Mizu No Oto - Every Image Has Its Haiku - Edition # 39 (English)
haiku by Cezar-Florin Ciobîcă (Romania)
Welcome to the October English edition of the Bananafish haiku contest!
Here is how this contest works:
A photo is posted.
You write a haiku inspired by that photo with your own post (use #haikucontest as your first tag) or a comment in the comment section.
You can read other’s haiku and vote for one of them, answering to the special Bananafish comment in the comment section.
The authors of the Best Haiku, Popular Choice, and Best Vote Comment WIN 5 STEEM, 5 SBI & 1000 SNAX!
The contest deadline for both posting haiku and voting is the payout of this post (7 days from the publication). There will be another post with the winners proclamation after 1-2 days from the deadline.
@f3nix tireless work and the vital support by @curie and @crowdmind allow us to keep the amount of prizes up for grabs, which continue to include the SNAX token (see below).
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
The Prizes:
Courtesy of our partners, @Crowdmind, we're now also giving away SNAX tokens!
Check out Crowdmind's Interview with the team from the SNAX blockchain as well as our previous post.
To receive your SNAX rewards, you'll need to have a SNAX wallet. The best one so far is Nabla app.
Otherwise, you can use Snax.One
Here's a tutorial with photos. on how to set a Snax.One wallet.
So, the prizes now are:
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
The requirements:
• The haiku should be related to the prompt image.
• A haiku has no title.
• The haiku should be in English, or include an English translation.
• The English haiku form is: a short (3-4 syllable) verse, a longer (5-6 syllable) verse, another short (3-4 syllable) verse.
• There should be the kireji (切れ字), a cut between the 1st and the 2nd verses, or between the 2nd and the 3rd; the cut can be grammatical, as a sign of punctuation, or it can be a cut in the meaning, like two different images.
• The time window to post your haiku and cast your votes is up to the payout of this post.
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
Prompt Image:
[photo by @marcoriccardi]
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
Do you want to know how we evaluate the submitted haiku? These are the characteristics we search for:
• Kigo (季語), an explicit or implicit reference to a season, that defines the time of the year in which the haiku is composed or referred to.
• Sabi (寂), the sense of the inexorable passage of time, the beauty or serenity that accompanies the advance of age, when the life of the objects and its impermanence are highlighted by patina and wear or by any visible repairs.
• Wabi (侘寂), the taste for frugal and natural things, rustic simplicity, freshness or silence; it can be applied to both natural and artificial objects, or even non-ostentatious elegance.
• Mono no aware (物の哀れ), empathy with nature and human life; the "feeling of things", nostalgia, regret for the passing of time, understanding of the changeability and of the transience without suffering.
• Yūgen (幽玄), sense of wonder and mystery; it represents the state of mind produced by the inexplicable fascination of things, the feeling of an 'other' universe, full of mysterious unity.
• Karumi (軽み), beauty in simplicity; poetic beauty reflected in its simplicity, free from preconceptions and moral judgment.
• Shiori (しおり), gentleness; the levity and the delicate charm that radiates from the verses, where things are evoked in the reader without aggressiveness or excessive explicitness.
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
Shibui: the bitter charm of things
We are people with a culture of derivation mostly European. We often struggle to conceive the concept of beauty as understood by Japanese haijin. We associate beauty with colorful, bright, opulent things. Beauty can have a declination that we generally consider more delicate and refined, associating it with an Apollonian ideal of harmony, composure and measure; or it can have a declination often considered more crude and uncouth, when colors, shapes and materials are more flamboyant and excessive. Even in literature, beauty is often connected to elaborate constructions, rhetorical figures, a high language register with an accurate lexical search, that is different from everyday speech.
Instead, the Japanese concept of beauty, for the most part, was formed under the secular influence of Buddhist schools that have operated a cultural pressure towards extreme minimalism, the subtraction of all that is not strictly essential. This fact emerges from many aesthetic categories of which we have spoken during these months. There are, also in Japan, aesthetic currents that use a language rich in frills, opulent and almost gaudy: for example, the temples of Nikko with their rich and elaborate decorations. However, in general, true elegance is associated with simple lines, monochrome and everything that can suggest emptiness rather than fullness.
Here is our main problem when we try to compose a haiku. We are naturally inclined to enrich it with unusual words, with some verbal play or with a witty remark. It almost seems to us that if we do not put something extra, we are not writing a true poem.
A word that the Japanese often use to indicate elegance and refinement is shibui (渋 い), which means "austere", but more properly "astringent". It’s a word connected to the taste of unripe fruits and it’s the contrary to amai (甘 い), meaning "sweet".
Therefore, the sour and unripe fruits are considered superior to the ripe and sweet ones. The same pungent and minimalist quality applies to artistic events: in literature, elegance is closer to silence; in painting, it’s closer to the void.
This elegance also extends to social attitudes and lifestyles, in which ostentation is rejected, and austerity is exalted. Beauty is not obvious, but must be carefully sought by the observer. As the taste of the observer is refined, her sensitivity intensifies, the more she will be able to appreciate the shibui.
Soft colors, simple textures, a non-striking - seldom mysterious - linguistic register: all this is shibui, and it’s curious how we consider all this as "modern" in our culture. Minimalist furniture, soft colors, straight and clean lines, simplicity of forms, brevity and essentiality in communication: when we find all this around us, it makes us think about modernity, but the haiku have been bringing it for centuries.
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
Good haiku to everybody!
Your bananafishous haiku herald
![banner-divisorio_2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVsLWbB5qEaJv63SCgF64RXDiGWGuC3WmuqwXwfKJgQDr/banner-divisorio_2.jpg)
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
Let’s the Bananafish Tribe grow together!
