation, have become something to be observed, monitored, talked about. She writes haiku, they say, raising their eyebrows knowingly, exchanging glances. She’s aged…
I remember how we watched our children and our friends’ children, amused ourselves with their quirkiness, their funny ways, we mimicked their manner of speech; we wondered at the milk teeth, marvelled at their rate of growth. Now they amuse themselves observing us. We meant well, and so do they, I am sure.
the Earth revolves
round its axis –
rhododendrons again
‘Homewards’ in Haibun Today, March 2013 (the text)
My haibun “Homewards” appears in Haibun Today and can be read by clicking here
Vol.7, No. 1, March 2013
It can also be found below:
Homewards
The garden at the back of the Edwardian terrace which is my London home is small but compact. A Magnolia Grandiflora Exmouth grows in its middle, a variety that keeps its glossy, oblong leaves in winter and blossoms in summer. White, deliciously fragrant flowers grace the tree unfailingly, giving me hours of pleasure upon my return from my European excursions. But the neighbor complains about the tree shading her garden. Each year I chop off branches to keep her happy. Each year I dread hearing from her.
sunlight
a dove crosses
the border
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For Journal publications in 2012 and earlier, please click in the drop-down menu.
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Review: In the Garden of Absence
Delighted to see the new issue of Frogpond, the Journal of the Haiku Society of America, 36-1, Spring 2013, in my letterbox. Among great haiku, senryu, haibun, essays and reviews a nice surprise: in the section “Briefly Reviewed” a positive note on my own book “In the Garden of Absence”!
The review can be read by clicking here (please scroll down)
‘chrysanthemum moon’ #25 March 2013
chrysanthemum moon
who said I’m perfect
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Notes From The Gean, 16, February 2013, p.26
Shiki Kukai February 2013
My entries to the Shiki Kukai February 2013
withered berries –
chewing over what’s left
of me
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kigo section: withered plants 5 pts
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book cover
the author’s sun spots
airbrushed
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Free format theme: cover 6 pts
Haibun Today, March 2013
My haibun “Homewards” appears in Haibun Today and can be read by clicking here
Vol.7, No. 1, March 2013
It can also be read below:
Homewards
The garden at the back of the Edwardian terrace which is my London home is small but compact. A Magnolia Grandiflora Exmouth grows in its middle, a variety that keeps its glossy, oblong leaves in winter and blossoms in summer. White, deliciously fragrant flowers grace the tree unfailingly, giving me hours of pleasure upon my return from my European excursions. But the neighbor complains about the tree shading her garden. Each year I chop off branches to keep her happy. Each year I dread hearing from her.
sunlight
a dove crosses
the border
‘ivy clinging’ #28 February 2013
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ivy clinging to the tree trunk her long nails
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Modern Haiku, Vol 44.1, winter-spring 2013
‘all hands on deck’ 11th International kukai
all hands on deck
the soup kitchen full
of steam
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11th International kukai February 2013, 10th place tied
http://rita-odeh.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/feb-2013-hand-kukai-final-results.html
The THF goes to work: Worker’s Haiku
After all this buzzing with insect haiku in January, February 2013 is a quiet, reflective month.
This month’s guest editor, Matthew Paul’s selection is on the ever-present figure of the worker in haiku. Dentist, doctor, driver, gravedigger, barber, policeman, the solitary worker seen at work, engaged or not, lively or bored, cuts an impressive figure.
Visit the The Haiku Foundation site and see the workers at work. Every day, one haiku/senryu will appear in the Per Diem: Daily Haiku panel, at the right-hand corner, lower down the home page. Let the workers speak to you:
NeverEnding Story
Chen-ou Liu (劉鎮歐), Chinese-Canadian poet, essayist, editor, translator, with numerous awards up his poetic sleeve, has started a new web-based project titled NeverEnding Story, a First English-Chinese Bilingual Haiku and Tanka Blog, in which he aims, in his words,
“to fulfill my butterfly dream portrayed in the haibun, entitled “To Liv(e),” which was published in Frogpond, 34:3, Fall 2011. I hope it can bring the beauty of English language Japanese short form poetry to Chinese readers around the world”
His dream is to put NeverEnding Story on the literary map of “Cultural China,” the one “that has been promoted by Tu Weiming (杜維明), Research Professor and Senior Fellow of Asia Center at Harvard University, who authored “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” Daedalus, Vol. 134, No. 4, Fall, 2005, pp. 145-167.”
Chen-ou has already collected a good number of poems and it seems to me he is well on his way to turning his dream into reality.
I am really honored to be included in this project, and for my poem to be translated into Chinese. It can be read in its English and Chinese forms here
Do visit NeverEnding Story, and if you are a haiku or tanka poet, do submit. There is an anthology on the cards, and essays, lit crit and more wonderful stuff on offer.
‘chicken broth’ and ‘forget-me-nots’ #10 January 2013
chicken broth
the slow unravelling
of time
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In Notes from the Gean 15: January 2013
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forget-me-nots
last year’s
haiku
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In Frogpond, 35:3, Autumn 2012
‘on home turf’ and other winter poems
on home turf-
feeding watermelon seeds
to the hens
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“On Home Turf,” Haiga, in “A Baker’s Dozen,” issue 4, 15 December 2012
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a fig is not a fig without your mouth
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a pyromaniac’s dream on top of the world
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In “Bones: Journal for Contemporary Haiku,” No 1, 15 December 2012
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at the bottom of the sea the bottom of the sea
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raining stars
how the begging tin
sounds
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in “Presence” #47, December 2012
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past her nails
a truth worth
holding on to
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in Notes From The Gean, #14, p. 28, December 2012
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shooting star –
a baby slithers out
of the womb
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frost bite
the winter bares its teeth
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In “A Blackbird Sings: a small stone anthology”
edited by Fiona Robyn & Kaspalita Thompson, 2012
Thanking Sheila Windsor
I would like to give special thanks today to UK poet Sheila Windsor for her warm recommendation of my book! I am honored and thrilled to read her wonderful comment on “In the Garden of Absence,” as well as her permission to include it here! In case you missed it, Sheila wrote:
“I cannot recommend ‘In the Garden of Absence‘ by Stella Pierides highly enough. A great Afterword too by Michael Dylan Welch. The book is entrancing.”
Thank you so much, Sheila!
(* The highlighting of titles and names was done by me!)
“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.
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!
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.
‘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
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