Swallows in La Calebasse

swallows –
coat and gloves
sent to the attic

 

hirondelles –
manteaux et gands
au grenier

 

“Swallows”, the haiku I wrote responding to a prompt in the Facebook NaHaiWriMo, was one of several picked to be featured for March (2011) by Vincent Hoarau in his sparkling site La Calebasse. I am both honoured and delighted – especially since he translated it into French! This is my first haiku translated into French, indeed another language, and I must say I love the sound of it. Thank you, Vincent!

Vincent’s site is well worth visiting. He generously collects and translates other poets’ work, presenting it alongside his own.  His work and collection were recently commended by Melissa Allen of Red Dragonfly, a must-read blog for haiku enthusiasts.

 

(To find my Swallows on La Calebasse, you need to scroll down the page here to find it – towards the end. I hope you will enjoy all the haiku featured there, they are delicious.)

 

haiku #27 March 2011

.
earth report —
besides love, caesium
in water and in the air

.

Following the news on the BBC that “leaking water at reactor 2 has been measured at 1,000 millisieverts/hour – 10 million times higher than when the plant is operating normally.”
.

Publisher on hiatus

Publisher on hiatus

 

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.

 

haiku #11a March 2011

.
white silk kimono
on the shrine floor sake
on cherry blossoms

The horrendous violence of nature unfolding in Japan, and its effects on people and ‘things,’ made me wonder how words could reduce it to human scale; make it somehow comprehensible to me.

 

Haiku 11a was an attempt to reduce/freeze the violent, fulminant images I saw on TV to a simple, quiet one: a wedding at the shrine interrupted by the tsunami, the wedding sake spilled, the silk white kimono worn at weddings on the floor…


Literature, Art, and Life through the Lens of Haiku

Stella Pierides

Literature, Art, and Life through the Lens of Haiku

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