skip to Main Content

The Renku Sessions: Junicho – verse #4

renku_300

I’m Sandra Simpson, and I will serve as your guide as we compose a 12-verse junicho (june-ee-cho, as in choke).

Thank you to all the poets who contributed offerings for our daisan, or third verse.

A note on composition

This is our first “breakaway” verse and there were some good offerings, but a few problems too:

  • We had verses that “harked back” to the hokku, using feet, foot, toes or an image associated with feet
  • Others veered into the realm of “love”, a topic which has a designated place in our junicho and can’t be used anywhere else
  • Verses that started with a gerund … just like the hokku. A variety of styles in composition is important. If every verse (or every other) started with an -ing the tone of the poem would quickly become dull.

Once a topic is used in a renku, it can’t be used again. Renku isn’t primarily about “ticking off” topics/images but we must be clear on the point that once something is mentioned, it can’t appear again in our 12-verse format – and that includes sub-topics of the topic (toes of the foot, as it were).

Also, the daisan is our first “pushing off” verse, so must shift from the hokku while linking to the wakiku.

The basis of any renku is link & shift, a concept I found particularly difficult to grasp when I began writing renku (so don’t worry if you’re not entirely getting it).

The verse are about to begin composing now is #4. It

  • Must link in some way (it may be intuitive only) to the verse directly preceding it (#3) but …
  • Must shift away from the verse before that (#2).

The dynamic of a renku is in the links between the verses, not the internal dynamics of each verse.

The chosen daisan

Strong contenders for the daisan were:

this month’s magazine
tossed  atop the pile
for later

– Liz Ann Winkler

piano version
of an old hymn
and I know the words

– Ellen Grace Olinger

Gallicism
above her potato salad
seasoned with cigarette ash

– Patrick Sweeney

undecided
about which hat to wear
to the theatre

– Polona Oblak

But I have chosen:

paper planes
by the window
ready for take-off

– Sanjuktaa Asopa

for its sly introduction to the ha phase of our junicho, the part of the poem that will “take off”.

What comes next:

Verse #4, while maintaining our link & shift imperative, is also our first in the ha phase of the poem – the party is beginning to warm up and verse offerings can become a little freer, a little more inventive (but please don’t sacrifice substance for style, it’s a balancing act!).

This verse is:
  • A 2-line verse that is not cut
  • A no-season verse
  • A verse that links to verse 3 but shifts away from verse 2 – in tone, setting, construction, etc
  • A verse that opens outwards (is open-ended) leaving room for the writer who will follow.
How we play:

Please enter your candidate verses in the Comments section below. All verse positions in this junicho will be degachi, that is competitive, and the final poem will comprise stanzas written by 12 different poets.

Please submit only 3 candidate verses for each position. I will allow a week between each verse selection so you have plenty of time to consider your submissions before making them.

For information about junicho and renku, please refer to the Introduction post.

And, remember, have fun with your writing

An inspiring quote:

While writing, do take the time to reread the renga (renku) and ask yourself: What does this poem need? Lightness? Seriousness? World views? Intimate details? Another mood? Act in the same way you would to make a social evening balanced and interesting

– Jane Reichhold

Our poem so far:

cooling off –
our feet in the river
with the ducks

– Lorin Ford

the distant melody
of an ice-cream truck

– Maria Tomczak

paper planes
by the window
ready for take-off

– Sanjuktaa Asopa

This Post Has 80 Comments

    1. Hi Chris,

      I aim to make a selection each week on Friday afternoon my time, sometimes Saturday morning – roughly 12 hours behind for you.

      1. … ahead of the USA, I think, Sandra. You’re ahead of Australian EST, the USA is almost a day behind.

        There’s a good reason I close subs at 12 midnight Las Vegas time, on the due date. I allow a time frame for the deathknock gamblers in the USA & Canada 🙂

        The world time clock is a marvelous resource,

        – L

        1. Yes, that’s what I meant – I’m ahead, he’s behind! If it’s Friday here, it’s Thursday there.
          **
          Samoa moved themselves to our side of the dateline at the end of 2011, but previous to that my husband (when he was working up there) would leave here on Monday and arrive in Samoa on Sunday, always a little disconcerting for a 4-hour flight.

