Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka. Kigo No.29.

Good morning and welcome to Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka Challenge. For this week’s prompt Colleen suggests: “This week, a new Ekphrastic prompt is introduced, inspired by Japanese Season of Clear and Bright. Choose a painting for inspiration and create a poem with kigo words.” Colleen then goes on to tell us her news: “I have two anniversaries this week! First, it’s been 10 years since I first started blogging on WordPress! WOO HOO!! And, I’m still here. LOL! 😂🥳 Next, our 39th wedding anniversary is today! 🥳 🥂 🍾.

To celebrate, let’s do something different, since we’re in the third week of the Japanese Season of Clear and Bright…How about an Ekphrastic prompt?”

For the Northern Hemisphere:

For the Southern Hemisphere:

Congratulions Colleen on your Wedding anniversary I hope you and hubby have a wonderful day! Also congratulations on your 10th Blogiversary! 🎉🎉🎊🎊🥂🍾🌈💜💜

I have done a double Etheree and my Kigo words are Spring Mornings, Dappled light and shade,Spring flowers, chill winds, April Rain,April showers.

From Facebook: Artist – Kaoru Yamaha

Spring
Mornings
Oftentimes
Dreaming of warmth
Dappled light and shade
I have the colours, true
Spring flowers and skies of blue
Yet chill winds reach through to my bones
Daydreams of Tuscany will abound
Within sun and heavy April showers
Tease my brain, chill my heart and thermostat .
I long to walk bare armed yet still warm
Flipflopping along toes singing
Every inch of me alive
History ouzing out
Of walls and pavements
Ghosts of seasons
Past. Washed by
April
Rain

24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry Challenge, No. 26.

24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry Challenge, No. 26, 3/19/24, Part I, The Spring Equinox (March 20 – April 3) Shunbun 春分

March 19, 2024

Colleen at Tanka Tuesday said “The 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge celebrates the spring equinox, a time of new beginnings and seasonal changes. Participants are invited to use specific seasonal words in their poetry. The challenge encompasses various forms of poetry and encourages creativity.”

🪻 🪻 🪻

depth of field photography of tulip flowers

🌷 Welcome to the 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge for #TankaTuesday! 🌷

I have chosen to write three tankas today. I have used the Kigo words, Spring Dawn, Squirrels, foraging, playing in the fields, Meadows, Mad march hares, March winds. The last Tanka I tried something different, I took some words from a song Sam wrote added my own words and changed them into a Kigo . I tried hard to match his metre.

Spring dawn sees Squirrels
foraging and playing in
the fields and meadows
they’re all as mad as March hares.
the year is flowing on by.

The barometer
swinging madly up and down
spring catches us out
anticipation of warmth
keeps our wardrobe in real flux.

Let’s all be quiet
the garden is a riot
yellow purple pink
they are tipping us the wink
the March winds are ignited.

Tuesday Tanka. Early Cold Season Part 2.

Early Cold (January 5 – 20) Shokan 小寒

Welcome to the 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge for #TankaTuesday!

The 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge for #Tanka Tuesday continues with the second week of the Early Cold season. This week’s writing invitation is to compose a haibun using the kigo words and phrases from the Early Cold Part I challenge post.

Walking at First Light

I still miss her, following at my heels. In the early morning. She wrapped in her double fur coat, me shivering. We’d traipse the fields, the birds looking for food on the hard cold earth. She never threatened them curious she’d check out where they pecked. Now I greet the winter dawn alone these days, the crows still forage.

cold light breaks
wrapping my coat close
crows forage

24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry Challenge, No. 9, 11/21/23, Light Snow (November 22 – December 6)

TankaTuesday Challenges

Light snow Shosetsu 小雪 & Fine Weather: Shoman 小満 Southern Hemisphere

The 24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry challenge, #TankaTuesday, invites participation using a kigo word or phrase in a syllabic poem. Focusing on the seasonal themes, “Light Snow” in Northern Hemisphere and “Fine Weather” in Southern Hemisphere, the challenge encourages reflection on how the current season influences individuals.

I have chosen three Tankas that help express how this time of year makes me feel. .. I have used these Kigo words. Twilight of the year, gratitude, winter coats, making amends, taking stock of the year.

Early winter snow ❄️❄️ Tanka

She has worked so hard
sporting red and white berries
creatures foraging
she’s taking stock of the year
earth wearing her winter coat

So cold the wind blows
I put on my winter coat
grateful for it’s warmth
protection against winter.
The skies laden with first snow

The earth turns swiftly
as does my life, memories
haunting my conscience
twilight of the year or life?
nature and I make amends

24 Seasons Syllabic Poetry Challenge, No. 2, 10/3/2023, #TankaTuesday Autumn.

24 Seasons

This week will be the first time that I am joining in with Colleen’s 24 Season’s Symbolic Challenge. Colleen said.”This is the second week of the autumn equinox (or spring equinox in the southern hemisphere). Every two weeks we will move into another season in the 24 Japanese Seasons HERE. Now, we find ourselves fully embracing the fruits of our harvest from the year with gratitude and thanksgiving. We know autumn has arrived and that winter is right around the corner. What a great time to reflect on the harvest traditions of the past. It’s the perfect season to write poetry as we’re balanced between summer and winter.“

How does this time of year affect you where you live? Think about the seasonal changes. What descriptive words come to mind? If they work to define the season you’re in at your location, add them to your kigo list.

My words are: Mists, Leaves, Russets, Death and chill.

Found on Facebook: Painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Moonlit Lane.

mists swirl carrying
the leaves, red and gold
the dying time of year

bonfires of dead leaves
nights drawn in, like cloaks
the dead sleep restless.

russet carpets crunch
as homeward I trudge
raw chill bites my soul.

