The Renku Sessions: Rasika Renku, Week 3
Welcome to The Haiku Foundation’s Sixth Renku Session.
I (Kala Ramesh) will be your sabaki for this renku. Thanks to Jim Kacian and John Stevenson for giving me this opportunity. I’ve learned the art of renku from Norman Darlington, Moira Richards, John Carley and Eiko Yachimoto. I’ve been writing renku from 2006 and I’ve been a sabaki of many renku trips and was the guest renku editor at A Hundred Gourds 5:2.
Hi everybody, It’s Thursday and I’m back! Happy Diwali!
35 renkujin made approximately 79 offers (thank you with a huge thumbs-up!).
I like the way this renku trip is taking shape! With the hokku and wakiku forming a strong bond, a good and interesting opening is established and this poem is already looking like a winner!
The beauty of a trip (in real life, for some) can be the unplanned and exciting twists – all renku trips offer you this choice! Doesn’t that sound exciting? To me it does and that is what steers me again and again to renku. Yes, one can say, the schema is already outlined – so where is the surprise? The surprise lies in the route we take, which comes from participants entrenched in different cultures and thought processes.
There are so many beautiful offers for this slot and the task of picking just one is overwhelming!
the magician vanishes
into a handful of glitter
– Marion Clarke
I like this verse for the magical power it portrays, but do feel *shine and glitter* are a wee bit too close. I love this verse, although I can’t use it here. Keep it as a pocket verse – I wonder if many of you here know about ‘pocket verses’ – a term widely used in renku. You keep the verses that you’ve written for one renku for use in your future trips! Haha! I loved it when I first heard about it … sounds maha cool, doesn’t it?
a mop of black curls
on the newly born
– Barbara A Taylor
I’m always partial to curly hair on a newborn … but in this rasika, the love verses are just two verses away, and I think that would cause a backlash.
clink of bangles breaks
the dinner time story
– Srinivasa Rao Shambangi
There’s an air of mystery here, if you want to see it that way.
shouts of joy from the peak
of a carnival’s big wheel
– Marietta McGregor
I like this verse a lot but it’s surely not buttressing the hokku – if you know what I mean? Do keep it as *pocket verse* for another renku trip.
the chatter of stars
in campfire smoke
– Brendon Kent
Lovely. I like this synesthesia of sound and sight. Well done, Brendon.
folded chairs lean
into the morning sun
– Jayashree Maniyil
Love the atmospheric ambiance this verse creates. Very nice, Jayashree.
black lipstick smears
the face of a jewel thief
– Simon
Ha! Mystery again … nice!
In many ways, all the above-mentioned offers pull my imagination in mysterious ways, but (after much internal debate) the one I ultimately fell for is Sanjuktaa’s waki:
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand
– Sanjuktaa Asopa
Simple and direct and terribly mysterious (to me, at least!)
All this while, I thought the hokku was a scene outside the house – but with Sanjukta’s waki I see a change, a shift of focus in my mind – I see the interior of the house with a huge glass window where 8 poets/authors have gathered. Most intriguing – a white silk hat seen still hanging on the hat stand … a mystery unsolved that may remain unsolved till the end – that’s up to you how you want to take it forward.
Does a cut happen in renku (as it does in haiku) and, if yes, how? We all know in haiku the *cut* (known as the *kire*) happens between two images. Hold your breath … the cut happens in renku also, but it happens in the white space between two verses! Sheer magic, isn’t it? You will notice how with each additional verse our understanding keeps changing as we proceed on our trip.
What is the role & function of the daisan (verse #3): If the purpose of the wakiku was to closely support and buttress the hokku, it is now the daisan’s job to break away from what has come before. The core process in renku is link-and-shift: link to the preceding verse (we know this already), but equally important is to shift away from the verse before that.
So, in any three consecutive verses A-B-C, A links with B, B links with C, but we must absolutely ensure that A does not link at all with C. And this verse, the daisan, is the first time such an opportunity arises to test if we understand this *rule* as I stated in my introduction on 5th Oct. The link: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/10/05/the-renku-sessions-hokku-invitation/
Important to note: The link and shift is strong in rasika, and the shifts can be wide, since it is not a 36-verse structure of Kasen, which can afford to have small shifts. So, shall we say we’ll be following (to coin a new phrase) – link and leap!
