The Renku Sessions: Triparshva—Call for verse 18

Welcome to the third Renku Session. I’m Linda Papanicolaou, and I’ll be leading this journey in collaborative poetry. Triparshva is a 22-verse form developed by Norman Darlington in 2005. It’s a good form for composing online because it moves more quickly than the 36-verse kasen, while also following the jo-ha-kyu (beginning-development-rapid closure) pattern of traditional renku. So whether you’re new to renku, or simply want to keep your skills honed, you’re especially encouraged to join us.

Selection of Verse 17:

My heartfelt thanks once again to everyone who submitted. The verse we’ll place in slot 17 is Beth’s children marking of a calendar, in particular her “something different” version with the crayons. Here it is with maeku and uchikoshi:

how the setting moon
fills the garden
with darkness!
~Gabriel Sawicki

I stagger through cricket songs
impaired by Gandalf Grog
~Patrick Sweeney

all the kids
cross off their days
with chunky crayons
~Beth McFarland

We are coming from a verse with the last songs of insects in autumn and an alcoholic beverage topic that evoked Tolkien’s mythic old wizard. Now, turning the page to the final side, the setting and mood changes utterly.  I picture pre-school or kindergarten since the crayons are the fat kind for small hands, and the students seem to be doing a lesson with a calendar.  It links by drawing out motifs of childhood that were latent in the maeku.  It articulates the page break through a total transformation of setting and mood. It announces the approaching end of our renku through that imagery of crossing off calendars, while in the near-term it also sets us up nicely for our next verse, which will be seasoned winter.  Thank you, Beth!

Specifications for verse 18:

In the template as we’ve followed it, our two winter verses are split between ha and kyu.  The first was verse 10, Christopher’s #winterwedding; the second is verse 18. Although there’s a lot of room between them, please do try to make this verse different, exploring some other aspect of winter.  Here  again is the maeku and uchikoshi:

I stagger through cricket songs
impaired by Gandalf Grog

all the kids
cross off their days
with chunky crayons

. . . and specific requirements:

• This will be a two-line verse, winter, non-person
• It goes without saying by now, link to the maeku, shift from the uchikoshi.
• We’re in intermission for beverages, insects, song, garden, references to days and nights
• Since we were outdoors with the three autumn verses and evidently have moved inside with the children, we should not go outdoors again just yet
• Check the topic charts and try to pull in more things we don’t have yet.  Good linking is most important but we still want to get as wide a variety of those “10,000 things” as possible.

How to Submit:

All verse positions in this renku will be degachi. Please post your offers in the Comments section below. Let’s have an upper limit of 3 per participant.

The call for this verse will remain open until Monday, October  19, 2015 at midnight (EDT).  At that time I’ll collect everyone’s ideas, consider each, choose the one that best serves the renku, and post a call for the next verse on Thursday.

Useful links and resources:  

• If you’re just joining us, please take a moment to review my Introduction to Triparshva post.
• NEW:  A full copy of the schema for the renku may be found at the bottom of the introductory page. I am filling in the verses as they are placed.
• For the archive of previous calls and submissions, click here.

The Renku so far:

Side 1: jo

1.
a bowl of cherries
sitting on each white plate
someone’s name
~Lynne Rees /su

2.
under a canvas tent
the snap of a breeze
~Barbara Kaufmann /su

3.
passersby stop
to applaud a subway
saxophone player
~Karen Cesar / ns

4.
sweet reminiscences
of our bygone days
~Barbara A. Taylor / ns

5.
yet again
the moon lights the loggerhead
as she digs
~Paul MacNeil / sp mn

6.
with the twittering
morning mist clears away
~Maria Tomczak

Side 2: Ha

7.
from the mountain top
Puyallup natives trace
their lands below
~Carmen Sterba / ns

8.
who left the doors open
to Valhalla?
~Polona Oblak/ ns

9.
rusty roofing iron
repurposed
as a letterbox
~Sandra Simpson / ns

10.
#smitten #diamond #yes
#winterwedding
~Christopher Patchel / wi lv

11.
at the Marquise
a clandestine romp
in neon flicker
~Judt Shrode / ns lv

12.
his better half chambers
another round just because
~Betty Shropshire / ns lv

13.
after a while
the life boat for refugees
floating hardly
~Vasile Moldovan / ns

14.
the first pawlonia leaf
to touch the soil
~Maureen Virchau / au

15.
how the setting moon
fills the garden
with darkness
~Gabriel Sawicki / au mn

16.
I stagger through cricket songs
impaired by Gandalf Grog
~Patrick Sweeney / au

Side 3: Kyu

17.
all the kids
cross off their days
with chunky crayons
~Beth McFarland / ns