Part of Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka.

TankaTuesday Weekly #Poetry Challenge No. 320, 5/15/2023

WELCOME TO #TANKATUESDAY!

短歌火曜日

This week’s challenge Colleen Chesebro’s Tanka Tuesday Challenge is Synonyms Only. That means we select synonyms for the two words below. Please use the synonyms in your poem. Let’s work with opposites and see what we can create.

💼 Work & Play 💃🏼

I am trying, a new to me style. A Landay, I found this on Kat Mryman’s page Like Mercury Colliding She said this about the style.

“Landay – The Landay is the poetic form of Afghan women. The poem is 22 syllables long and contains 2 lines. 9 syllables in the first and 11 in the second. (While there is no mention of rhyme in the description above, most of the examples I have seen do include rhyme at the end of each line.) Subjects can include, but are not limited to, war, separation, homeland, grief, or love.

Pronunciation/Etymology. In Pashto, “landay (LAND-ee)” means “short, poisonous snake,” likely an allusion to its minimal length and use of sarcasm. Landays (or landai) often criticize traditions and gender roles.”

In life souls will die if all is toil
So dance, sing and love as well as till the soil

#TankaTuesday Weekly #Poetry Challenge No. 314, 4/4/23

WELCOME TO #TANKATUESDAY!

短歌火曜日

Colleen said :”April is my anniversary & birthday month. So, let’s have some fun! This week’s challenge is to write a specific form with a twist!

Write a shadorma, or a series of shadorma poems using three to five of the random words provided: scale fish month (soup) (smile) (sticks)
(slave)property (songs) bushes (rock)
disease (shade) clouds (giants) (spring)
grape books polish (wing) approval
comparison (walk) front hot. “

I have been a little greedy and used eleven words which I have bracketed above. My poem is about War and big bully countries invading or keeping smaller ones down… It’s about all war really.

I am a
Slave to hopes and dreams
I fly on
Wings of fire
Landing on giants shoulders
To make them want peace

Sticks and rocks
Thrown land at their feet
Unheeded
Unruffled
Riding armoured tanks they fire
Their bullets and bombs

Can we grow
Green bushes for shade
Could we walk
Hand in hand
And eat soup in harmony
Can we learn to smile

Can we stop
Fighting ? Together
We should all
Be as one
Underneath we are the same
Sing of peace not war.

THIS IS PART OF COLLEEN CHESEBRO’S TUESDAY TANKA CHALLENGE.

TankaTuesday Weekly #Poetry Challenge No. 313, 3/28/23

WELCOME TO #TANKATUESDAY!

短歌火曜日.

Our poetry community brings poets together from all around the world. What does it look like where you live?

Here is whatColleen’s has given us for this week’s prompt. “This week, share the view outside your window by writing a poem in syllabic form. If you write a freestyle form, please add a syllabic form to your post. Have fun!”

I have decided to write a Shadorma. This is a poetic form consisting of a six-line stanza (or sestet). Each stanza has a syllable count of three syllables in the first line, five syllables in the second line, three syllables in the third and fourth lines, seven syllables in the fifth line, and five syllables in the sixth line (3/5/3/3/7/5) for a total of 26 syllables.

Plip plop plip
Not seeming to stop
Gentle rain
Or hard rain
Continuously drip drops
Will it ever stop

Spring is here
It sure is trying
Pushing roots
Crocuses
And daffodils are sprouting
Starbursts of colour

Rain drops on
Splatter my window
A chill wind
Still blows hard
Where is the warm spring sunshine
I fear it is lost

Under foot
Squelching as we walk
Water pools
Runs down hill
Next month brings April showers
Hopefully with warmth.

Flip flop swish
We’re in the car now
Windscreen wet
Wiper blades
Swipe steadily side to side
It’s just like winter.

PART OF Colleen Chesebro’s Tuesday Tanka.

#TankaTuesday Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 277: #Tastetherainbow-Colour Poetry.

Colleen is here with her prompt she said : “Hello everyone. Happy June and Pride Month! This week, choose a syllabic form and a colour to feature in your poem. If the form is from the #TankaTuesday cheat sheet, let us know so we know where to look for directions. If it’s a new form, share how to write it and where you found the instructions. Think about the different ways you can use colour in a poem.”

I have chosen a Sijo this week . Which is a Korean form believed to have first been used in the fourteenth century. It is similar in structure to various Japanese forms such as Haiku. As with many forms of poetry, the Sijo became a preferred poetry form of the yangban or ruling class as well as royalty. They were written in Chinese and were originally short songs set to music. The focus of the Sijo is usually nature and contemplation.

There are: Three Lines
14-16 syllables per line
A total of 44-46 syllables for the entire poem.

So many layers of colour to the cake a profusion of love
Pride has more than one meaning, though all of them are valid
Whichever tune you march to be true to each other always

35 Words
46 Syllables.

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈.

This is part of Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka Challenge.

#TankaTuesday Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 263, 3/1/22: #Tastetherainbow-Colour Poetry.

Hello everyone. Colleen said “This week, let’s have fun with the colour of March: GREEN!

Green is one of those colours that includes many shades. This colour also has different meanings not associated with the color.

This week’s challenge is to choose your own syllabic form and a shade of green to feature in your syllabic poem. You’ll receive bonus points if you don’t use the name: green. You’ll also receive bonus points if you can also incorporate a different meaning for the word green in your poem.

I have decided to do a Haiku using new apprentice, meaning green, no experience. Verdant meaning, lush and green, and Viridesence meaning greenish or becoming green.