a sense of place - the cherita

a sense of place
anniversary edition 1997 – 2020
edition 4:1 of the cherita
edited by ai li

This edition of a sense of place showcases 90 fine cherita and cherita terbalik from writers and poets who hail from UK, USA, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, India, and Philippines.

a sense of place is our anniversary edition, and the first edition for the start of our fourth year. The Cherita genre will be 23 years old on the 22 June 2020. It seems like only yesterday when I was soaking in my Himalayan salt bath whilst birthing the Cherita. Tempus fugit.

We are still in lockdown as I am writing this mailshot, and the lack of movement and freedom continue to be a testing time for all of us. Can Life ever be ‘normal’ and ‘safe’ again?

We can’t be in control of a full return to normality but what we can be in control of is how we write ourselves out of a lockdown. All our writing efforts during lockdown may not emerge to be of publication standard but that is not the point. The point is when we start to tell our stories, we get lost in the very magic of storytelling. Our stories always begin with one word and before we know it, the storyteller is back in our midst, to captivate and enthral us all with the personal truths from our archive of memories.

I have now migrated our Lockdown Cherita feature to its own archive site on our website. You’ll find all 46 Cherita where your featured stories will continue to touch everyone as they have done before.

I have also recently upgraded our Spam email protection, and I would like to apologise to anyone whose email/emails may have bounced where the users on certain services/domains were identified as possible spammers [e.g gmail who have had a large number of hackers]. I have now updated my anti-spam service so I can once again receive emails from these domains.

I have edited a sense of place as I have all the other editions of the cherita, to be experienced two ways. It can be read as one storybook but also as an anthology of individual poems. Two reading experiences within one book, filled with stories of Life, Love and Loss.

cherita terbalik continues to capture the imagination of poets and there are again fine examples in this edition.

Featured Poets as they appear in a sense of place :

ai li/ Joanna Ashwell/ Taura Scott/ Kath Abela Wilson/ Larry Kimmel/ Keitha Keyes/ Cynthia Anderson/ Patricia Prime/ Ruth Kay/ Myrto E. Angeloglou/ Tiffany Shaw-Diaz/ Isabella Kramer/ Debbie Strange/ Jackie Chou/ James Haddad/ Robert Horrobin/ Neelam Dadhwal/ Ron Scully/ paula song sarmonpal/ Lynn Fayne/ Partha Sarkar/ Maricris Cabrera/ Elva Lauter/ Erika Wilk/ Sharon Hawley/ Peggy Castro/ S. Radhamani/ Mekhled Alzaza/ James Won/

EXAMPLE OF WORK from a sense of place :

on the river

the stillness of a heron
this moment
timeless

as if the clocks
had stopped forever

Patricia Prime

The cherita lighthouse has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this edition for their timeless cherita :-

Joanna Ashwell/ Patricia Prime/ Cynthia Anderson/ Tiffany Shaw-Diaz/ Isabella Kramer/ Larry Kimmel/ Debbie Strange/ Myrto E. Angeloglou/ Partha Sarkar/ Peggy Castro/ Mekhled Alzaza/ Kath Abela Wilson/ Jackie Chou/

An anniversary always brings out my restless creative longing, and so I decided to write myself out of this lockdown. The result is a new book of cherita and tanka.

i’m going home
ai li’s second book of virgin cherita and tanka

This is my thirty first book and my second book of cherita and tanka. It belongs to my Poems for Inner Rooms series which are all available in paperback and on kindle on Amazon.

Here is one cherita and one tanka from i’m going home :

burying

the silence
with more silence

the weight
of a blossom scented
evening

incense burner
the room
alive with
the shapes
of moving smoke

ai li

This book of 90 virgin cherita and tanka poems belongs to a collection of life journals written as contemporary cherita, tanka and haiku. These are poems for inner rooms. They take poetry into the realm of spirit and are touched by zen, loss, joy, the surreal, temps perdu, the erotic, humour, truth, the everyday, and the sublime. All the six senses are here.

My new book above explores my ongoing search for true identity and self and why we should not be afraid to be our true selves. My cherita, tanka and haiku will take you on a healing journey with words, minimal in content, but overflowing with personal truths and the deepest of emotions. I write without armour.

a sense of place has been edited to be experienced two ways very much like the cherita. It can be read as a storybook and as an anthology of individual poems.

I have enjoyed the challenge of selecting and collating for this edition of the cherita and hope that you will find the cherita within worthy of a campfire gathering and the sharing of meaningful stories.

If this new edition strikes a chord with you, please feel free to review, comment on Amazon or give a feedback directly to me. Many thanks.

ai li
editor

To purchase a print copy and/or a kindle book, please click on the cover below
N.B. There are no images in the print and kindle versions of the cherita.

FOR USA ONLY

Please be aware that from 31 October 2019, KDP will be retiring their Kindle Matchbook program.

GENTLE REMINDER

Once we notify you that we have accepted your poems for publication, either in the online journal or print journal, please do not share or submit your work elsewhere until we have published your work, or the editor will withdraw your work from publication. We also ask that you refrain from republishing your work in any medium for 90 days from publication in the cherita: your storybook journal.Thanks.