Be An Artist with Your Words!

Is writing overwhelming?tennessee 087

It doesn’t need to be. If, for example you’re writing Haibun, decide what you wish to write about or when prompted for a writing exercise using a photo (like the one on the right), a word or a phrase. Perhaps a thought you’ve been dwelling on, or an experience.

Okay next,

take a few minutes to think about what you’d like to say. What does the prompt you’ve chosen mean to you? Decide how you feel about it. What thoughts, memories, experiences come to mind as you ponder? How do you want to present this?

Writing can be powerful if the author exudes his or her own personality in a style of their own emotional expression and flow of words.

With this in mind, begin!

  • Write a few paragraphs (one or more). Use “word power” and “word placement” to sharpen emphasis. You may think of this as an art form. (Like picking a certain type of instrument to produce a specific effect in a musical score, or a certain kind of brushstroke for a painting.)
  • If your writing Haibun style, include one or more haiku (a form of Japanese poetry), either as a closing to your piece or in-between the paragraph(s) to add emphasis. (sample below)
 

artistic essence

balancing of style and words

creativity flows

 
  • And there you go. You’re writing haibun style. Publish your written piece on your blog for others to read and enjoy.

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The following is a sample haibun from a quote by e.e. cummings:

Credit line: © Pavla Zakova | Dreamstime.com

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful 

– e.e. cummings

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One of those days. Overcast skies and wet, everything so wet. Restless children kept inside during never-ending showers. Of a sudden, a break appears in the clouds and sunshine peaks through. Children’s faces pressed tightly against window panes, a longing look outdoors. I know this feeling.

Dressing quickly in rain gear they hurry outside; running around everywhere, feeling free again. No longer caged indoors. I know this feeling also. Feet pad over spongy soaked ground, rich with brownness of expression. Liquid cocoa rivulets flow into muddy puddles adorning pathways.

Playful children. They’ve discovered their own sense of freedom, also brown in expression, jumping into muddy puddles. A joyful abandon, splashing about. Completely carefree of thought and action. This feeling I’ve known too. Where has it gone?

 

longing for freedom

lost innocence remembered

expressions in brown

*

I hope you enjoyed the process. May your days ahead be filled with your own artistic word stylings.

Thanks for stopping by.

~ Penny

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Haibun – Flow is the balance, Time the illusion

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Dew on Spider Web 

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The flow is the balance.

She, a runner of life, knows flow is the balance. Running through early morning golden meadows, hair streaming behind, her breathing is deep and even. Her essence is air, the flow is balanced. A runner’s secret, balance can create speed but speed is cause not effect.

On this morning the soles of her feet fleetingly touch upon damp morning dew on a spider web. Something occurs, an otherworldly melding of effect with cause. Balance is cause but time is effect. She runs on with balance changed. She is fleeter, running more swiftly, the blending of the web’s moisture and air melting elements together. Magic? She finds she can now run through time. Her yesterdays, todays and tomorrows – an all-time effect!

The flow is the balance. The effect, the melding of time. Now she runs through life, her life and all life. An amazing thing.  An illusion? She runs on.

The balance is the flow – time the illusion.

*

a runner of life

nature’s flow, cause and effect

time, the melding of magic

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This is the Haven of Haibun, Consider it a home away from home for haibun writers/readers. If you would like to have one of your previously published or posted haibun or haiku reposted here, please let me know in the comment section. I would enjoy displaying your work for you!

Also you can use any theme I’ve chosen and write your own haibun, just let me know when it’s published and I’ll be happy to link it here at the Haven of Haibun.

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Stay balanced, in harmony with yourself, life and nature.

~ Penny

Haibun Tribute to Marilyn Monroe

 Marilyn Monroe

Life is lived in gulps when you’re creative, when you’re beautiful, when you’re smart, when you’re born very poor and a female. Those irreconcilable differences of who and why you even exist, much less the fabric of who you are become inconsolable when alone, so once famous enough you gulp at things in a curious mixture of compelling needs, desires and forbidden fruit.

Filling needs unfillable by your definition of life and understanding. Too little, too late, and unendurable doubt of what is real and true.

So more and more those gulps of life lived on the edge take over, extremes of danger, risk, passion. Either that or through oblivion’s eyes watch as night stretches endlessly out towards the unattainable, cleanly defined by who you are not.

Longing to be just who you are – not who you made yourself become – to be recognized.

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not who I am

filling nights endless void

all I am not

***

Marilyn Monroe (photo above “street art depiction”) is undoubtedly one of the most famous recognizable hollywood actresses in the world today although her stardom and death happened more than a half a century ago.

She is viewed as a major sex symbol and yet Norma Jeane Mortenson (her real name) poor, lonely and indifferently bandied about foster care homes for most of her youth understood, at a very young age, that her best chance at life was to become something other than what she was. The view from her talented and intelligent eyes being that what she was – wasn’t working very well as far as life’s conditions went.

Her last few years are indicative of the emotional trauma within her. Illness, drug problems, depression. And yet today she is a pop and cultural icon, due entirely to the fact of how well she recreated herself – sadly for the wrong reasons – Acceptance! She died of an overdose of barbiturates in 1962! Her legacy lives on.

Thank you for dropping by.

This is the Haven of Haibun, Consider it a home away from home for haibun writers/readers. If you would like to have one of your previously published or posted haibun or haiku reposted here, please let me know in the comment section. I would enjoy displaying your work for you!

~ Penny

Hope – Haibun of a Puffball

Funny thing about “Hope”. It is both fragile beyond imagining yet often has tenacity and strength, seemingly unbelievable.

How can this be?

Perhaps an analogy made with a puffball, to enlighten.

A Wish upon a puffball – one single little seed!

