The Renku Sessions: Cotton Clouds – Week 20
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 final verse (ageku) offerings:
disappearing snow reveals
what has not disappeared
Urszula Marciniak
waking to birdsong
earlier each day
Belinda Behne
a soaring skylark
melts into sunshine
Richard Straw
fireplace ash gone
and windows open
Debbie Feller
the bright flicker
of schooling whitebait
Pamela Garry
twenty tadpoles
in the billy can
Lorin Ford
soap bubbles
sail on the bright breeze
madeleine kavanagh
passing the reins
on Mothers Day
Tracy Davidson
a few whisps of mist
fading
Carol Jones
all eyes follow
a yellow kite
Marion Clarke
building dreams on
lengthening days
Clysta Seney
letting the balloon go
where it wants to go
Laurie Greer
a thin mist rises
over the bridge
VJ Green
leap from the top
of the arc of the swing
Margaret Anderson
floating soap bubbles
carry the light
Debbie Scheving
a monk’s bell clearer
through the haze
Orense Nicod
eggs ready for
coloring
Diana Ming Jeong
This being the final verse for this renku, I’m going to go into a little more detail about how I am choosing.
First, of course, I am letting go of verses offered by poets already included. Thank you for continuing to participate. Your offers have, all along, brightened the proceedings!
Next, I am letting go of two verses that feature “mist” or “haze” as their kigo. These are perfectly fine kigo and I liked both verses very much, but with “clouds” in the hokku, I feel this topic has been covered. Special care must be taken throughout a renku to avoid any images that are contained in the hokku. And any reasonably clear connection between the hokku and the ageku is perhaps the most important thing to avoid in a renku. And, by the way, several offers featured various “baby animals” but “pinto colt” in the hokku precludes those other youngsters.
I have not burdened you with a list of kigo that specify “early,” “middle.” or “late” seasonal placements. But I carry that burden for myself. As a result, I’m letting go of Ursula Marciniak’s lovely image of disappearing snow. It would have made a lovely ageku but, as the third in a series of three spring verses, it seems slightly out of chronological order to me and, thus, working against the “ever onward” quality of renku.
After finding verses by Richard Straw on most of my short lists, I feel as if I almost owe him the ageku. His skylark verse would do very nicely. But we already have geese juxtaposed against the moon at verse 15 and that is all we can have of birds in flight, juxtaposed against heavenly bodies during such a short renku. I do thank Richard for his steady creativity, throughout.
I salute Lorin Ford for her billy can verse. Lorin is sharp eyed and witty without fail. The twenty tadpoles gives me a laugh as a summation of our twenty-verse renku. Perhaps a little too much of a period at the end of things but great fun!
Tracy Davidson’s offering is intriguing and has the kind of “something beyond” quality that is so desirable for the ageku. Although the “reins” seem almost certainly figurative, the reality on which they are based might duplicate the handlebars and steering of a bicycle in the “leap over” verse. Also, the reins image comes from directing horses and we have that young horse in the hokku.
I love, love Pamela Garry’s offering. Perhaps the “bright flicker” is too reminiscent of the glistening shell of verse 5, both of them marine images.
So, I have pretty much talked myself out of everything. I still have verses from Debbie Feller and Marion Clark. I like them both but I’m passing on them, too. With all of this feedback, I want to give us all another chance. So, we will take another week to find our ageku.
A few additional things to be careful of: mud is already covered (verse 2), animals are pretty well covered (colt, hermit crab, crickets, geese), topics that have their assigned verses (love, moon, blossom) should be avoided.
So, here is what we have created, so far:
Cotton Clouds
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
is she in a sack
or is it a rug that rolls
out before Caesar
madeleine kavanagh
crickets
as he waits for a kiss
Orense Nicod
a flock of geese
cuts the moon
in thirds
Belinda Behne
deciding not to
give the pumpkin a face
Sharon Ferrante
children asked
to draw pictures
of their families
Nancy Brady
a bike ride to watch
spring training
Clysta Seney
some cherry petals
have gotten into
my whitened hair
Keith Evetts
Please send a maximum of five ageku offers. The deadline for submission will be midnight, eastern US time on Monday, September 8.
Looking forward to your ageku. round two offers!
John
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