The Renku Sessions: Cotton Clouds – Week 12
Welcome to the current renku session. I am John Stevenson and I’ll be your guide for a twenty verse, nijûin renku.
We will be using an on-line list of season words and phrases (kigo) for those verses that require a seasonal reference: https://yths.org/season-word-list/
Here is my short list of verse 12 offerings:
the snowball fight
becomes heated
Debbie Feller
winter sparrows
huddling on a wire
Richard Straw
a child coughing
in the back room
Richard Straw
no one left to talk to
on the winter beach
John Hawkhead
slushy snow on
the beginner’s hill
Clysta Seney
the old winter wind
finds a crack in the door
Michael Henry Lee
what to do
with all this winter?
Orense Nicod
carrot in a puddle
is the snowman’s legacy
Dan Campbell
one winter fly
circling my cheap wine
Sharon Ferrante
mulling too much
over mulled wine
Biswajit Mishra
the last snowmen
have yet to fall
Sean Felix
trying not to go stale
with winter seclusion
Laurie Greer
a snowy owl
hunts the blue shadows
Jonathan Alderfer
the sting
of the brrrrrry air
Jonathan Alderfer
broken angels
decorate the tree
Anne Fox
drown your sorrows
in hot chocolate
Diana Ming Jeong
hockey sticks
in need of re-taping
Margaret Anderson
downhill like a rocket
on a baking pan
rob barkan
frozen branches
fall with a snap
Debbie Scheving
unpacking a childhood
of ice skates
Wendy C. Bialek
This is the peak of the renku party. Loud voices, laughter, wit and stoutly defended opinions! Among the verses I have passed over most reluctantly, there is a question:
what to do
with all this winter?
Orense Nicod
And there is a novel verbalization:
the sting
of the brrrrrry air
Jonathan Alderfer
And a vivid allusion to a J. W. Hackett haiku:
winter sparrows
huddling on a wire
Richard Straw
Here is my choice for the twelfth verse:
downhill like a rocket
on a baking pan
rob barkan
This adds the new topic of games/play and both extends and turns the previous verse in a new direction.
So, here is what we have, so far:
Cotton Clouds (working title)
a pinto colt
canters the meadow
cotton clouds
John Stevenson
muddied boots
on the welcome mat
Jennifer Sutherland
a bounty
of tulips spilling
over the vase
Eavonka Ettinger
the comfort of song
sung together
Anne Fox
the hermit crab’s
new shell glistens
in the moonlight
Sally Biggar
he fell for the sundress
on bare shoulders
Debbie Scheving
sweet nothings
with a hint
of Bengay
Diana Ming Jeong
we tip the busker
for attempting ‘teen spirit’
Margaret Anderson
everyone dies
at the end but
we keep reading
Devin Wilson
paper cuts
not withstanding
Michael Henry Lee
the stoic grin
on the cooling face
of the gingerbread man
Laurie Greer
downhill like a rocket
on a baking pan
rob barkan
This week, we will be working on the thirteenth verse. This will be three lines. It will be non-seasonal, so it must not contain a word or phrase from our list of season words. It will be the first in our final pair of love verses.
The priority is that it clearly registers as a love verse but this might also be a good spot for our “current events” verse. If you want to add current events to love, try to offer something that will not be extremely obscure in two or three months. Another way of approaching this topic might be to write of a historical event as if it is a “current event.”
Please enter a maximum of five verse-thirteen offers. The deadline for submission will be midnight, eastern US time on Monday, July 14.
Looking forward to your offers!
John
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