Haiga 683 Ban'ya Natsuishi haiku

Haiku by Ban'ya Natsuishi (Japan). Artwork by myself.
This is one of the earliest haiga I made, when I was playing with Photoshop. One thing about the Photoshop is that it has many effects that you can apply to the original photograph. So, for a while you are fascinated with the fancy features. Then you find the other people are doing the same, and suddenly it gets uninteresting. I see some works of similar nature submitted to the WHA haiga contest. Digital manipulation is done too carelessly in those works. It should be applied only when it is really necessary for the haiga. Now I used the software only for limited uses.

Haiga 682 Elezabeth S. Lamb haiku

Haiku by Elezabeth S. Lamb (USA). Artwork by myself.
Morning glories are summer flower here in Japan, but it seems that the flower blooms in autumn in some other parts of the world. The latter may be a different type than Japan one, and maybe the color and shape differ, too. This is one difficulty of sharing the same Kigo list internationally.

In a short form like haiku, effective use of Kigo becomes indeed effective. But we cannot always depend on Kigo if we are writing to the international readers. Some people propose "key words". Sounds like a good idea but it will be long before being accepted world wide.

Haiga 681 Minato, Keishi haiku

Haiku by Minato, Keishi (Japan). Artwork by myself.
Minato san is a professor of English literature at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Besides haiku, he write waka and longer poetry. He is active in on-line haiku also, so if you search under his name, you will find many links pointing to his activities.
------
Leaves are really turning now each morning. Great season.

Haiga 680 Nagata, Koi haiku

Haiku by Nagata,Koi (Japan). Artwork by myself.
Not many haijin write haiku like this. Nagata is an unique haijin. He was an engineer all his life. Has left quite influences on the younger generation of Japanese haijin. He happened to be living near a place I go almost every month, Suma district of Kobe city. I could have visited him if I had known, but I came to know his haiku much later after his death. He is also a good haiga painter. Once I went all the way to Himiji city, to a literary museum to see his haiga collections.
-----
Beautiful autumn days here now. I had a full day service at the church, and just came back home this morning. Going to Kyoto later today.

Haiga 679 Natalia Rudychev haiku

Haiku by Natalia Rudychev (USA-Russia). Artwork by myself.
Natalia san is a mysterious woman. We exchanged emails. I made some haiga. She sent me cards and presents. And she's just gone. I never heard from her since.

She is completely off-line, but occasionally her haiku quoted on some haiku blogs appear. Yesterday, I found one, and I decided to quote her here on my blog, too. I picked her haiku that was rather mysterious, and made the haiga accordingly.

Basho backgammon game

My Osaka friend sent to me this image of Japanese backgammon based on Basho's haiku journey in Oku, northeast Japan. The stops with manga are representative places Basho visited and wrote haiku. Interesting thing is that this game is printed on the back of a little pamphlet made by a tax office.

If you could name and come up with the related haiku just by looking at the manga, you are certainly well informed about "Oku no Hosomichi" or "Narrow Road to the Deep North". Right bottom manga is the beginning. The last one, which is in the center, is Iga Uneno, Basho' birth place.

Haiga 678 Miyazaki, Hisashi haiku

Haiku by Miyazaki, Hisashi (Japan). Artwork by myself.

Past two days were like back to summer, humid and hot. Now, it's back to normal autumn morning here. Leaves began to turn. I woke up a bit earlier than usual, and came to office. The ending part of October is always busy because of the church event, to which a lot of followers attend, including those from overseas. Already met a few from US last evening. This afternoon, I am giving a lecture in English.

It seems like one work attracts more works. Other than the church duties, several things must be handled within a couple weeks. Plus that, my office is moving soon. I hope things will be like the haiku here, hop, step and jump to the destination.

FROM 5 LANDS (CINQUETERRE)

Romano san from Italy sent me these photos. Such refleshing images.They show his cabin and the magnificent view around it. The cabin seems small but I think it is just perfect for writing haiku or engaging in other creative activities. This is the kind of place where you need to stay at least a week or so to really appreciate the environment, and come up with creative things.

I dream: I open any doors in my house and come out to find the other side of the door is the blue one like in the photo. The sea, light, wind, all mine to enjoy.
-------
I was in Osaka yesterday with my friends. We talked about the exhibition done in the summer, and about the coming exhibition to be held in January. This time, we will hold exhibition in the heart of Osaka city. Since Osaka is where Basho passed away, we will treat the fact as the main theme of the exhibition.

Haiga 677 Yamaguchi, Seishi haiku

Haiku by Yamaguchi, Seishi (Japan). Artwork by myself.
Going to Osaka this afternoon for a little get-together. We will discuss the next exhibition to be held within the heart of Osaka.

