The Renku Sessions: Jûnicho – Week 12

Welcome to The Haiku Foundation’s Seventh Renku Session.

I’m Lorin Ford. I’m your sabaki for this Jûnicho renku.

“The word sabaki means handler or guide. . . . It is pure chance that the German word Führer also translates as guide.” (John Carley, Renku Reckoner)

Please join me in the making of a Jûnicho and in making this collaborative poem an enjoyable experience for all involved.

Some Resources:

John Carley’s ‘Introduction to Renku’.

Renku Home.

THF renku archive here.

Verse #11, spring

Sixteen renkujin submitted verses for our penultimate spot. Considering that we already had ten verses in place and those who’ve had verses selected previously aren’t in the running, that’s pretty good! Thanks to you all. I’m aware, too, that some have joined this renku later than others and may have been disadvantaged to some extent, not having followed the threads from the beginning. Nevertheless, there were ample good verses. These are my ‘top 10’:

in the spring parade/ a princess with parasol/ gracefully waving               – Judt Shrode

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spring-cleaning/ we find an old volume/ of Grimms’ Fairy Tales                 – Polona Oblak

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celebrating spring/ in the bounce-house/ at a toy store                                – Jan Benson

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from this far away/ fliers appear to be/ conducting kites                              – Jackie Maugh Robinson

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still cold outside/ but through my window/ greening trees                          –  Pauline O’Carolan

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the carousel’s music/ brings out the kid in us/ as we circle ‘round            – Mary Kendall

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chasing bubbles/from the stilt-walker’s/ wand                                                 – Sally Biggar

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brought back/ by the spring tide/a peace sign cut-out                                    – Tzetzka Ilieva

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up and down the stairs/ doing the cleaning/ of spring                                    – Angiola Inglese

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on our spring break/showers of dust from a balcony                                      – Marion Clarke

(slightly edited)

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This was a challenging verse spot for contributors to write for. It was also challenging for me to select the ‘right’ or ‘most fitting’ verse for this spot. My priorities: (a) People (plural and the more inclusive the merrier) engaging in a spring activity (b) Close/ tight linking to maeku (for both of our kyu verses) and, as usual, the essential shift from our uchikoshi . (c) An “as-near-as-possible-international” seasonal reference for spring. All of the verses on my shortlist include a good spring reference. Most of the shortlisted verses do feature people in one way or another. A few use a pronoun (‘we, ‘our’) and some use the implied first person pronoun, a practice common in EL haiku. (This practice does not remove the first person pronoun for anyone apart from haiku beginners, who are quite naturally baffled by dangling participles. We’ve all become used to inferring the “I am” in, for instance, Elizabeth Searle Lamb’s classic “pausing/ halfway up the stair-/ white chrysanthemums”. Some of us laughed and cheered, however, when Ferris Gilli demonstrated the obvious dangers of danglers with her example ku, “saying grace/ the hound stares/ at the beef roast”, followed by her dry comment, “What a clever dog!”) I can’t help being aware that we already have the first person possessive pronoun in our daisan and we have a third person pronoun in verse #4. Further pronouns, given or implied, would stick out for me as a kind of repetitive chorus in a 12 verse renku. (But, as ever- polite Canadians are wont to say, “This might be just me.”) There are only three candidate verses that give ‘people’ explicitly,  in a manner beyond pronouns or implied pronouns: Jackie’s ‘fliers’, Judt’s ‘princess’ and Sally’s ‘stilt-walker’.  After selecting the verse for this spot, I admit to second-guessing myself three times, choosing, in turn, three more verses from my shortlist and beginning to write up a commentary for each. But I kept returning to my first-selected verse. In the end, I recalled John Carley’s advice on verse choice: “If it feels right, it is right”. That’s not to say there aren’t issues that might be (and quite possibly will be) raised. We don’t all see things in the same way. Beyond an “as near-as-possible-to-universal” spring seasonal reference, my priorities for this verse spot were tight/close linking to maeku , shift from uchikoshi and people, explicit people. The selected verse is, in my view, the most fitting of all verses offered for our penultimate verse spot.

Verse # 11 – Imagine

a bee
disappears into the bell
of a foxglove

– Andrew Shimield

cameras atop towers
turned to the five boroughs

– Betty Shropshire

from this far away
fliers appear to be
conducting kites

– Jackie Maugh Robinson

Imagine. It’s something no surveillance camera can do, nor any AI program to date. Albert Einstein said, “Imagination … is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”(Wikipedia) Imagination is what we do with our perceptions, what allows us to see, with the mind’s eye, alternatives. It’s what John Lennon imagined might save the world. It’s what enables us to create anything new at all, for better or worse. Here, in Jackie’s spring verse, we have an example of the human imagination at work. Imagine you live or work behind one of the many windows in Betty’s tall towers. From that height you have a view of public parks and gardens, the city’s green spots, below. (Or you may be the human operative, buried in a windowless office somewhere, who keeps an eye on what the CCTV cameras are recording.) You see a gathering of people in a public park, at a distance, their arms waving about in the air. There seems to be a rhythm and a purpose to these movements. What are they doing? Far above the people, colourful kites are aloft. It’s a kite festival, such as are held in many places around the world. From this distance there are no strings to be seen between the people’s arms and the kites. (But note that no arms . . . no ‘body parts’ . . . are named in this verse and although of course kites aloft implies that there is wind out there, wind is not named nor is it felt as sensation by the viewer.) Every kite- flier appears to be conducting an orchestra. It’s interesting that music is suggested by ‘conducting’ in this verse, although there is no sound, there are no instruments, nothing that would place it in the ‘Music’ topic category. As readers, though, each of us is free to imagine a musical accompaniment to this activity. Perhaps Vivaldi’s perennial ‘La primavera’. Perhaps ‘El Condor Pasa’. Choose your own music to play as sound-track over the silent images you see through the window or on a screen..

