The Renku Sessions: Many Shapes – Week 3
Welcome to this renku session. I am Linda Papanicolaou and I’ll be your guide.
- SELECTION OF VERSE 3—DAISAN:
Once again, thank you to everyone who submitted offers for our daisan. As I said when calling for this verse, the daisan is where we first encounter the link/shift dynamic that is the central premise of renku. A verse links to its previous verse—the wakiku in this case—and shifts away from the leap-over verse—the hokku in this case. We did have an offer that included the word “stream,” which did not actually refer to water, but the verse felt that it linked more to the hokku than the wakiku. However, that was only one offer and slip-ups do happen. I’m pleased to see that everyone understands the concept. There are however, a couple of other points that I’d like to clarify in order to help you craft your submissions as the renku moves on:
First, several offers linked on words repeated from the wakiku, or in some way continued the horse or blacksmith’s forge motif. Actual word repetition is best avoided. Also, in a short renku such as ours, we have a lot of ground to cover and need to stretch the linking space between the verses. So I focused on offers that took an additional step of turning the wakiku’s imagery into something different.
Second, there is the matter of “jo-ha-ku” dynamic, the evolving development of the renku through its four sides. In the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society’s renku group, an analogy we like to use is to a party. The first side, the jo, is when the party is beginning. Guests are arriving and exchanging pleasantries. Conversation is still polite. By the middle two sides, the ha, the party has warmed up. Topics on these sites include proper nouns, travel, unpleasant things such as misfortune, politics, illness and death. The final side, the kyu, is “fast close.” The party is breaking up. Guests are taking their leave. Several of the submitted verses for our daisan, still in side 1, referred to ignominies of a doctor’s office, a coffin maker, bad luck, etc—good verses but premature topics. For the daisan, which is still on our first side, we would still want something that speaks of auspicious beginnings while pointing to changes coming on the second side. The following are a short list of possibilities that were offered and some thoughts about them:
looking
for four-leaf clovers
in the grass
Nancy Brady
This was one of a few that pick up on the “luck” associated with horseshoes. A nice close-up image that contrasts with the blacksmith’s anvil.
——
we take
a ranch tour at
King of Beers
Valerie Green
“King of Beers” refers to Budweiser beer, a fun oblique reference to that team of Clydesdales without overtly telling us horses.
——
bats break
the fourth wall
of the amphitheater stage
Laurie Greer
The blacksmith’s barn morphed into an outdoor stage with bats erupting into the dusk—this image really “comes at us,” doesn’t it? I was delighted to remember an outdoor opera production of Die Fledermaus that I saw many years ago in Salt Lake City.
——
lucky charms
dangle
from a gypsy’s belt
Carol Jones
The luck theme again, now in jewelry. Nice!
——
the whistle blows
in an assembly room
of wooden trains
Madeleine Kavanagh
From anvil clang to whistle, iron to wood—nice transformation. Another thing good about this verse: we have been outdoors for the first two verses, and this offer takes us indoors.
——
a thin line
of rising smoke
above the volcano
Orense Nicod
The fire and clang of the blacksmith’s forge enlarges into a volcano, silent but potent. Again I see an art image: Frederick Edwin Church’s painting “Cotopaxi “in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
——
we drink wine
and listen to the chorus
from Il Trovatore
Pauline O’Carolan
The wakiku’s image enlarges and wittily moves onto a stage as Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus.”
——
the long clang
of a solid ringer topped
with shouts of “what luck!”
Clysta Seney
The good luck theme again, though again with neither horse nor shoe actually named in the verse, and we are pivoted away to a game of horseshoes. It’s been decades since I played, so I had to search it up, where I learned that the game uses steel pieces that are twice the size of a live horse hoof, and that a throw is a “ringer” when the throw completely encircles the stake. Wow! I learn so much from renku!
——
a successful bid
on a satsuma vase
at the auction
Andrew Shimield
An auction where someone has had the good fortune of a lucky bid on a Japanese vase. Both horseshoe and ceramic vase are arts of the fire, but the verse gives us a subtle shift from the crude, utilitarian horse shoe to an ornately painted and gilded piece of art.
——
Each of these offers links nicely to the wakiku and could have worked as our third verse, closing the first side. Each of them would have sent the renku on a different course. Different salamis will make different choices. After much thought and reciting in my head, I’ve decided to go with Clysta’s for its formal strengths. First, there’s that strong first line with its assonant spondee that vividly expresses the blacksmith’s hammer, the second line that zooms out to reveal we’re in a game of horseshoes, and again a zoom out to bystanders appreciating a skillful pitch, and exclamations of “what luck!” to end the side.
This, then, is our shisan so far:
Side 1 Jo:
stones on rocks
the many shapes
of the waterfall
Mike Barrett
a shire horse shoe
glistens on the anvil
Robert Kingston
the long clang
of a solid ringer topped
ith shouts of “what luck!”
Clysta Seney
- CALL FOR VERSE 4 TO OPEN THE SECOND SIDE:
Plan for Side 2 ha:
2 line no season
3 line autumn moon
2 line no season
This is the first of two ha sides . It differentiates itself from side 1 with its 2/3/2 line structure and autumn season, including most importantly the renku’s only moon verse. In ha we can start using topics appropriate to a party that has warmed up—topics such as misfortune, politics, illness, death, foreign travel, and proper nouns. We also do not yet have any verses with first or second person. Specifically for verse 4 we will need a two-line no season verse that links to Clysta’s daisan , avoids anything that would cause us to regress toward Robert’s wakiku, and, of course, does not repeat anything from the hokku. If you’d like to consult a topic list for ideas, Kondo and Higginson have published two in their “Link and Shift” article at Renku Home (http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/index.html).
Please use the submission box below to submit no more than two offers for the fourth verse. Submissions will close on Monday, August 17 at midnight, eastern US time. The selection of verse 4 and instructions for submitting to verse 5 will appear here on Thursday, August 20.
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