To make it clear, you link to the 2nd verse (waki) but clearly shift away from the 1st verse (hokku).
The daisan is also called the breakaway verse!
So, BREAK AWAY!
Use your imagination – Basho spoke about using imagination, and renku gives you the scope and breadth to do just that!
The verses we have:
Rasika renku:
tonight’s moon –
eight champagne glasses
catch the shine / lorin
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand /sanjuktaa
For the daisan I request:
Shall we step into the world of nature? No human presence, please, more so because the hokku and wakiku are pregnant with human presence!
A 3-line verse. Winter. Absolutely no human presence.
No backlash to the hokku. Move away from all those images and words in the previous 2 verses.
Link to Sanjukta’s verse but take a leap from the hokku… into your own spaces.
A challenge, yes, but one which can be rewarding too!
Come plunge in for some adventure.
Rasika Schema:
1. long – hokku | autumn moon*
2. short – wakiku | non-seasonal*
3. long – daisan | winter*
4. short – non-seasonal
5. long – end of summer/love (rainy season)
6. short – non-seasonal/love
7. long | spring blossom *
8. ageku | non-seasonal or spring *
The asterisks show the important verses in this renku.
I would like no more than 3 candidates per poet, and please post them by Monday, 23rd October.
My flight from London (yeah, I’m still in London) to India is on the evening of October 24th, and I reach Mumbai on the morning of the 25th, which will surely be followed by jetlag. 🙁
So possibly the selected verse and the corresponding notes may be delayed by a day. I’ll try my level best to keep to the schedule of sending the selected daisan to John Stevenson a day before the next Thursday morning (Eastern US time) along with the instructions for submitting the 4th verse. Keep a close watch on this space!
Thanks once again for all your lovely offers.
Keenly waiting to read your daisan!!
Kala Ramesh
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a white silk hat left
on the hat stand
.
.
a wolf sniffs out
antlers just beneath
the snowdrift
snow jumps
after a sparrow’s
branch departure
*
*
all the plants
bordering Niagara
are frozen
*
*
frost lattices
the smooth surface
of a pond
winter sun
revealing patch by patch
the color of a crow
Lovely verse, Sanjuktaa, and a fine wakiku.
.
an owl zooms in
on faint rustle
under the snow
Thank you, Polona.
a landing jackdaw
bounces snow
from a branch
first snowflakes
send the kitten
into a spin
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand
– Sanjuktaa Asopa
.
cries of gulls
riding snow flurries
across the lough
.
Or (if it is too strange) ‘lough’ can be replaced with ‘lake’
I love the mystery of that white hat on the stand – well done, Sanjuktaa. And thanks, Kala. I will keep that magician in my pocket (or up my sleeve! 🙂
.
marion
Thanks, Marion 🙂
evening haze
whiff of onions
from the backyard
Congratulations Sanjuktaa !! I won’t forget this one for long. Haunting !! Loved it !!
seaview
navigation light disappears
in the fog
Aparna,
This verse is reading like a hokku:
*
seaview
navigation light disappears
in the fog
A visible *cut* at the end of L 1??
Thank you Kala for your feedback! I am still learning this form. Trying to pick up 🙂
sea facing
navigation light disappears
in the fog
Is it better version Kala ?
Or
sea facing window
navigation light disappears
in the fog
Hi Aparna,
Kala has most likely been en route to India recently. So, since it may help for your future verse offers: as I read them, these verses still have a cut or break, the first after ‘sea facing’ & the second after ‘sea facing window’.
ie. The only way I could read the 2nd as not having a cut or break as in a haiku would be if the first 4 words are meant to be taken as describing the light: the ‘sea-facing-window-navigation light’, and that seems unlikely. (If that was intended, it’d be adjectival overload, anyway)
—
Just to demonstrate: something along these lines would be ‘uncut’ (without a cut, break) and so could’ve been considered as a potential verse for the spot:
—
my view
of the navigation light
obscured by fog
—
– Lorin
Thank you so much Lorin !! Got your point . These discussions and feedback are truly enlightening. I am trying to catch up the form.
