Saturday, September 12, 2020

Haiku, Gardens & Pandemic


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Last month, a friend coaxed me to enter the 2020 Lougheed House Haiku Contest. A seventeen syllable poem struck me as an amount of writing I could manage during a busy summer. 

I checked the contest guidelines. No entry fee. They allowed three haiku submissions per person. Themes suggested were gardens, nature, Calgary community, and life during the pandemic.  

Gardens made me instantly think of my next-door neighbour, who spends four hours a day tending her beautiful outdoor plants. One of her flower beds borders my front lawn. I started to think of this burst of colour as a connector between her and me during our pandemic isolation.


I knew haiku had lines, but needed the internet to remind me the traditional pattern is 5,7,5 syllables per line. My high school English teacher taught that haiku should refer to a season, although I gather that's no longer necessary. 

My thinking and research led to this haiku:

my neighbour's garden

bursts colour beside my yard

links us through summer

The contest required entrants to include a video of us reading or reciting our poems. I nabbed my husband Will for a cell phone recording. I stood behind the front yard flower bed and had to speak loudly to be heard, while resisting the urge to check that no one was passing by and watching me strangely. 


    

After I drafted this first haiku, Will and I set off on a bike ride to downtown Calgary. While pedaling by the Bow River, I mentally composed a haiku about how the pandemic closure of cafes, bars and gyms inspired people to go for walks along the river; a healthy, easy and free activity. We made a recording at our lunch spot beside the Bow River. Then we biked through a park and passed a group of women sitting in a circle of lawn chairs placed two metres (6.5 feet) apart, Canada's social distancing recommendation.  

I realized the phrase 'two metres apart' is five syllables - the ideal haiku first line length! 

To suit the contest themes, I placed the ladies in a garden. I liked the slightly archaic word 'ladies' for a contest sponsored by Calgary's historic Lougheed home. Drinking tea also evokes the past to me and what do ladies discuss at a garden tea? Their gardens. Present and past blended into my next haiku: 

two metres apart

ladies sit in the garden

drink tea, talk flowers

Will and I recorded this haiku in my neighbour's back yard. Since the video was too large to save to my computer, we uploaded it to dropbox. I sent my three haiku to the contest.   

A week later, I got the word that my poem 'two metres apart' placed first in the Lougheed House Haiku Contest and 'my neighbour's garden' received an honorable mention. The contest judges commented that they appreciated the garden imagery, since the Lougheed home is known for its splendid Beaulieu Gardens. 


The Lougheed House is posting the winning haiku recordings on its social media. You can find them on Facebook and Twitter.

Writing the haikus was fun and an opportunity to reflect on the links between gardens, people and the pandemic. 

I thank my good friend 

& historic Lougheed House

for inspiration 

Friday, September 11, 2020

 


Murder, When One Isn't Enough     A Line to Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) (Volume 1)undefined

                              Fore-edge, Folding and Other Uses for Old Books by Karla Stover


Yes, there is a town in Wales devoted to second hand books; it's Hay-on-Wye. But I just checked and the number of book stores is starting to decline. What to do with all the unloved books?   . One Mini Book Flower & VaseTeacher's giftMother's image 0287 Best Book Lamps images | Book lamp, Lamp, Book craftsHow to Make DIY Floating Shelves Out of Your Old Books - Floating Bookshelf  Tutorial

One idea is to turn them into art. There are "How to" tutorials all over YouTube, but for something completely unique there is Fore-edge painting which is a scene painted on the edges of the pages of a book. Fore-edge has two options:  paintings on the edges of the pages and which can only be seen when the pages are fanned. The painting should be invisible when the book is closed; or painting is on the closed edge itself and thus should not be fanned. The following comes from Wikipedia:

"In order to view the painting, the leaves of the book must be fanned, exposing the edges of the pages and thereby the painting. Another basic difference is that a painting on the closed edge is painted directly on the surface of the book edge (the fore-edge being the opposite of the spine side). For the fanned painting the watercolor is applied to the top or bottom margin (recto or verso) of the page/leaf and not to the actual "fore"-edge itself."

The art form has been around for a long time but there is one amusing story about its use. Among Charles II of England's many "lady friends" was a duchess, who often borrowed his books, sometimes forgetting to return them.(I'm guessing it was Barbara Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland). To remedy the situation, the king "commissioned the court painter, Sir Peter Lely and the court bookbinder, Samuel Mearne, to devise a secret method in which his books could be identified. Between the two they came up with something unique. It went into effect a few weeks later when the king was visiting the duchess and spotted a familiar looking book on a shelf. "Taking it down he said, “I’ll just take my book along with me.” “But sire,” the lady protested, “that book is mine.” “Oh?" The king raised his brows. Then, with a sly smile, he fanned out the book and revealed what had been painted on the inner edges--the royal coat of arms. The gilding on the outer edges had completely hidden the identification. Acknowledging that Charles had outwitted her, the duchess sank in a deep curtsy before her king." (Since most of the king's lady friends were also his mistresses, she probably did more than that.)

I once wrote a short story where my protagonist, Miss Agnes Grey, solved the mystery with a clue on a book which had been painted using the technique. I may have tried to get "Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine" to accept the story but I forget. It currently lies fallow on a thumb-drive somewhere,

I've attempted to attach a picture courtesy of Pinterest but they don't always transfer. If not, Google Fore-edge and look at all the samples on "images."

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