Cherry Blossom Haiku
Walk the 2024 DC Cherry Blossoms With Four Haiku Masters
Cherry blossoms came early to the Tidal Basin this year. I went yesterday and took a lot of pics, catching the blossoms at just the right moment - the best I’ve ever seen of these trees. It was quite a beautiful morning meditation.
Here is the little video I made, adding visual poems by Japanese Haiku masters: Saigyo Hoshi, Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa. For music I took Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 15 in F Major. To get it all started, I zoomed in from high above the atmosphere using Google Earth Studio. See Tech Tip below.
Here’s the video. If you enjoy these little videos, let me know.
Tech Tip Tuesday: Google Earth Studio
Google has been collecting photos of the Earth for several years and has built an enormous library of digitized photographic data. They’ve just opened up this trove to the public and you can make some pretty cinematic videos of nearly anywhere in the world without leaving your desk. Here’s a 25 second tour of the Washington National Cathedral.
Interested in playing with this fun tool? To get started, get over to Google Earth Studio. You’ll have to fill out a form to become a new user. It took a couple of days for Google to approve my request and let me in. Once approved, I can go in and start a new project. For this demo, I called the project Washington Cathedral.
Use the quick start menu to pick a template. I like “Fly-To and Orbit”, which does exactly what the name implies.
Now just set the location. Here, I just put in Washington National Cathedral.
Now, if you don’t add anything further you can just walk through the dialogue prompts and you’re done!
Hit submit and Google will render the video to the cloud. You will get an email with a link to download the MP4.
As always, feel free to email me with questions or comments at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Stay creative!
Coming Up
March 20, 2024, Karren Alenier reads with Andrea Carter Brown & Margo Berdeshevsky in Zoom at Stockbridge Library Poetry. Here is the Zoom link.
March 23, 2024, Donald Berger will be reading along with others at the Compound in Baltimore.
March 23, 2024, 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm. Donald Illich and Doritt Carroll will be reading at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD.
April 1, 2024, Café Muse will host a hybrid reading featuring poets Jean Nordhaus and Jane Satterfield in Zoom and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. If you are not already a Café Muse subscriber, you can register here for the free Zoom link: https://sites.google.com/view/cafe-muse-events/home.
April 21, 2024, 11:00 pm to 4:00 pm. I’ll be featured at Kensington Day of the Book reading from Binary Planet.
May 23, 2024, I’ll be reading along with Luther Jett at the Arts Club.
If you’d like me to list an upcoming poetry event in Everyday Poet, please let me know by emailing me at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Use the subject: “Coming Up”.