          1. Almost as bad as flying from Melbourne to Brisbane 🙂 (or anywhere in QLD! Most confusing!) There’s a good reason we call it ‘the Deep North’ 🙂

            – L

  1. closing the atlas
    he suspends his journey
    ——
    setting sun
    slowly steals my shadow
    ——
    come and go
    silhouettes in the fog

  2. Beautiful verses so far. A joy to read all the submissions and to participate and to read the discussion.
    *
    in a library no one expects
    you to be anything but quiet
    **
    on a bucket list trip
    to the cemetery
    **
    the surgeon writes
    a prescription for chemo

  3. paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off
    .
    – Sanjuktaa Asopa

    ***

    “I’m late, I’m late
    for a very important date”

    – the White Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland)

  4. paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off
    .
    – Sanjuktaa Asopa

    ***
    when it’s my turn
    I take a ride on the reading

  5. I, too, had a feeling that the daisan rečates to the hokku. It’s a lovely verse, though, and deserves an inclusion.
    Onward!
    .

    the distant melody
    of an ice-cream truck

    – Maria Tomczak
    *
    paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off

    – Sanjuktaa Asopa

    ***
    the tour guide’s umbrella
    points toward the square
    .
    her coach proposes
    a new fitness plan
    .
    Sicilian Defense
    for beginners

    1. Hmm, Polona, do you think it might have anything to do with “cooling off” and “take-off”. Though they mean very different things, the repetition of ‘off’ so soon could well direct attention backward to the hokku.
      ***

      If that was the issue, however, it could easily be fixed:
      ***
      cooling off –
      our feet in the river
      with the ducks

      – Lorin Ford

      the distant melody
      of an ice-cream truck

      – Maria Tomczak

      paper planes
      by the window
      ready to launch

      – Sanjuktaa Asopa

      ***

      ???
      – L

      1. Hi, Lorin, sorry I didn’t make myself clear enough.
        Must be a regional thing but to me the notion of flight is present in both verses. At the mention of ducks I first think of mallards which are by far the prevailing species where I live. They are strong flyers and, although wild, don’t shy away from human presence, having learned there’s usually little danger but enough food where people are around.

        1. Hi Polona,
          Well, then, the category that ducks & paper planes would both fit into would have to be something like “Things with the potential to fly through the air but which aren’t doing that in the moment of the verse. ” (if such a category exists …& it very well might, in a Japanese encyclopedia of renku categories! ) We can’t even say “The category of things with wings”, because paper planes usually don’t have wings as such.

          But paper planes certainly wouldn’t fit in the category of “Things that use their feet to paddle along with in water.” 🙂

          – Lorin

          1. Uhm, feet? did I mention feet anywhere in my writing? (of course I don’t think they have anything in common) 😉
            My commentary was meant only as an observation not a critique and with no intention to question sabaki’s choice, so I’m asking this with the best of intentions: do things have to fall into a certain category to make them related? What happened to the highly prized scent linking (though it’s shift rather than link we’re discussing here)? As I said, it was a feeling rather than something I could point my finger to that made me think there may not be enough shift between the verses. Still, no big deal if these were not the hokku and the daisan we’re talking about.
            Then again, what do I know, I have hardly any experience with renku composition, just trying to have fun. 🙂

          2. Okay, so I had to ask Google…can a paper plane paddle? And oddly enough, a Tumblewing (type of paper plane) surfs through the air with the aid of a paddle. Granted, the person walks along with the paddle that creates the lift for the plane to surf through the air.
            So feets don’t fail me now as I continue to wing it…because of this discussion, I learned something new! Hot dang!
            😉 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=lHT3VMCUNeyHsQSk84DoCA&url=http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/tumblewing/makeTumblewing.htm&ved=0CB8QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFgAfOlAfP8zCCNaivPQxDBf9KHGw&sig2=ZzAaJgiUEPBNC0t8_tfEBg
            Best regards to all.
            Betty

  6. paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off

    – Sanjuktaa Asopa

    ***

    how beautiful the view
    from the Eiffel Tower

  7. welcome to Gaza
    from Banksy and friends

    severance pay
    clipped to the door

    guide me father
    as I submit to your will

  8. looking neither
    forward nor behind
    **

    a familiar place
    i’ve never been

    **
    last year’s fly
    in the soup

  9. It is interesting to read the discussion about water, from various places and perspectives. Here by Lake Michigan now the beach is frozen. In the summer, outside our windows, as the weather warms, there may be 50 people. So many ways people enjoy the water – from reading and resting to jet skies to sail boats and kayaks. Conditions vary a lot with this great lake – and it is to be respected as a carpenter once told me. There have been tragedies along with the great beauty. The wind can change quickly too. The water will stay cold a long time.

