Shadow Puppetry

midnight sky drips ink
on the spotlight of the moon
windblown silhouettes

Kim M. Russell, 11^th May 2018

My response to Carpe Diem’s Quest for a (new) Masterpiece … introduction

Chèvrefeuille believes a masterpiece is a haiku (or tanka) that has the power to become a classic like the Basho haiku about the old frog and the one about the morning glory by Chiyo-Ni. He says that the goal of this new feature isn’t a quest for well-known masterpieces but to create new ones. In Chèvrefeuille’s opinion, to be a masterpiece a haiku (or tanka) has to:

• describe a moment that grabbed our attention;
• have the right words to describe the moment in its true way;
• be classical;
• be written right from the heart or soul not the mind;
• be written in the sense and tone of the classical haiku (tanka) poets;
• be our child, our creation, so that we can read, between the lines, the poet who created it.

For this introductory episode, we also have a theme to work with: a painting by Hiroshige, ‘Wind Blown Grass Across The Moon’. He wants us to look at the poetic scene, the simple use of colours and write just a few lines to tell the whole story.