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Finally, the long wait is over! Enjoy the sneak preview! Congratulations to all the contributors! Thank you so much for being a huge part of Issue 9!  A million thanks to this amazing team!  Congratulations to David Terelinck for winning the Take the Challenge! contest.  Thank you so much Steve Hodge and Ron C Moss for contributing your stunning video.  Crunch time! It's never easy trimming down the list of poems so please bear with me. You'll hear from me soon. To help me get down to work, I am now listening to Kevin MacLeod's composition, "Simple Duet."  You don’t need to pack your bags in order to indulge your wanderlust! Issue 8 is now available for your viewing! Take a huge peek at Frameless Sky's newest issue. This will enchantingly transport you from one place to another. For a fuller and richer experience, watch the full video packed with travel-themed poems written by more than 60 contributors. This is the biggest issue to date! Please follow the link below to purchase the dvd ~ https://framelesssky.weebly.com/purchase.html Once again, I’d like to thank all of you who have contributed! I hope you continue to support Frameless Sky. Without your marvelous poems, artwork, and music, the video journal will not be a success.   A million thanks to FS Issue 8's amazing team!  Let’s all congratulate the two-time winner of Take the Challenge!, Terri L. French. Since she is the current winner, she’ll be providing the poem for the next issue.  Thank you, Hazel Hall, for your unique combination of haiku and taichi steps. This picture is just a sample of Hazel's haiku. Don't miss the full video of her poetry reading which is the special feature of Issue 8 - Step by Step Taichi Meditations by Hazel Hall (haiku) and Angeline Egan (tai chi).
Congratulations to the top three winners and honorable mentions!  I cannot thank enough the distinguished judge and mother of cherita, ai li, for making this contest a successful and memorable one. I am honored that she has given Frameless Sky the chance to host the very first cherita contest. Below are her comments about each winning cherita.
THE THREE WINNERS FIRST PRIZE Maryalicia Post : Ireland it will come back this word this poem floating out of reach like smoke Maryalicia’s cherita is haunting. With just 14 words, she is able to take us into the ethereal world of what the finest short form poem can offer. A good test for me is to always read a cherita out loud. If it flows on one’s tongue with a beginning and an end to the short story – it delivers what the genre is meant to do - which is to take you into the poet’s story world and then making it yours. This cherita will haunt me and you for a very long time to come. SECOND PRIZE Goda V. Bendoraitiene : Lithuania humility… what is it? I close my eyes to find the answer falling snowflakes on my face so pure sky There is a zen quality to this cherita. When I first read it without looking at the author’s name, I did think it may have come from an Oriental writer. How wrong I was. The purity of Goda’s experience with nature reminds us all of the power and majesty of what surrounds us. We are but specks in constant turmoil in the universe. However, Nature just is. It does not pretend to be anything else but itself. It teaches us all how to be authentic in our lives. * THIRD PRIZE Nicholas Klacsanzky : Ukraine I could not stop smiling when I offered open hands to your lap no birds were singing but I could hear a moth flying towards the moon Nicholas has offered us a moment in time with this night cherita about stillness. There is deep joy here, of being mindful of your surroundings, of being able to find the music that is inherent in the quiet of a moment’s breath. I beg you to read his winning cherita very slowly and savour the moment of the lone moth’s flight. * HONOURABLE MENTIONS Gabriel Bates : USA they keep on telling me hey, look at the bright side I walk down an alley full of cigarette butts just to see the flowers Here’s a cherita that is close to my heart as I am an urban photographer. I look for the beauty in the everyday, the gifts that genius loci present in my daily path, and the poet here has managed to do just that with his six lines of wonder. He takes the everyday, and shows us a different way of experiencing it which makes the experience ours as well as his. He then infuses it with positive expectation and beauty. Thank you Gabriel. * HONOURABLE MENTIONS Sonam Chhoki : Kingdom of Bhutan your almond tree in bloom how it lights up a cold spring dusk now that we meet only in dreams I write you in the stars We have here a dream cherita for the senses. Sonam takes us into a world where the seemingly impossible seems possible. To be happy once again, to be able to rendezvous with an absent loved one and yet be lucid enough to realise that this joyous realm is all gossamer. * HONOURABLE MENTIONS Debbie Strange : Canada come quickly the dandelion clocks are running out of time if we can make a few more wishes, father might come home Loss is very much a part of our lives whether it is by separation or with death. How we choose to deal with the void can help us mend our fractured world and make it right even if it is only for a few hours or a day. Debbie’s cherita does just that. It instils us with hope and a belief that anything is possible when one comes from a place of love and remembrance. CLOSING REMARKS FROM AI LI: Mad about Cherita – me too and apparently it seems so many of you out there judging from the number of entries, which were close to 400, that I received for the contest. The diversity of writing styles continue to inspire me and believe me, storytelling is very much alive and kicking via cherita which absolutely delighted me. We have Christine L. Villa to thank for her vision and idea for the very first Cherita contest. I hope this will pave the way for even more writers and poets to share their stories with all of us through writing cherita. We have 6 top cherita - three winners and three honourable mentions. Choosing these 6 entries was tough but what was even tougher was having to disappoint other poets with their excellent submitted cherita by not selecting them for the main spots. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who shared their special stories and moments with me. Please keep the campfires burning and do please keep sharing, telling and re-telling your stories which are your legacies for connecting and healing all of us in this chaotic and often cruel world we have to live in. Vive la cherita and cherita terbalik ! I would like to leave you with two cherita of mine - one from i left long ago – my first cherita book, and the second from stolen nights – my second cherita book which launched in May 2018 if I may :- the embroidered collar of my cheongsam one loose thread straying out of celestial blue * rain has arrived every window pane is wet you bake his favourite cake cherry madeira and call memory in for tea A low and deep bow from me to all of you with my heartfelt thanks in my Hokkien dialect and in Malay. kam siah and terima kaseh, ai li creator of cherita editor and publisher of the cherita www.thecherita.com A few more days left till June 15, the last day for submitting your entries to the Mad About Cherita Contest! Please take note of the special announcements below.   Frameless Sky is happy to announce the creation of the very first cherita contest. This contest is in celebration of the 21st anniversary of cherita which is on June 22, 1997. From its birth to the present, a lot of people have been enthusiastically reading and writing this unique form of poetry. With the immense power of the internet and social media, and the growing popularity of the cherita: your storybook journal, there has been such madness about the genre.