    *

    Families set up tents on the beach early in the day, to take care with the sun and to save their space for the day. Summer may be only about 6 weeks here. Then after school begins again, the scene changes. Somehow the sharing of the beach works out well. I also like that the winter gives the lake time to simply be itself.

    *

    And all the competing interests, in terms of businesses and properties. Taking care of the water and shore. People are much more aware of native plants and being sure not to transport something invasive from one lake or river to another. Our Dept. of Natural Resources posts signs to teach and advise.

    *

    There can be several generations with blogs too, and I love the perspectives there along with the different places in the world.

    *

    Thanks, Sandra, for leading and teaching and encouraging us. And all the poets, as always. Good to learn something new each week.

    *

    Best wishes, Ellen

    1. It must be otherworldly to be by that frozen shore in the winter! Then having the brief cacaphony of summer tourists outside your window. Loved the images you shared. I lived in the south suburbs of Chicago for 8 years but we never traveled farther than Evanston and the north shore.
      🙂 Betty

      1. Dear Betty, Thank you. I was a member of the Special Education Dept. at NEIU in Chicago from 1987 – 93. I worked with practice teachers in Chicago, Evanston, and the general area. Wisconsin is home though. My parents took us to Lake Michigan in Milwaukee when we were little, and my mother taught in the English Dept. at UWM. So Lake Michigan has always been a part of my life. Always have lived in the Midwest.

        *

        So I can picture what you say. Our home is near the neighborhood boat club, and it is understood that the beach is for all to walk along. There has been a shift in the generations. I still remember when people a generation older than me took their fishing boats out early in the morning. I see the boat dock from where I sit in the morning, and love seeing the boats with their lights before sunrise. I remember being a stranger and try to go with the flow.

        *

        Many contrasts as you say.

        *

        I credit my mother with helping me discover haiku. I was writing poems and she suggested I learn a form, and then wisely left things there. Then she said she thought I seemed comfortable with haiku.

        *

        Blessings, Ellen

  10. .
    .
    I appreciate the discussion, and I’m glad that Betty brought up something that got us discussing rather than just posting verses.

    .
    .
    I usually only do live renku, and I miss the banter.
    .
    .
    Betty, you are so right about Texas (my wife was involved with Dallas DNA, her title, for Discovery ID Channel) and also other US States, there are land owners, ranch owners, that own everything but the water. People on fishing trips cannot land their boats, or step onto the river bed (if shallow). They will be manhandled and handed over to the police for wilful trespassing.
    .
    .
    I love the mention of the Great River and Mark Twain, and hope it can resurrected for another link during this renku? And if not, perhaps it’ll inspire you to pen a haiku! 🙂
    .
    .
    Enjoying all the verses, and Sandra’s notes, and comments by others.
    .
    .
    I have heard that both written and live renku can get very heated. 🙂

    .
    .

    I remember a poet (not a haiku writer) determined to bring in two-headed radioactive frogs for a verse, because he’d been on a poetry residency near a Nuclear Power Station. It just didn’t fit in alas, but we got another unusual verse from him that did. 🙂

    .
    .
    When we read the renku back (Marshall Hryciuk style) he couldn’t believe the power of the verses interacting together as multiple couplets as well as an overall poem.
    .
    .
    warm regards,

    Alan
    .
    .

    1. Once again, Alan, I am introduced to another new poet by way of your commentary!
      A face to face renku gathering seems the stuff of dreams from where I sit.
      But I am most glad that you are still here.
      The banter does help.
      Best regards,
      Betty

      1. Hi Betty,

        I have had the great good fortune to lead a live renku – another junicho – and what fun it was. We didn’t have the time to finish it in situ and completed it on line, but the momentum and discussion was quite different.

        I sometimes forget how easy it is to speak – and how quickly I and my friends speak because we have the same accent and idiom – and then I try and express myself in an online forum and realise once again the importance of facial expressions and tone and hand gestures and body language … done without thinking when we’re face to face.

        So one day, I’d very much like to pull up a cushion and sit in a room of people and talk and laugh and puzzle – and write a renku.