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmafzEUz4wQAi1t4MUsKxPhbmrjDRFrDFgfQhREeBzaVC2/BANANAFISH_-page-001.jpg)
With delegations, Bananafish VP will grow and consequently the upvotes given to every contest entry will be higher.
Following the voting trail is a way to make sure you always support the other participants to the Bananafish contests, automatically upvoting the posts (but not the comments) Bananafish upvotes.
Join the Bananafish Realms on Discord and chat with us: https://discord.gg/ZWmEUWT
If you’re interested, here you can find all the information needed.
[banner credit: @f3nix]
Other Bananafish awesome contests and creative works (click on the banners):
![BananaFishSeparator.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVCY1ga5NdmgZPq2dBVWen3xGaGxcFhGVmU8wzPBpzocu/BananaFishSeparator.gif)
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://www.crowdmind.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/steemit_banner_cw_B.png)
Here's my offering:
Conquered sand castles
I close my eyes and breathe deep
As the tide recedes
Welcome back, @gwilberiol!
There's something something very wabi-sabi and even subtly ironic in those conquered sand castles
Very nice! Captures the serenity after a some kind of ruckus that I see in that photo too.
Hi marco, evocative photo. My thoughts, in haiku:
Twin boulders
Sentinels on shore
Time erodes
I like the message you convey ... the inexorable passing of time, that changes everything
Autumn I think leads to such thoughts...changing of the seasons. Fading of green, passage of time and life. Thank you for your insightful comment :)
What a beautiful detail "Sentinels on shore"
Thank you! I try my hand at Haiku because I'm not a poet, but I am a thinker :))
oh I love the metaphor of sand and time, the sands of time. Hey that might work as a last line for mine! Oh wait I forgot who I was commenting on. Where you been? I keep dropping by to check on you, but you're not there.
You're too kind...I just read your poem. It is perfect. My belief: a poet is born. The rest of us can learn how to write verse, but not poetry. You are a poet. Don't let anyone change a comma on that gem you crafted :)
I am well. Just a slow thinker. Coming up with ideas for blogs, then getting distracted. So many ideas. So much time. So little focus :))
Good luck in the contest.
In my humble opinion, becoming a poet is like every other know-how: 10% gift, 90% hard work. Natural talent only makes learning easier and faster.
:))
Ah, but that 10%...
Hope you are well and peaceful.
That 10% is what can make you write poetry effortlessly, but it's worth nothing if you really want to do it. If you got true dedication, you can succeed even without talent. If you don't have dedication, you may waste any talent.
love too the boulders as sentinels, protectors against the erosions of both time and water. Awesome this one is awesome.
Hello, greetings to all, this is my humble entry:
Looking at the sea,
My soul flies.
Yes! Mine too. It's hard not to soar there. Love the elements in this one - earth, sea, air, mind and spirit. Holy cow, either I am getting better at reading haiku or we are all getting really good at this!
Appropriate contrast! "On the ground...flies" Matter and spirit, through the sea
the sea calls
a beached sailor pines
for freedom
I am pretty sure that this is my first haiku.
This is fun. Thanks.
Well, I love this haiku. I won't analyze it, just go with the feelings.... and amazingly, the narrative....it so efficiently evokes.
Write more :)
Welcome to Mizu no Oto!
The two parts separated by the kireji complement each other perfectly
Thanks.
May I ask if rhyming words are to be avoided with haikus?
Marco here with my personal account (I'm the same guy who runs Mizu no Oto for Bananafish ;) )
Yes, rhymes are generally to be avoided with haikus, but allitteration is somewhat allowed, if it sounds spontaneous
Thanks. I kinda had that feeling.
Welcome! It's a great haiku. It has movement, longing, great structure, and we hear what the sailor hears, see what they see, want what they want. Nice, very nice for #1.
at the cusp
of the turning tides
harmony
https://steempeak.com/@owasco/mizu-no-oto-every-image-has-its-haiku-edition-39-english
Hi poets. Happy to participate in this edition of Haiku in English. My entry https://steemit.com/haikucontest/@marcybetancourt/mizu-no-oto-every-image-has-its-haiku-edition-39-english
Silent waves
the sky and sea, blue.
Birds will return.
I didn't notice the quality of absence until you mentioned the birds. Now the scene seems empty and quiet.
Greetings. Here is the link to my participation in Mizu No Oto - Every Image Has Its Haiku - Edition # 39 (English). Good luck!
https://steemit.com/steempress/@josemalavem/myparticipationinmizunooto-everyimagehasitshaiku-edition39english-0j2uou1afm
Autumn tides
Waters recover
their old lands
Backward looking and forward looking. The tides, creating a connection between the past and the future. Captures the spirit of autumn.
Hi @bananafish, here is my haiku:
The wide ocean
curly waves in the wind,
carry your love.
https://steemit.com/haikucontest/@felixgarciap/my-entry-for-mizu-no-oto-every-image-has-its-haiku-edition-39-english
Hello everyone, this is mi entry:
https://steemit.com/spanish/@salvao/myentryformizunooto39englisheditionespeng-xrwb1hqvey
Dos en la orilla.
El alma de lo inerte
cuenta su historia...
Two on the shore.
The soul of the inert
tells its story...
Absolutely wonderful, in both languages
My haiku lovers.
I am here, leaving you my participation:
https://steemit.com/haikucontest/@gracielaacevedo/mizunooto-cadaimagentienesuhaiku-edicin39ingls-gbhdx2nwbx
I hear the waves,
the beginning, my way.
!soft and hard!
A lovely contrast. And it does capture a wave, lapping at the shore, and crashing down.
The wave breaks the stone in a very subtle way.
I would not know which is hard or which is strong.