Jackie’s verse is light, whimsical and also uplifting. It contrasts with Betty’s maeku both in mood and tone whilst linking tightly to it via place. Betty’s maeku gives us the city towers and their rooftop surveillance cameras. Jackie’s verse gives us a human view from such a tower. This view focuses on people, people at play in a public space, enjoying a communal, recreational activity. Perception shows the movements the people are making. Imagination creates the appearance of multiple conductors of orchestras, via association. The reader’s imagination creates the music (and you, dear reader, “. . . are the music, while the music lasts.”) Such an unexpected link and twist! And we have now covered a topic which might be called ‘recreational sport’, at death-knock. Well done, Jackie!

Schema

For our Jûnicho , we’re following this schema from John Carley’s Renku Reckoner: http://www.darlingtonrichards.com/index.php/updates/renku-reckoner-by-john-carley/

hokku      —    winter moon          (long)

wakiku    —    winter                      (short)

daisan     —    no season                (long)

verse  4   —    no season love       (short)

verse 5   —    no season love       (long)

verse 6   —    autumn                      (short)

verse 7   —    autumn                     (long)

verse 8    —    no season                (short)

verse 9   —    summer flower      (long)

verse 10  —    no season               (short)

verse 11  —    spring                      (long)

• ageku   —    spring        (short)

Verse #12: ageku

• is a two-line verse
• is a spring verse
• is our ageku, our final verse
• has a performative function: that of implied celebration in relation to the whole of the poem and the company of participants.

The ageku

Like the hokku, the ageku has a performative function.

“In renku, the last closing verse is called ‘Ageku’ and supposed to be open-ended in happy celebration.” – Shuntaro Tanikawa

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/cou_article/item/27183/The-thrill-and-joy-of-tsukeai

“ . . . the poem ends on an upbeat note, as the guests optimistically say good-night and look forward to the next party.”  From ‘A Personal Introduction to Renku’ – William J. Higginson, ‘Renku Home’ (see link in main post)

“(Ageku) implies. . . the fulfilment of anticipation: ‘at last’.   . . . Whatever the seasonal aspect, the ageku has a function mirroring that of the hokku – this time combining elements of summary, salutation and augury. To have the freedom to meet these demands the ageku may be largely exempted from the more rigorous demands of link, shift, and variety that condition all other verses.” – John E. Carley (see link in main post)

(*Note: in the above “the fulfilment of anticipation: ‘at last’ . . . doesn’t mean ‘OMG, look at the time! Gotta go now’ or ‘At last this renku is over and done with!’  “A function mirroring that of the hokku” means ‘a function which mirrors. . .’ in the sense that the ageku has the function of implying an upbeat leave-taking in an open-ended way, just as the hokku has the function of implying an auspicious greeting. )

“Here is what Professor Fukuda said about it, “It should…be a bright or relaxed verse that expresses the joy of completing the work. Sorrowful topics must be avoided.” To this, I would add that we are not writing “the end.” Our sense should be of something that goes on, even as we part from it.” – John Stevenson, THF Renku ‘New Calendar’, call for ageku. https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/08/31/the-renku-sessions-new-calendar-35/

Two lines, with a spring seasonal reference, upbeat with celebratory implications, fulfilment, open-ended rather than closure or ‘the End’.

Submissions:

• Please use the ‘‘Leave a reply’ box down at the bottom of the thread to submit up to 3 of your ageku (Since the Jûnicho has 12 verses only and we have many participants, a verse by a different person will be selected each time. I hope those with a verse selected will continue to follow our renku as it unfolds. )
• Please, if you wish to post a revision of any verse you’ve posted previously , use the ‘reply’ function at the bottom of your original post, NOT the submissions box at the bottom of the thread that reads ‘Leave a reply’.

Please post your submissions before midnight Monday 2^nd April Eastern USA time. (New York time) That’s the deadline. I find the World Clock handy.

I look forward to reading everyone’s submissions. The selected ageku will be posted next Thursday morning: April 5^th New York time. Happy Easter to all!

– Lorin

Our Jûnicho to date

sleigh ride
the road ahead shimmers
in moonlight

– Marta Chocilowska

softly, how softly
snowflakes fall

– Kala Ramesh

my life story
between mouthfuls
of chili con carne

– Lee Nash

his breath as he whispers
“Señora”

– Liz Ann Winkler

the marriage celebrant
apologizes for not
arriving on time

– Barbara A. Taylor

lured by fermenting grapes
a pair of wobbly parrots

– Simon Hanson

on the wagon
a few bales
of straw

– Carol Jones

gone, gone, gone all the way . . .
with the wind

– Michael Henry Lee

a bee
disappears into the bell
of a foxglove

– Andrew Shimield

cameras atop towers
turned to the five boroughs

– Betty Shropshire

from this far away
fliers appear to be
conducting kites

– Jackie Maugh Robinson