“La giovane sposa. Penelope aspettando il ritorno di Ulisse”, poesia seconda classificata “La stanza di Erato”, concorso letterario, Genova 5 gennaio 2019.

Il vento lambisce il nuovo tramonto
e le bianche vele s’abituano ai flutti
del mare in estate
Sulla spiaggia suoni di conchiglie
e frammenti di gusci sotto ai piedi nudi

Gli anni s’intrecciano
e le piccole mani
tessono trame e destini.
Il sole brucia i sogni
e le tremule fiamme di una candela
divorano la notte e le sue ombre.
Gli occhi di Penelope già invecchiano
solcati dai segni del tempo
e lambiti dal mare del colore del cielo.

Una candela rivela tra le fiamme
il passato e il futuro.
Come un indovino,
la regina scruta tra le volute di fumo
e rivede un antico mantello
a cingere le spalle, nude
d’una giovane sposa.

Eufemia Griffo, poesia seconda classificata La stanza di Erato, concorso letterario, Genova 5 gennaio 2019

Annunci

A Gennaio  si è svolta a Genova la cerimonia di premiazione del concorso letterario La stanza di Erato. Mi sono stati assegnati due premi: seconda classificata nella sezione poesia (sono state premiate cinque mie liriche a tema classico ispirate all’uomo e al mare), segnalazione di merito nella sezione haiku. 
Non ho potuto presenziare, ma ringrazio Laila Cresta, scrittrice e organizzatrice del premio e la qualificatissima giuria, composta da esperti del settore, tra cui Pasquale Asprea per la sezione haiku. Complimenti a tutti.

LA GIURIA DI ERATO

Prof.sa Maristella Angeli, artista
Pasquale Asprea, poeta
Prof.sa M. Grazia Bertora, latinista
Prof.sa Giuseppina Lucia Capodici, linguista
Dott. Antonio Figari, Associazione Culturale Giano
Elisabetta Magri, poesie in genovese e short story
Prof. Leonardo Paganelli, studioso di lingue medio-orientali (UNIGE)
Dott.sa Fuyung Wong, medico e umanista.

Failed Haiku Feb. 2019 edited by Michael Rehling.
Five poems of mine published in this lovely issue, including three haiku in memory of Rachel Sutcliffe. Thank you so much Mike🙏 and congratulations everyone.

To Rachel Sutcliffe

small poems
the way our lives
intertwined

twinkle of stars
your new path 
brighter

sunrise…
this empty day
without your words
~
Other

charcoal drawing
the first flight
of a black swan

melting ice
the last sidereal touch 
of winter 
~
Eufemia Griffo

https://failedhaiku.com/2019/02/01/issue-38-is-now-up/

Asahi Haikuist Network Feb.1 – Here’s my poem, selected by David McMurray, inspired of the Year of the Pig.
2019 is the Year of the Pig according to Chinese zodiac. This is a Year of Earth Pig, starting from Feb. 5, 2019 (Chinese New Year) and lasting to Jan. 24, 2020.

new constellation
a little pig still awaits for
its ascent
~
Eufemia Griffo

The Asahi Shimbun edited by David McMurray is up! Here is my poem published in the top list. 

two solitudes …
a dog and a pig
look at the same moon
~
Eufemia Griffo

http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201902150008.html

Pleased to have one haiku of mine featured in Stardust Issue 26, February 2019, edited by Valentina Ranaldi-Adams. 

spring wind
an empty nest
full of stars
~
Eufemia Griffo

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LR2ZCxAuTIrpvh0rGfQS3Crd_MIAj8ST/view?usp=drivesdk

 

giardini in fiore-
il fango sulle scarpe
di questo inverno

Eufemia Griffo

I am always happy to appear in this beautiful journal edited by Caroline Skanne. hedgerow #126 is here. Thank you Caroline for this stunning work.

new buds
I learn to forgive
myself 
~
Eufemia Griffo

Absolutely honoured to appear for the third time in Butterfly Dream edited by Chen-ou Liu, with one poem of mine translated into chinese and commented by editor.
This poem has already been published in Otata August 2017 edited by John Martone.
English Original

drops of ink
all the words
I didn’t tell you

Otata, August 2017
Eufemia Griffo

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

幾滴墨水
所有我沒有告訴你
的話

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

几滴墨水
所有我没有告诉你
的话

Bio Sketch

Eufemia Griffo is from Settimo Milanese (Milano) Italy. She is a writer and poet who has published books of poetry and fiction, including Dracula’s inheritance (The Legacy of Dracula), which she co-authored with Davide Benincasa, and The river is still flowing (a collection of tales). She has won many awards for her writing and has published haiku in the best international magazines. Her blog is Eufemia Griffo

