NaHaiWriMo 2019: week 2

juncos and sparrows
around the bird feeder
— black cat slinking

[2/8 prompt = black cat]

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using a towel
for a superhero cape . . .
childhood

[2/9 prompt = cape]

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heat shimmer . . .
men at work
laying asphalt

[2/10 prompt = Vegemite]

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rolling blackouts . . .
I back up
my backup

[2/11 prompt = computer crash]

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rainy day —
roof-gutter gargoyles
spitting

[2/12 prompt = gargoyles]

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mixed in with commercials
a few minutes of
TV show

[2/13 prompt = commercials]

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the subway train’s
hot breath!
piston wind

[2/14 prompt = subway]

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Prompts, posts, and participant submissions: https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo/

More on NaHaiWriMo and writing haiku: http://www.nahaiwrimo.com

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NaHaiWriMo 2019: week 1

torn trash bag —
strewn in the street
dirty diapers

[2/1 prompt = dirty diapers]

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thin walls . . .
pretending to
not hear

[2/2 prompt = thin walls]

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flare!
raiding party freezes
between trench lines

[2/3 prompt = motion-activated light]

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mystery meat . . .
he vows to go
vegetarian

[2/4 prompt = spam]

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artificial flavors
and colors —
the psychedelic ’60s

[2/5 prompt = artificial coloring]

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from snout to feet to curly tail:
pink and perfumed
for the farm fair

[2/6 prompt = pigs’ feet]

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center of town —
raising the sidewalk
a gnarled tree root

[2/7 prompt = sidewalk]

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Prompts, posts, and participant submissions: https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo/

More on NaHaiWriMo and writing haiku: http://www.nahaiwrimo.com

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NaHaiWriMo 2019

Tomorrow is February 1st here in the U.S., and haiku poets across the land will go outside and look for their shadow. Or is that Groundhog Day? Anyway, whether we see our shadow or not, there will follow 28 days of haiku!  :- D

Rather than post to this blog each day, this year I will save up my work and post weekly.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . Happy New Year — I mean, Happy NaHaiWriMo!

(I’m getting my holidays all confused. LOL!- )

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Prompts, posts, and participant submissions: https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo/

More on NaHaiWriMo and writing haiku: http://www.nahaiwrimo.com

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Summer’s end

By Zee Zahava (stanzas 1, 3, 5) and Bill Waters (stanzas 2, 4, 6)

early September

lazy clouds

lazy me

 

floating on the breeze

a puff of milkweed fluff

 

heading toward the lake

seventy-six white butterflies

three dragonflies

 

weathered dock

my toes in the water

Queen Anne’s lace in my hair

 

a neat pile of cherry pits

lined up beside me

 

melting into the lake

a sherbet sun . . .

summer’s end

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Published in Vines no. 3 (https://hedgerowpoems.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/vines-3.pdf), 1/30/19.

About Zee Zahava:

—> http://zeezahava.blogspot.com/p/more-about-me.html

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Update: Postcards from the Edge

This past fall, collaborator-friend Lorette C. Luzajic and I submitted a piece of postcard art to a benefit art show and sale in New York City called Postcards from the Edge. (I wrote about this project in a prior post: Postcards from the Edge.)

It was recently announced that this year, the 21st-annual event will be held on Saturday February 23rd, 10am-6pm, at . . . Bortolami, 39 Walker Street, Tribeca!

Bortolami Gallery, Tribeca.

Postcards from the Edge offers a rare opportunity to acquire original, postcard-sized artwork from internationally renowned and emerging artists for only $85 each. Offered on a first-come, first-served basis, over 1400 works are exhibited anonymously, and the identity of the artist is revealed only after the work is purchased. With the playing field leveled, all participants can take home a piece by a famous artist, or one who’s just making their debut in the art world. Nonetheless, collectors walk away with something beautiful, a piece of art they love!

Postcards from the Edge, 2018.

If you happen to attend the event and see this postcard on the wall . . .

Red Poppy 29 (Time), by Lorette C. Luzajic. Poem by Bill Waters.

. . . please take a photo and send it to feedback4bill@juno.com. Lorette and I would be so grateful!  _/|\_

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For more information about Lorette C. Luzajic: http://www.squarefootartbylorette.ca/about.html

For more information about Visual AIDS: http://visualaids.org/about

For more information about Postcards from the Edge: https://visualaids.org/events/detail/21st-annual-postcards-from-the-edge

For more information about Bortolami Gallery: https://bortolamigallery.com

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Lilacs

By Bill Waters (poem) and Robin White (photo)

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Published in Daily Haiga (http://www.dailyhaiga.org/haiga-archives/2435/-slowly-by-bill-waters-usa), 1/18/19.

About Robin White:
—> http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/robin-white/page/3/

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Growing Up with G.I. Joe

In the 1960s, G.I. Joe was a proxy for the me I wished to be. Physically fit, self-reliant, and battle-tested (that facial scar!), he was armed and ready to defend American ideals. Loaded like a pack mule with equipment and supplies, Joe had all he needed to deal with enemies of any sort.

For me, G.I. Joe was not a figure of aggression. Like America itself (the romanticized version), he was as ready to extend a hand in friendship as he was to throw a punch in self-defense. He was part adventurer, part warrior, and part superhero — all that I was not.

Maybe I was too “into” G.I. Joe; I don’t know. But I was just a kid, and Joe — one of the true good guys in a boy’s life — helped me feel better about myself.

“it’s not a doll!”
ready for anything
his action figure

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Published in Contemporary Haibun Online (http://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/pages144/Waters_Growing.html), 12/30/18.

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Old-growth forest

Kirtland, Ohio, is home to the magnificent 3,600-acre Holden Arboretum:

Documenting more than 120,000 plants, the Arboretum’s horticultural focus is on a recognized collection of trees and shrubs, which are displayed in gardens accompanied by groundcovers and perennials, and in themed collections.

One such themed collection is the Seasons of Haiku poetry trail, and one of my poems is on display there for the winter:

Seasons of Haiku: such a cool outdoor poetry project!  :- D

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More about The Holden Arboretum: https://www.holdenarb.org/about/.

More about the Seasons of Haiku poetry trail: http://www.holdenarb.org/seasons-of-haiku-interpretive-trail/.

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The deer and me

By Bill Waters (poem) and Robin White (photo)

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Published in Daily Haiga (http://www.dailyhaiga.org/haiga-archives/2423/-standing-by-bill-waters-usa), 12/23/18.

About Robin White:
—> http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/category/author/robin-white/page/3/

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Data haiga

Artists are doing some very cool things these days with “big data.” Data visualization — no longer the sole province of researchers — is proving to be as appealing to the eye as it is informative to the brain. But I am a writer of very short things, and my “data”, so to speak, is correspondingly small. Still, I recently found myself wondering if I too could use data visualization to add a different dimension to my haiku.

With that in mind, I took a one-line poem of mine — “putting down my book I read the falling snow” — and plotted how many times each letter of the alphabet occurs in it. Since the resulting graph did look reasonably like falling snow, I wove my poem into it and voila: a “data haiga”!  :- D

Data becomes a snow storm (kind of) in this graph, which plots the letters of the embedded poem against how often they occur.

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Published in SONIC BOOM …for writing that explodes, issue 13, 12/9/18.