Haiga 676 Yamaguchi, Seishi haiku

Haiku by Yamaguchi, Seishi (Japan). Artwork by myself.
The season has changed. It is now in the middle of autumn. Portable electric fans around the house have been cleaned and are ready to be taken into the attic.

This year, because of energy shortage, I think many households restrained from using air conditioning and instead, brought out old electric fans during the summer. In my house, too, we used six fans. As the cold season approaches, we need to come up with something to compensate the air conditioning. Thus, the effect of 3.11 disaster lingers.

Fukushima now

The prefecture of Fukushima is where the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant situate. At the present, not many photos of the damaged plants are in public view. but there are some from the vicinities of the plants. Cities and towns near the plants are under compulsory evacuation measure. The photo here shows one of the cities. It has become a town with no inhabitant except dogs, cats, cows and the like. Everything about the city looks normal except the radiation, which is intangible, no smell, just quietly mingled in the air.

I added an astronaut to the photo to show this normal town is now like the moon. The air is there but human cannot breath it. Sunshine, water, breeze, all these things that provide comfortable environment to us are there, but we cannot appreciate them because of the radiation alone. That is just so nonsense.

Energy is a must for our modern life, and nuke provides it, but once the nuke gets out of hand, the result is wider areas like moon on this life-friendly earth. Thorough safety measures for the existing nuke plants all over the world is essential to out future.

Matsushima now

It has been almost 8 months since the 3.11 disaster devastated the northeast Japan, including the beautiful Matsushima bay and the islands. The first photo shows the bay from distance. It looks just as beautiful as before. The islands are more or less intact. The sightseeing businesses have resumed their operation, souvenir shops are open and sightseeing ferries are in operation. JR train needs more time to recover, but buses are available.


Because of the magnitude of the tsunami, its damage still remains along the coasts and beaches. The second photo shows a debris filled beach of Matsushima Bay. It seems more time is necessary before the bay regains it former beauty.

Haiga 675 Jack Kerouac haiku

Haiku by Jack Kerouac (USA). Artwork by myself.
Jack was a "Beat" poet and writer, and he wrote many haiku, too. It is not common that a major figure in the main stream literature write haiku. Or maybe I am misinformed and there are actually many who writes haiku, there is in fact someone like the guy who received the Nobel Prise this year. Anyway, I would like to see more people in the main stream start writing haiku so the haiku itself will be an integral part of world literature.

Haiga 674 Matsuo Allard haiku

Haiku by Matsuo Allard (USA). Artwork by myself.
This haiga is one of my experimental one with typography. I treated it in such a way that the words themselves convey what they meant to convey.

Some people might feel that Japanese calligraphy is necessary in haiga. I do not think so. In olden days in Japan, sumi brush was the only writing tool so that is what hajin then used to write haiku and draw haiga. The types of font you can create with sumi brush are limited, many of them may not be suitable for contemporary haiku.

In Japan now, there are a lot of fonts to choose from. And plus that, in the world where alphabets are used, there are rich stock of fonts, and these are available to us Japanese too now. Why not used them for haiku, and play with them.
Make use of the treasure and treat them in the way that convey the content of haiku is what I am trying here.

Haiga 674 Svetomir Djurbabic haiku

Haiku by Svetomir Djurbabic. Artwork by myself.

Svetomir Djurbabic lives in Nis, Serbia. A journalist in culture department of TV "Global". A member in editorialship of haiku magazine "Haiku novine". His haiku appeared in haiku magazines in Yugoslavia, Japan, USA, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Norvegen, and Slovenia.
--------
I am teaching a Tenrikyo scripture class for the past three days. It will last till next Tuesday. Though the class is two hours long, I must speak in English. I write English almost everyday, like this blog, but hardly have chances to speak it. I am scraping rust as I go along, and that is a quite demanding and consuming activity.

Haiga 673 Tomas Tranströmer haiku 4

Haiku by Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden). Artwork by myself.
This haiga is the last one of Tomas's haiku for now. I could not find many English translations. I might make some more in the future when I have some more haiku to work with.

Tomas's haiku is good to me because it gives me a lot of creative space so that I can let my imagination flying free. I just concentrate on the kind of images that share the spirit of the haiku.

For this series of haiga, I made drawings by hand first, then instead of scanning them, I just took digital photo and used automatic trace mode of my software. I found this way much simpler and the results were just as well.

Haiga 672 Tomas Tranströmer haiku 3

Haiku by Tomas Tranströme (Sweden). Artwork by myself.

Yet, another haiga for the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2011.