Fingers carefully grasped the fragile puffball’s stem, not wanting to disturb ethereal seeds too soon. My wish might not be heard, but blown away. Wish made, I blew gently, scattering fair dandelion seeds upon moist morning breezes.

Wishful thinking indeed for hopes to be realized, yet all that’s needed for the puffball is but a single seed. A lone survivor tossed in the unpredictable winds of nature. Only takes one … one seed to reach the earth for regrowth and fruition.

And so it is with hope – a seed of potential and possibility, cast upon the winds of fortune.

May our hopes, dreams and wishes reach fruition. All that is needed is one single seed!

hope strengthens me

a most delicate framework

of possibilities

~

This is the Haven of Haibun, Consider it a home away from home for haibun writers/readers. If you would like to have one of your previously published or posted haibun or haiku reposted here, please let me know in the comment section. I would enjoy displaying your work for you!

Thank you kindly for stopping by,

~ Penny

“Tempus Fugit” -The Haibun of Time

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“Tempus Fugit”

Ah yes it seems time does fly, zooming nano-seconds amid micro-moments; often without pause. And yet even so … there are … occasionally ‘in betweens’ in these passages. ‘In betweens’ one can become caught up within.  Liking onto a vortex of existence. Threads of creative thought becoming victims surrendering up selves, lost in the chaos of swirling motions – of time.

So I would ask of ‘fleeing time’ this question: Is it ‘the nature of time’ that my creativity is bound to, or is it the reverse? Has the nature of my creativity become a fluid aspect of my time’s chronology, does it really matter as long as I flow among the currents of all-time?

artistic expression
threads of creativity
 boundless in time

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Penny L Howe

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This is the Haven of Haibun, Consider it a home away from home for haibun writers. If you would like to have one of your previously published or posted haibun or haiku reposted here, please let me know in the comment section. I would enjoy displaying your work for you!

Thank you,

Penny

Haibun Thinking – Writing Challenge Returns!

It is a pleasure to see Haibun Thinking Writing Challenge up and active once again. Welcome back. The challenge this week is “Film Week”. Write Haibun style using the following quote or photo as a prompt:

“You came here in that thing?
You’re braver than I thought.”
~ Carrie Fisher (Star Wars)

or this photo

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Photograph by © Arthur Browne

I encourage everyone who enjoys writing to enter this challenge. My entry below. The above quote is my prompt:

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Transport of Choice

It is said that to travel is to learn, to grow inside through experience. While admitting to the truth in this, it does appear my travels have lead me far afield from where I’d originally meant to go. Funny that.

The various turns in the road, chosen by my own volition, seemed the right ones to take at the time, in retrospect I’m doubtful of this. Therefore, there have been those lessons learned in my travels which have been painful. This having been said, I will now say that my favorite mode of transportation is and always has been – my mind.

Fueled by the wonderful power of imagination, I have traveled to any place and every place wished for – to visit. Imagination, my vehicle of choice and while some may laugh at this mode of transport, I find this particular vehicle ready to depart at a moments notice to the far reaches of my desires, and I … I am most content with this.

imagination

“to infinity and beyond”

yes he has it right

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Just simply had to throw in one of Disney’s beloved characters in my haiku. I adore Buzz Lightyear and his wonderful outlook on life, cartoon character though he may be. I hope you enjoyed my Haibun.

Have a wonderful day, filled with joy and love,

~ Penny

A Haibun for The Howling Moon

By Efi21e

“And then there are the times when the wolves are silent and the moon is howling.” ― George Carlin

A full moon tonight as I walk alone. Very cool, the air crisp this late in the season. I didn’t notice the moon right away, musings of mind every bit as full as the moon shining down on me. Confusing thoughts, taken up with the insanity of life’s struggles! The moon seems to have it’s own agenda anyway, up there so high, aloft from everything happening down here.

Shivering, I pull my jacket tightly against my body. Don’t know what possessed me to walk down to the river in the first place. It’s even chillier near the water’s edge, but I could hear water lapping against the shore and it seemed improbably soothing. Does that sound crazy? And I’m very much tempted, drawn to the dark liquid. The need to touch, so strong. It won’t change my existence, still I scoop up the water in my hands, feeling velvety ice water threading through fingers.

Damn, everything feels futile tonight, an emptiness. The moon mocking my solo sojourn to the river, as if to echo meaningless feelings. A kneeling silhouette illuminated against rippling water proves my reality, at least. Fingers are frozen numb now, doesn’t matter. I can hear the moon, you see – it’s howling and I recognize the tune, having heard it before.

Acknowledging recognition, I walk home despite the taunting of a solitary moon. Impervious now, I’m entirely focused on rubbing hands together to get warmth back into them.

just another night
no winners, no losers – just life
and the howling moon
 ~
 

Thank you,

Penny

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The Seekers of Haibun …

… for the essence of the written word!

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Those Who Seek

One might refer to the writing of haibun as creating prose-like philosophy or perhaps the creation of beautiful thoughts transformed/crafted into beautiful words. The meaning unfolds slowly, somewhere between carefully chosen words, their placement, and of course, the haiku, embedded with richness culled from the prose.

Meaningful words (the essence of) in a written haibun assist both the writer and the reader in the ability to increase not only their depth of understanding, but to also expand introspective curiosity regarding exploration of the world (from without and within) – the nature of the nature of things.

Those who write are lovers of language and the written word. Those who craft haibun are, in addition, seekers of life’s mysteries; delving further into the unknown and beauty of life through personal and thoughtful experiences which culminate in the formation of their expressive words.

“Finely composed haibun, is delicate, yet as strongly hued as the silken thread of the silk worm and as revealing as … life being fully lived.”

the haiku of haibun
amidst word and meaning
awakens the seeker

~

Thank you,

~ Penny

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