The Renku Sessions: Cotton Clouds – Week 21
Welcome to the current renku session. I am John Stevenson and I’ll be your guide for a twenty verse, nijûin renku.
Here is my short list for this second week of ageku offerings:
a full clothesline
dances with the breeze
Belinda Behne
balmy breezes
tug at a balloon
Richard Straw
gaining momentum
on the swing
Pamela Garry
cub scouts cleaning
up for memorial day
Curt Linderman
a balmy breeze
brings the butterflies
Lorin Ford
the plow turns up
a clutch of clay pipes…
Harrison Lightwater
ribbons weave around
the May pole
Diana Ming Jeong
windmills
on a shiny wind
madeleine kavanagh
the warm day suggests
a trip to the ice cream stand
Nancy Brady
a May Day ribbon knots
and unknots
Laurie Greer
long day
channel surfing
VJ Green
sunglass shopping
the first bright day
Debbie Scheving
Since I passed over so many “short listed” verses last time because of some often-minor considerations of renku “rules” I want to clarify something about my process of selection. A reasonable person might ask why any verse good enough for the short list might contain material that would eliminate if from selection. The answer, as it applies to me as the selector, is that there are two factors involved and I apply them sequentially. The first is my sense of the verse as poetry. My short list contains verses that I believe might provide an aesthetic boost to the renku. I select what I consider the best example of poetry from a submission of renku verses, even if it may ultimately run afoul of the more mechanical considerations. Once I have identified a group of poetically satisfying candidates – my short list – I begin to consider which of them will best serve the renku in regard to the position it will occupy within it. At this point, the sort of factors that I outlined last week come into play. Chief among these considerations are any factors that may work against the sense of forward motion through the renku, as a whole.
Here is my choice for the ageku:
balmy breezes
tug at a balloon
Richard Straw
As I have said in my original instructions for the ageku, the renku does not come to a halt. There should be a sense that its forward motion goes on even as we let it go. This verse presents our renku experience as a balloon. It is tethered and will remain in place. But the breezes go on. That “tug” is a very good image of what we should feel at the end of a renku.
So, here is what we have created:
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
balmy breezes
tug at a balloon
Richard Straw
The completed renku will be added to the Haiku Foundation archive.
The title “Cotton Clouds” will remain. I have been calling it a working title but now realize that all sessions relating to the creation of this renku are indexed under that title. Renku titles are different from titles for other poetry. They are only meant as a way of designating the work and almost always consist of a word or phrase from the hokku.
All the same, it can be fun to think what other words or phrases might make a good title. This week I will ask for your suggestions, some of which I will share in a final posting next week.
I would also welcome your comments on the experience of participating in this session and will share some of those next week, too.
The deadline for your title suggestions and comments will be midnight, eastern US time, on Monday September 15.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
John
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