It’s a relatable “middle-of-the-story” haiku. What’s left unsaid is as potent as what’s said. And readers can fill in the blank space with their life stories.
Chen-ou Liu

http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2019/03/butterfly-dream-ink-haiku-by-eufemia.html?showComment=1552170885337&m=1

Seconda classificata e per il terzo anno finalista del prestigioso concorso letterario La pelle non dimentica. Ringrazio Rita Angelelli editore di Le Mezzelane Casa Editrice, il presidente di giuria Lorenzo Spurio e Marzia Astorino per avere ritirato il premio per me ad Ascoli Piceno. Le cinque poesie premiate sono dedicate a Ipazia, Ilaria Alpi, Anna Frank, Yara Gambirasio e a tutte le donne vittime di violenza.

Tutte le poesie si possono leggere qua.

I won the third prize of the Eight Edition of The Haiku Contest SHARPENING THE GREEN PENCIL 2019, organized by Romanian Kukai, with one poem of mine. I am speechless! 😶
Congratulations to other winners, Martha Magenta (first prize) and Kanchan Chatterjee (second prize).

white butterflies
thinking about
everything I lost
~
Eufemia Griffo

 

 

https://sharpeningthegreenpencil.blogspot.com/2019/03/2019-results.html

Two poems of mine featured in Seashore, an international journal to share the spirit of haiku, Vol. 2 April 2019, edited by David Burleigh, Paul Chambers and Gilles Fabres. Delighted to be part along with so many haiku friends. Congrats to everyone.

cold winter
a white ume flower
on bare branch

winter sea
the feathers of seagulls
on empty beach
~
Eufemia Griffo

 

I am honoured and surprised to be on the shortlist for the Touchstone Award. The winning poem will be announced in Apr. 17th. Congratulations to all nominees poets.

https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2019/04/07/the-touchstone-award-for-individual-poems-committee-announces-its-shortlist-for-2018/

About my winning poem (first prize of World haiku review, Pune 1-3 February 2019) here is the comment by Susumu Takiguchi, the president of jury. I am really moved for his valuable and deep comment and his consideration.

~

TRIVENI World Haiku Utsav 2019, Savitribai Phule Pune University,

Pune, India, 1-3 February 2019

fallen leaves
the lost time
of another life
~
Eufemia Griffo

COMMENTS by Susumu Takiguchi

Many of the good entries for this year’s R. H. Blyth Award (Haiku) have demonstrated rather dark and anxious themes. It may perhaps be a reflection of the dark and anxious time we live in today. However, at any time in our history we have always had wars, illnesses, old age problems, massacres and existentialist anxieties. If we could ask people long dead in the medieval time or in the 19th century or whenever it was, they could have answered, “Well, to be honest our situation is much worse than yours. You are absolutely lucky.”

And it is a good thing that more than a handful of haiku poets are honest and brave enough to deal with these difficult subjects. This is one of the conspicuous characteristics of the R. H. Blyth Award this year. We had an enormous number of submissions from across the world and the selection job proved to be three times or four times as big as usual.

Some of them even enquire, deep inside us, into our inability to cope with these formidable challenges. Their haiku are therefore about our perplexity, self-doubt, resignation, loss of identity, direction or hope, disillusionment and despair. The Award-winning haiku has come out as the finest example of honest haiku by those facing up to this human frailty.

In only eight plain words, it reaches a universal truth, depicts an inconvenient fact with detachment and creates a resigned observation of the seemingly unending cycle of life and death and the human predicament of being at the mercy of it.

The layers of fallen leaves hide many realities as they decay and die. They may be completely ignored or forgotten until, that is, next time leaves fall again. Our lives follow the same natural pattern. And death hides all the vicissitudes of each of our lives. Its long, long story now looks but a momentary memory of our time lost. We are all therefore condemned to repeat the same search in perpetuity as in À la recherche du temps perdu.