Kala too would have reached home by now. Thanks to you both for being huge support !
Thanks so much, Aparna 🙂
Nice one Sanjuktaa, congrats!
icy winds
blow across the moor-
the naked trees quiver
icy winds –
our cat leaps high to catch
a frozen bird
Thanks Sandra,
What you have given me are two hokku (the haiku with a cut)
>
icy winds
blow across the moor-
the naked trees quiver
*
icy winds –
our cat leaps high to catch
a frozen bird
Please do read this link where I’ve explained the difference between the first verse (hokku) and the rest of the verses in a renku (which are just sentence ku without a *cut* and without a *punctuation* (kireji)).
*
12 Oct – link:
https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/10/12/the-renku-sessions-rasika-renku-week-2/
*
For those who are new to renku: the hokku is the ONLY verse in a renku that requires a cut – something we do when writing a haiku, which juxtaposes two images to create a whole. With rare exceptions, all of the subsequent verses should read straight through, sentence-like (If in doubt, please do read the finished renku in THF’s archives – it might help you to understand a sentence-like verse.)
*
As already mentioned, the first verse, known as a hokku is the only stand-alone verse in the entire renku – all other verses depend and lean on the previous one like a pack of standing cards, for their support.
*
Congratulations Sanjuktaa!
Great choice Kala!
tonight’s moon –
eight champagne glasses
catch the shine / lorin
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand /sanjuktaa
*
the old swan
on a frozen lake
pirouettes
*
snow
from the volcano’s peak
begins to melt
My third offering:
.
the stark silhouettes
of a dozen black crows
soon erased by snow
Mary,
We’ve already had the # 8 in the hokku and in such a short trip we can’r repeat numbers again.
Yes?
Thank you, Kala. Let me amend it then:
.
the stark silhouettes
of a band of black crows
soon erased by snow
.
Please let me know if this isn’t acceptable. I’ll change the other one I wrote as well.
Yes, this version is a sentence and it works as an in between verse in a renku.
My second offering:
.
in a snow squall
five crows huddle together
and fade to nothing
Kala, I’m also amending this one to eliminate the number ‘five.’ Thank you for letting me know before we ran out of time.
.
in a snow squall
blackbirds huddle together
and fade to nothing
Congratulations, Sanjuktaa…a very lovely verse.
.
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand
– Sanjuktaa Asopa
.
a strange silence grows
as trees are covered in ice
and wind-blown snow
Thanks, Mary.
from snowy peaks
motionless in the dusk
the chairlift cable
winter morning
my pup and I wear
white coat
I’m sorry! Please ignore this as it has human element.
winter morning
my pup and I wear
white coat
This is a hokku (a haiku) Srinivasa.
Only hokku is a stand alone verse all others lean on the verse above.
in the bird bath
an upward-pointing
icicle
***
the pink hearts
of decorative
cabbages
***
walking with intent
the badger
has holes to make
in between
empty boughs
the hush of a nest
***
a pied currawong
dips its beak in a birdbath
afloat with leaves
the grey wolf
takes a snowshoe hare
in winter coat
breaking silence
calls of plovers
from the icy lake
*
chattering squirrels
congregate on
snow-flocked branches
*
lacy snowflakes
quickly disintegrate
onto a fallen log
Congratulations Lorin and Sanjuktaa! What wonderful verses you have provided! And thank you, Kala, for such great teaching and guidance for us.
—–
tiny prints
from sparrow feet
touching snowy down
Thanks a lot, Debbie.
Very happy you like this rasika trip!
_()_
snow scatters
as a chickadee departs
the branch waving
Hello, Carol Ann! How nice to see your verse in this renku. All the best from me in faraway Australia!
HI Marietta! Great to see you too!
snow flurries coat
the beaver
lodge
Many thanks for the mention, Kala!
