The Renku Sessions: New Calendar 13

Welcome to The Haiku Foundation’s Fifth Renku Session: New Calendar. I am John Stevenson, leading my second Kasen (36 verse) renku on this site. We will be trying something a little different this time. Instead of making all of the selections myself, new verses will be selected by the poet who wrote the preceding verse. This will be on a voluntary basis and I remain ready to preform this task for anyone who prefers to pass up the opportunity.

There were fewer offers this week but many good ones, especially from regular participants. I am going to exercise the prerogative of a renku leader (sabakite) to make revisions in the verse I have selected this time. The original text was “each time I wake / the path of the moon / lights different corners.” The version that you should link to is:

each time I wake
the moon lights
something different

–Gabrielle Higgins

I have removed the idea of “path” because we have “road” in verse six and “highwaymen” in verse seven. The word “corners” works nicely as a companion to the images of the preceding verse and I wavered about leaving it in. For me, “corners” was too close to my sense of the angular contours of a quarry in the leap-over verse.

Our verse thirteen contains the anxiety of disturbed sleep, the peaceful passage of moonlight, and the mystery of unspecified objects. A thirteenth verse often plays upon the bounty of a “harvest moon” but the harvest in this instance is a crop of doubts and challenges. The contours of this room, perhaps immutable certainties in the daylight, are perceived as ever-changing and unfamiliar through the intervals of a half-waking sleep.

Thank you Gabrielle.

Gabrielle Higgins will be offered the opportunity to select the next verse. Gabrielle, please contact me, either in a reply below or by e-mail (ithacan@earthlink.net) to let me know whether you accept this offer. If you do, I will ask you to choose the next verse in accordance with the requirements listed below and to write a paragraph or two about your selection and send it to me on Wednesday morning (April 5) so that I can incorporate it in the next posting, which appears on the following day. If you would rather not make the selection, I will do so, but I would prefer to know that I’ll be doing that as early as possible

Verse fourteen will be another autumn verse, in two lines this time. It will be the second in a sequence of three autumn verses.

Verse fourteen must link to the thirteenth verse (and only the thirteenth verse) but it also must clearly shift away from it in terms of scene, subject, and tone. Throughout our renku, we will also be looking for shifts of time of day, urban and rural settings, human activities and non-human images, first, second, and third person phrasing, and as many other sorts of variety as we can manage. A renku is like a miniature sample book of the universe.

You will have until Tuesday night to make your offers. The Haiku Foundation site has been busy lately and the link to our renku session has not always been obvious on the home page. There is a permanent “Renku Sessions” button a little further down the home page and you can always reach the current session via this route. We will continue to check for new verse offers through each Tuesday.

With best wishes to all,
John

New Calendar to Date

new calendar
a year of
“Natural Wonders”

–John Stevenson

a clownfish offers
the first greeting

–Peter Newton

taking a fistful
of freshly tilled earth
to my cheek

–Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy

café aromas
on the warm breeze

–Maureen Virchau

sound of a flute
slowly rising
with a hazy moon

–Dru Philippou

flickering light of a bike
from the side road

–Marina Bellini

under the bed-sheet
tales of bold highwaymen
and horse-drawn coaches

—Lorin Ford

has the lord executed
his droit du seigneur

—Polona Oblak

Jimmy Carter
and Rosalynn
on the kiss cam

—Judt Shrode

after the picnic
some spirited croquet

—Michael Henry Lee

the old quarry
so deep and cold
and daring

—Mary Kendall

her scars stay hidden
though the neckline plunges

–Debbie Feller

each time I wake
the moon lights
something different

—Gabrielle Higgins