The Renku Sessions: Cotton Clouds – Week 2

Welcome to a new 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/

It feels good to be starting another renku. Here is my short list of verse 2 (wakiku) offerings:

swallows weaving
through young leaves

Richard Straw

riding a balmy breeze
over soft shadows

Pamela Garry

children’s laughter
from the tree swing

Eavonka Ettinger

stopping to nibble
tufts of sweet grass

Nancy Brady

a soaring skylark
sings for a rider

Clysta Seney

muddied boots
on the welcome mat

Jennifer Sutherland

a bird in the white oak
pecks at my kite

Sharon Ferrante

lingering snow
paints the distant outcrops

Lorin Ford

tilling the fields
on a red tractor

Lorraine Haig

a balmy breeze
unsettles the grass

Melissa Dennison

tree swallows stitch
shadow to shadow

Matt Robison

the windmill stops
and starts again

Debbie Scheving

There were many other attractive verses that could not be considered. The biggest reason for this was the lack of a spring season word or phrase from the list we are using:  https://yths.org/season-word-list/ . Another reason was the matter I mentioned in last week’s post: a tendency to offer a verse that might stand alone rather than functioning in collaboration with the prior verse. And finally, though I mentioned that the linking between the first two verses can be closer than between any other two, it is still possible to make it too close. One way of thinking of this linkage is to imagine seeing what is depicted in verse one, then turning your head to see something else.

Here is my choice for the second verse

muddied boots
on the welcome mat

Jennifer Sutherland

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

This week, we will be working on the third verse (daisan). This will be three lines. It will be a spring verse. As will be the case with all verses now, it should not register as a complete poem in itself. In collaboration with the previous verse, it should create a poem that takes us somewhere poetically very different from the combination of verses one and two. Here are some other considerations:

• This can be, but does not have to be, a blossom verse.
• The setting of verse one is outdoors and the setting of verse two is a threshold. It might be good if verse three was indoors or unspecified.
• The first four verses of this renku (jo) should avoid unpleasant or controversial subject matter.

Please enter a maximum of five verse three offers. The deadline for submission will be midnight, eastern US time on Monday, May 6.

Looking forward to your verses,

John

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