Here are two of my offers for the daisan:
tonight’s moon –
eight champagne glasses
catch the shine / lorin
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand /sanjuktaa
**
sunlight
over the trampled
winter rose
*
under blue skies
the garden lawn glistens
with frost
*
Thanks Jaya for your offers …
Your first one is about *winter rose* – nice one, but if you scroll down my notes and check the schema, you would notice that verse # 7 is a blossom verse.
.
So I won’t be considering this candidate for the daisan:
.
sunlight
over the trampled
winter rose
_k
Oh! I wasn’t careful enough. No worries. I will try two more if i can. Many thanks for letting me know.
calling as they fly
wild ducks wing towards
open water
Oh, Betty, just read your ‘wild ducks’ verse. Didn’t mean to copy! I was just consulting the 500 season words! Marietta
no worries…those are for anyone to use 😊
😀 Thank you.
ribbons of paw tracks
mark new snow
at the lake’s edge
Congrats Sanjuktaa! Nice verse!!
***
winter quilt
on quilt on Himalayas
sky high
***
Happy Diwali, a little late, to you too, Kala! I do like the idea of a ‘pocket verse’!
Lovely verse, Sanjuktaa, and happy Diwali to you too!
.
the elderly piebald
swings tail on
to a hard sleet rain
Nice verses Lorin and Sanjuktaa.
.
tonight’s moon –
eight champagne glasses
catch the shine / lorin
.
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand / sanjuktaa
.
Look! an ermine
bolting out from under
that boulder / karen
wild ducks
skirt another
ragged shoreline
plunge diving
gannets search
for prey
*
sinister spiral snail
still single as its
suitors mate
*
hibernating bear
what does it
dream of
from its icy branch
the bald eagle
stares
kjmunro
tracks on snow-
Phoenix had stepped
just about here
*
From the eyes
of a snowman
dropping tears
a white silk hat left
on the hat stand /sanjuktaa
.
snow shifts
off the grasping
branches
frost feathers
the snow wolf’s fur
his silent steps
wolf howls
disappear into
frozen mist
Thanks a million, Kala! What a lovely surprise this is to have my verse selected … that too on a diwali day! Cannot stop smiling .
Thanks for sending me your lovely verse, Sanjuktaa
^_^
Congratulations to Lorin and Sanjuktaa!
__________________________________________
frost gathers
in delicate patterns
on the porthole
*
they gather
by a crackling fireplace
while the blizzard howls
*
rakishly posed
in his winter finery
he taps his cane twice
Thanks Michael Hester!
Oops, sorry, Michael Lester.
Michael,
I wanted a non-human verse for this slot because love verses come immediately below. In a longer renku we can have 3 human verses coming together but *rasika* gets over in just 8 verses and we can’t have all the verses centering around *us*.
Renku thrives on variety.
across the snowfield
a fox leaps head first
into the crust
I love this image!
Congratulations, Sanjuktaa. Great verse. It certainly links to shining champagne glasses. I can’t help thinking of Fred Astaire’s hats in his dance movies. 🙂
—
– Lorin
Thank you so much, Lorin!
Congratulations Sanjuktaa nice verse
***********
ice fishing for
the compliment
of silence
********
a murder of crows
punctuates
the bare trees
********
a correction of first effort sorry about that
*************
in a stand
of bare trees the hawk
blended in
Michael, you might want to get rid of ‘stand’ in your 3rd verse…after ‘hat stand’ in Sanjuktaa’s verse. 🙂
– Lorin
OOPS dead on with that Lorin
in a row
of bare trees
the hawk blended in
Thank you, Michael Henry Lee.
Congratulations, Sanjukta 🙂
Thank you, Carol Jones!
fallen leaves
encased in strands
of frost
Thanks Kala. Nice verses Lorin and Sanjuktaa.
the twitch
of a rabbit’s nose
in the first snow
Shrikaanth Krishnamurthy
the twitch
of a rabbit’s nose
in the first snow
Thanks Shrikaanth!
Well done, Sanjuktaa!
…
from branch to branch
mandarin ducks’
shrill warning calls
Thanks, Betty.
in a stand of bare trees
the exclamation point
of hawk