        1. Hi Sandra…yeah, those dastardly idioms!! 🙂 I suppose it could seem like a veritable Tower of Babel at times when conducting a renku online with an international cast! Thank heaven for Google!
          Best regards,
          Betty

  11. Verse 4
    ***

    her silk pajamas
    slide onto the carpet
    ***

    a crystal serving dish
    chipped in two places
    ***

    the sudden dark
    of the slammed door

  12. Sandra,
    I think the poem is reading good so far. No changing any verse, we just proceed forward.
    .
    No Sanjuktaa, your verse will never be regarded as the ‘failed’ verse – too strong a word for such a lovely image!
    Cheers!

  13. Hi Sandra, hi all! I had been following this discussion and I have looked in. So it’s alright with me if you want to select another one as the daisan verse. Wouldn’t like to be known as the poet of a failed verse. I am totally a learner as far as renku goes, this is only the second one I’m doing.However, I thought in the hokku the cooling off was the main and dominant image, not the possible (?) flight of the ducks… But Sandra, please go ahead if you want to choose another better verse and many thanks for liking mine.The credit is all yours as you had explained it so wonderfully well.

  14. Hi all,

    Betty raises a good point, which I admit hadn’t occurred to me as I was choosing the daisan. I did worry that I was allowing myself to become too caught up in the shortcomings of so many of the verses offered … and it seems that this may have happened.
    *

    However, I am not going to “undo” my verse selection as I like it far too much – and it’s hardly fair to the poet or all those who have already offered links!
    *
    If we were face to face it would be a simpler thing to fix but working online has both its benefits and its drawbacks – there is no guarantee that Sanjuktaa will look in again or that any of those who have already posted will be back.
    *
    So unless there’s a general feeling we should start again, the daisan stands and the failing belongs entirely to me. Each renku is only as good as its poets and the verse selections of the sabaki. As this poem is a learning exercise, let’s treat this as a teaching point for all of us and move on.
    *
    What this has highlighted for me is that instead of perusing the candidate verses and pointing out “disqualifications”, I would be better to refrain from commenting until it’s time for a selection at the end of the week. So, no second chances this time, I’m afraid.
    *

    Oddly, when I chose the hokku in my mind I clearly saw tame, white, flightless birds (Pekins don’t fly apparently, too heavy). No wild duck, after all, would come near a human.
    *

    Your inept sabaki.

    1. Well, in this case I disagree with Betty and Kala. I think it’s all too easy to go out of ones way to find connections, sometimes, which leads to a misunderstanding of the fact that Japanese renku has the universe broken down into categories that mustn’t be repeated within a certain number of verses.

      I recall John Carley’s example of an over-zealous participant (or was it a sabaki?) who argued that a duck was out of the question for a current verse because an English country manor had appeared in a recent verse and both have wings. I suspect he was exaggerating, but this example of absurdity showed me that, while we do need to avoid repetition and keep the poem moving forward, we should be careful when deciding what it is that links.

      The only thing that paper planes and ducks have in common is the potential for flight. Possession of wings, or an imitation thereof, creates that potential, but there is no indication in the hokku that the ducks might fly off. Similarly, just because people have feet doesn’t mean they’re in transit if we mention feet. I see the subjects of the hokku sitting on the bank, a log, a rock, a boardwalk or the like dangling their feet in the river. Neither ducks nor people are preparing for take-off in any sense: they are in the coolest place they can find on a sweltering Summer afternoon, as far as I’m concerned, and they’re staying there.

      Just because we have ducks in the hokku doesn’t mean we can’t have English manor houses, hospitals (they have wings, too) moths, butterflies, mosquitoes, fairies, angels, crop dusters bats or anything else later. In a short renku like a Junicho, we should probably steer clear of naming further human body parts or having more water birds, even, perhaps, we should avoid paddle-boats, footwear and bunions.

      (and , if I’m not mistaken, Betty, you offered a verse with a paddle-boat, either stated or implied in it, for the previous verse position, despite the fact that ducks use their feet to paddle along in river, where they are located in this hokku … it was you, wasn’t it? I could be mistaken.)

      The ducks that inspired the hokku were ‘wild’ but sociable Pacific Black Ducks, the usual ones around here

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_black_duck

      along with a couple of bigger, whitish ducks that seemed to be crossbreeds of farm ducks and another species…who knows which. A group of people on the river bank usually attracts these little black ducks :-)… there’s always the possibility of an effort-free snack, after all.