Haiga 671 Tomas Tranströmer haiku 2

Haiku by Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden). Artwork by myself.
Another haiku by the Nobel Prize winner. I used the bird again as a symbol of something that "get in". The verse says "I" can get in. But I do not think it is　the author himself, it is something abstract that nestles in his mind.

I used a toothbrush to draw the sough of rain. The bird was of course drawn with a regular sumi brush.

Haiga 670 Tomas Tranströmer haiku 1

Haiku by Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden). Artwork by myself.
Nobel Prize for Literature 2011 went to Tomas Tranströmer of Sweden. Congratulation!

Haiga 669 H.F. Noyes haiku

Haiku by H.F.Noyes (USA-Greece). Artwork by myself.

Toy is the joy.
Toy is also the cause of quarrel among kids.

Haiku is the joy.
Haiku is also the cause of quarrel among haijin.

So, haiku is a toy?

Haiga 668 Kuniharu Shimizu haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.

Santa of IT world passed away. Steve Jobs was only 56.
I touched my first Macintosh at around 45, and immediately charmed by its friendliness. Ever since then, Mac has been my toy and work tool as well. Steve pumped out great devices one after another. It was as if I was getting presents from Santa.

Santa's gone -
left in the garage are
unfinished toys

Haiga 667 Elizabeth S. Lamb haiku

Haiku by Elizabeth S. Lamb (USA). Artwork by myself.
Dream again.
While many of haiku written outside of Japan are based on direct observation of certain moments, the kind of haiku advocated by Masaoka Shiki, there are more of haiku written with variety of manners in Japan. One of that is one with dreamy quality. Almost like surrealistic.

Haiku is a poetry. So, like any other genre of literature and fine arts, haiku can also explore many possibilities other than direct observation. The efforts would make a shortest form of poetry just as powerful as the other artistic forms.

Haiga 666 Kuniharu Shimizu haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.
I had a dream last night. I was with someone and the world around us slowly turned around. I was alone now, walking on an unkown trail. I do not remember if I was passing through a valley, but it was dark and I had feeling I was been closed in. I saw birds flying away, and silence settled in.

My legs were getting tired, sweat seeping through my cloth, and suddenly I became aware that I was extremely thirsty. There was a trace of river by the trail. Just narrow ditch with sand. No water. Then I saw a boulder shinning in the sun and also spotted a glimpse of vegetation. A promising sign of water. I walked faster, but as I neared the boulder, the farther it receded and finally disappeared. Such a disappointment. I looked up to the sky as if to search another hope, but there was just empty blue sky.

The world turned around again, and that is when I awoke.

Haiga 665 Clelia Ifrim haiku

Haiku by Clelia Ifrim (Rumania). Artwork by myself.
It is more like going down steps of staircase rather than gentle descending slope. I am talking about the temperature, it has gotten lower in a few days here. Suddenly we have to change clothes, pulling out a futon from closet, switching from cold drink to hot one.

Nevertheless, the air is more crisp and clearer. The sky is bright and its blue is pristine. Welcome, Autumn san.

Haiga 664 Valeria S. Cecon haiku

Haiku by Valeria Simonova-Cecon (Russia-Italy). Artwork by myself.

In painting, the important components are like color, line, plane, and texture. The last one is often forgotten by the novice, but it helps great deal in making the picture plane interesting one to look at.

In this haiga, I used three textured color areas: flat , rough, and dotted. And I made all, retaining hand-drawn quality. By employing these qualities, I tried to stay away from impersonal look of digitally produced artwork. What I tried instead was to find a fitting expression for this particular haiku. I hope my intention shows.

Kindergarten event

Autumn is the season for Undokai, an athletic event for school children. The event was held at my grandkid's kindergarten today. The kid's papa was out of town and mom was one of the staff of the event, so I took some time off from work and baby-sat the youngest kid while her mom busily run the event.

My school mate from elementary school is the head of the kindergarten now. She was a very active girl then, and no boys could beat her in all of the kids sports. My youngest grandkid (the one in photo) is somehow like her, so active that I had to run after her all the time. The day turned out to be an athletic event for me, too.

Athletic Day,
young feet overruns
the old ones

Haiga 663 Kuniharu Shimizu haiku

Haiku and artwork by myself.
As I write haiku, I sometimes come up with something that resembles haiku. The one here is one of them. I also made a graphic for it. I made "headlights" and "taillights" italic because they are in motion, and "a streetlight" regular because it stands still.

After many years, I am still not sure if this verse is a haiku. It looks like a so called shopping list haiku. Though I cannot name it, I feel some kind of poetic thing in it, and I think that is a valuable thing not to be discarded.