The author is an Italian writer, poet, teacher and haijin, living in Milano.

https://sites.google.com/…/whr-march-20…/the-r-h-blyth-award

Issue 40 of Failed Haiku (Retrospective Issue) is UP!
Thank you so much Michael Rehling for including one senryu of mine with his comment in this great journal.

white canvas
dipping the black ink
into my dreams
~
Eufemia Griffo

http://failedhaiku.com/…/04/issue-40-retrospective-issue-up/

Ten poems of mine featured in Otata Issue April edited by John Martone.
Thank you so much for this new stunning collection.🌷🌻

their wings
still full of snow
the geese return

ritornano le oche
le loro ali
ancora piene di neve

hospital rooms
wherever
the same silence

stanze d’ospedale
dovunque
lo stesso silenzio

robin song
the longing to return
to the previous spring

canto del pettirosso —
il desiderio di tornare
alla scorsa primavera

cold spring
the snowdrops still
ready to bloom

fredda primavera
i bucaneve ancora
pronti a sbocciare

sea wind
in the fisherman’s net
a handfull of stars

vento di mare
nella rete del pescatore
una manciata di stelle

night sky
the lamparas* and fireflies
go out one by one

cielo notturno
le lampare e le lucciole
si spengono una ad una

end of winter
a squirrel still follows
the scent of snow

fine dell’inverno
uno scoiattolo segue ancora
il profumo della neve

the echo of nightingale
those old lullabies
forgotten

l’eco dell’usignolo
quelle vecchie ninne nanne
dimenticate

crumbs in the snow
the silent look
of a small refugee

briciole nella neve
lo sguardo silenzioso
di un piccolo rifugiato

spring wind
the shelter of a leaf
somewhere

vento di primavera
il riparo di una foglia
da qualche parte
~
Eufemia Griffo

* La lampara è un tipo di lampada molto grossa e potente, montata su di una barca che
viene usata dai pescatori di notte per illuminare la superficie dell’acqua.
The lampara is a very large and powerful type of lamp, mounted on a boat and used by
fishermen at night to illuminate the surface of the water.

https://otatablog.wordpress.com/

Un pezzo tratto da mio vecchio racconto dedicato alla bellezza di Notre -Dame. 😔
~
La cattedrale

Un week end di fine Novembre, decisi di farmi un regalo e partii per Parigi, con l’intento di visitare la città e di osservarne la bellezza, scrutandola attraverso gli occhi della turista; tempo prima mentre sfogliavo una rivista, mi ero soffermata su un’immagine che rappresentava una finestra di un’antica cattedrale. Ancora una volta una finestra, come tanti anni prima, aveva colpito la mia immaginazione, solo che questa volta si trattava di quella della cattedrale di Notre-Dame. Anche questo scatto era dominato da un fascio di luce che penetrava attraverso il rosone posto in alto quasi a sfiorare l’infinito e che mi ricordava la purezza di quel riverbero luminoso di cui ho narrato all’inizio di questa storia.
Fu questo uno dei motivi che mi indussero a partire.
In quel luogo antico, fui nuovamente avvolta da quella stessa potenza obliqua e come tanti anni prima, notai che il colore del sole andava declinando in una luce pura, la cui bellezza è quasi impossibile da descrivere. Essa comunica una sorte di vertigine che investe gli esseri umani facendo loro comprendere la grandezza dell’infinito e allo stesso tempo, la caducità della vita e dell’essere.
Il silenzio irreale a Notre-Dame faceva quasi rumore: spazio e tempo erano scomparsi e si erano uniti in un’unica dimensione

One poem of mine published and translated into German in Chrysanthemum 25, edited by Beate Conrad.

hospital room
this cold winter 
into my bones 

Krankenhauszimmer
dieser kalte Winter
bis in meine Knochen
~
Eufemia Griffo

http://www.chrysanthemum-haiku.net/en/current-issue.html

old oak
the secret dwelling
of a snow fairy

vecchia quercia
la dimora segreta
di una fata della neve

vieux chène
l’habitation secrète
d’une fée de neige

Eufemia Griffo
La traduzione in francese dell’haiku è di Nadine Léon. Questo haiku ha partecipato all’iniziativa organizzata da Nadine Léon ” Jour de la Terre – Redonnez-moi mes arbres “.
Guardate il video, uno dei tre, che contiene una parte dei poemi che hanno partecipato a questa bellissima iniziativa di Nadine.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBABHgx0NRU