      – Lorin

      1. I agree with you Lorin. I think I made a mistake here!
        On we go with the renku, Sandra.
        Being just 12 verses, Junicho could have wider leaps, that was the only reason I supported Betty.
        😀

      2. Yep, Lorin, I did mention paddle-boat by way of ‘Mississippi queen’. If you revisit Sandra’s instructions for the wakiku, I believe you will find it appropriate and do note, there was also the added mention in that same offering of ‘mark twain sounds’…a measure of water depth…two fathoms or twelve feet…the minimum depth for safe passage of a riverboat. I thought it was clever link and shift but alas…not even worthy of a mention. Oh well. On to the next verse attempt.
        My understanding of the junicho is that it is not the same as a renku and as Sandra clearly stated has stricter guidelines. If I came across as over zealous well then, I’ll just go ‘cool off’ Texas style by getting in my trusty inner tube with my feet in the Guadalupe River and float down river with the mallards and risking what comes around the next bend. And I do agree, wild ducks can be quite the freeloaders given the opportunity.
        Finally, I believe being able to bring up perceived discrepancies should be allowed without bringing up the overused ‘over zealous’ card to rationalize one’s decision making process. How can learning take place if one is shut down by the fear of being so labelled? Junicho presents a challenge. I find it great fun to have to work harder to figure out the nuances. If I, you, or anyone else has an epic fail…so what. That’s all part of the game, is it not?
        Peace,
        Betty

        1. Side note:
          One doesn’t lollygag on the banks of a river in Texas unless one has the permission of the landowner that the river flows through. There is the specter of getting arrested for trespassing on private property. Then there’s the Rio Grande…international border with Mexico. Not the best locale for cooling off under any circumstance even where it flows through park lands in the Big Bend area anymore. Your hokku with its ‘cooling off’ carried a whole different connotation for me. And the Mississippi with his haunting history carries tension along with it as well. So for me, there was huge emotional subtext to your wonderful hokku, Lorin…just not what you had in mind. We have a history of ducking the law over here…another notion of flight 🙂 Betty

        2. Hey, Betty, it was the anonymous person in John Carley’s example of what he felt was too much of a focus on (what he didn’t like being called) “backlink” that I called ‘over-zealous’, not you. If I were to imply inclusion of you at all, it would only be as ‘one of us’… another enthusiastic human being who, along with the rest of us, has the potential to get too intense about one aspect of a renku. Sorry that I seem to have upset you though, especially as I appreciated your comments during the previous renku.

          Of course I believe that raising issues and asking questions is the way to go & I support your initiative in doing so. In this case, I don’t happen to agree with your interpretation that the paper planes in Sanjuktaa’s verse link significantly with either duck in the water or people’s feet in the water, that’s all. Naturally, I believe in my own right to give my view, too.

          Well, there are rivers and rivers, and some places are just not safe to be dangling hands or feet in…eg rivers that end in estuaries in FNQ, where a croc is likely to be interested. But I’m in Melbourne, Victoria, Aust. a temperate zone (ha! doesn’t feel temperate when the last day of Summer is 39C) where the only dangerous things to watch out for in the Yarra River are snakes cooling off by having a swim on a hot day (they do!)

          I think with hokku (as with haiku) we first need to accept and deal with what’s written, what’s actually on the ‘page’, before we begin adding details from our own experience (an inevitable 2nd step). (I was completely flabberghasted by a recent ‘editors choice’ of a haiku, where the commenting editor paid no attention whatsoever to the chosen poem, its author or the world region the author hails from, but used the ku as a launch pad into his/her own personal & national history … as a ‘writing prompt’ for free association. )

          “One doesn’t lollygag on the banks of a river in Texas unless on the banks of a river in Texas unless one has the permission of the landowner that the river flows through”

          That’s very interesting. So rivers and their banks are or can be private property in Texas? That’s not the case in Australia. Similarly, we do not have privately owned beaches as some places in the USA have (though naturally, over the years, some of the richer people have tried to make parts of beaches private by stealth … and failed)

          However, rivers run through suburban and urban areas on their way to the sea, and the banks and land around them are usually preserved as parkland or ‘nature strip’, as they’re not good to build right near because of the flood potential. That’s the locale that inspired this hokku…we’d been to an outdoor musical event (‘The Balkan Elvis’, a friend of someone I know. 🙂 )

          Keep on commenting , Betty. It’s not me that’s going to stand in your way. But if I don’t agree with you, I’ll say so , and I’d expect the same from you. 🙂

          – Lorin

          1. Still here, Lorin! Cooling my jets as it were…we too have water snakes…dare I say it??? Water Moccasins 🙂 and most unfriendly and prone to attack so beware as they are poisonous. And yeah, water rights are hotly contested. The Colorado River water rights is a huge huge issue for the western states. And us humanoids over here have a long & foolish history of ignoring the lessons of time…continually building and rebuilding in floodplain areas. I will never forget seeing a satellite image of 3 different Mississippi river deltas in a geology class where the professor scoffed at the Army Corp of Engineers’ attempt to tame the Mississippi which repeatedly overruns her banks and takes such a huge toll.