To judge this contest, Frameless Sky had invited the distinguished ai li, the creator of cherita and editor and publisher of the cherita: your storybook journal. CONTEST GUIDELINES: ELIGIBILITY Everyone who is mad about cherita is invited to join. Each contestant is allowed to submit a maximum of nine(9) entries. Entries must be the work of the submitting author, in English, and unpublished online or in print. Only cherita written by one person is acceptable. Thus, no collaboration will be allowed in the contest. Below the contestant’s submission, please write the full name and country of residence. FORMAT CHERITA [1 -- 2 -- 3] [pronounced CHAIR-rita] Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can be written solo or with up to three partners. The cherita tells a story. It was created by ai li on the 22 June 1997 in memory of her grandparents who were raconteurs extraordinaire. It was also inspired by Larry Kimmel's sensitive recognition of a shorter form contained within the opening three-verse stanza of ai li's LUNENGA, which had been created on the 27 May 1997. Example: the light is soft and i am coming in from your garden there are voices here in the old orchard begging me to stay ai li CHERITA TERBALIK - inverted cherita [3--2--1], [2--1--3], [1--3--2], [2--3--1] and [3--1--2] [pronounced CHAIR-rita tur-bar-lake] The Cherita Terbalik can be written in the above stanza formats. Terbalik is the Malay word for reversal or upside down. Cherita Terbalik also tells a story and can be written with up to three partners. Example: diamond evenings mother cleaning her gems on the kitchen table the darkened room now sold ai li All entries to be sent by email to: aili@thecherita.com Subject heading will be “Mad about Cherita - your full name” CONTEST PERIOD Contest runs from May 15 through midnight of June 15 (PST). All entries received outside of the contest period will be ineligible. The winners will be announced on June 20 at 7 p.m. (PST). If a winner doesn't reply within three days after the day of announcement, another poet will be receiving the prize. All rights revert back to the authors after the winner has been announced. WINNER SELECTION ai li’s criteria: I am looking for cherita that capture the remembered thrill of being around a campfire, and being captivated by stories with subjects that are as timeless as the cosmos. I want to hear your authentic voice in six lines [either in cherita’s original format of 1-2-3 or as cherita terbalik – inverted cherita [3–2–1], [2–1–3], [1–3–2], [2–3–1] and [3–1–2]] about Life, Love and Loss. What works best for me is the poet or writer’s unique way of looking at the everyday but with fresh eyes, thereby giving us, the reader, a new perspective on what is familiar and around us. I am not looking for diary entries or angry and political protests, all of which have their places elsewhere but are not for this contest. Find the storyteller who lives in you and in all of us, and give him or her a voice with echoes of once upon a cherita . . . You are halfway there already. I look forward to reading all your heartfelt stories with bated breath and wish you all the very best of luck. From one storyteller to another, ai li creator of cherita editor and publisher of the cherita : your storybook journal www.thecherita.com Additional references: http://www.aili.co.uk/cherita/ http://www.winfredpress.com/the-cherita-form/ http://atlaspoetica.org/?page_id=1654 AWARDS First Place – i left long ago by ai li This print book is ai li’s first book on cherita. This book explores the poet’s search for true identity and self and why we should not be afraid to be our true selves. ai li’s cherita will take you on a healing journey with words, minimal in content, but overflowing with personal truths and the deepest of emotions. She writes without armour. Second Place – a Kindle version of any past issues of the cherita: your storybook journal Third Place – a Kindle version of any past issues of the cherita: your storybook journal Three Honorable Mentions – a “mad about cherita” keychain or a “mad about cherita” necklace, depending on the preference of the winner. *We look forward to all your submissions. Let’s all celebrate together and have some fun!* Christine L. Villa Founding Editor of Frameless Sky |
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