            Words on a page. The hokku had so few…but they took us all to so many places. It was gratifying to get feedback from Sandra, you, Alan, Ellen, and others. It was what I enjoyed about the previous renku where the Sabaki explained in detail his reasons behind many of the choices. I also greatly enjoyed your presence there & then. Prompted me on more than one occasion to rethink and research more deeply this addictive poetic form. I hope we see more of that in the junicho. I am prepared to eat crow.

            And I can see a possible theme as well in the first 3 stanzas…things that transport…one by water (river), one by land (truck), and one by air(plane). BTW, paper planes have a venerable history & future in the pursuit of flight and I stand by the duck/wing linkage. 🙂 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Aircraft_Released_Into_Space

            Having lived the better part of the past two years at a small town airport in a travel trailer where the back window looked out on the airstrip, I was privy to viewing and photographing many different birds….odd ducks included.
            Wish you lived closer…read your bio….don’t know many who enjoyed reading the dictionary as a childhood past time. We have that in common as well.

            Words on a page…another paper plane…rightly or wrongly, I tend to dive beneath the surface. But you’re absolutely right…associations can make one crazy with the possibilities!
            Best regards,
            Betty

          2. Betty,
            Here’s a photo of the Cooktown airport, probably about the size of where you are: http://www.barefootwebdesigner.co.uk/insect-heaven

            Sometimes, I wish I was back there. Other times, not at all.

            Yeah, I’ve heard of your Water Moccasins & wouldn’t like to meet one,
            ***
            cooling off –
            our feet in the river
            with the ducks
            ***
            just about lunch time
            for the water moccasin
            ***

            but the snakes I mentioned are just various sorts of ordinary land snakes : they do go for swims. I’ve seen, in this same urban riverside park area, a copperhead climb a tree that hung out over the water and let itself fall in… a sort of ‘snake dive’. Then it slithered up the bank & proceeded up the grassy slope towards me . . .

            That wasn’t me reading a dictionary in childhood! You must have been reading someone else’s bio. 😛 It would be fun to meet you, though, Betty. I’m sure we’d get along.

            – Lorin

      3. Hi Lorin, thank you for taking the time to explain your lovely hokku which drew me in here in the first place and also that example by John Carley. Much enjoyed the discussion 😀
        ~sanjuktaa

    2. Hi Sandra,

      Thank you for providing an in depth response to my concerns. I greatly appreciate your validation. I believe that is what makes for a great Sabaki.
      Forward it is!

      All the best,
      Betty

  15. I think Betty has a valid point re the daisan and the hokku.

    Congrats Sanjuktaa, A very nice verse!
    .

    paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off
    .
    – Sanjuktaa Asopa
    .

    spic and span
    the house all to myself

    .

    without his glasses
    he becomes a stranger

    .
    – Kala Ramesh

  16. Hi Sandra
    To me the chosen daisan links directly to the hokku via the notion of flight …ducks in the river and airplanes on the window. Both have wings and both poems carry the weight of travel on one’s psyche. Feet in the river implies someone still in transit to me as do planes on a window sill waiting for take-off…
    Respectfully,
    Betty

    1. Sorry. .. that should say “planes by a window” not “on a window”.
      And if my reading is all wrong…apologies!
      Betty

  17. paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off
    Sanjuctaa Asopa
    **
    a star without name
    leaves the Milky Way
    **

    the old man forgot the stamps
    for the aerial post
    **
    the first flight was postponed
    because of an incident
    Vasile Moldovan

  18. Congratulations Sanjuktaa!!!

    paper planes
    by the window
    ready for take-off

    – Sanjuktaa Asopa

    **

    mama’s favourite recipes
    packed in the bag
    *

    a door-to-door cobbler
    mending the bag
    *

Comments are closed.

Back To Top