The Renku Sessions: Triparshva—Tweaks and Title

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1. Winding down here as our renku moves into the archives. My tomegaki did not appear as promised on Thursday because of scheduling. Jim is going to release it tomorrow morning with the announcement of the annual fund drive and a new renku.

   One last time, it’s been a pleasure working with all of you. To everyone who replied that you’ve learned something, let me just say that I’ve learned at least as much from all of you. Not to mention that we’ve birthed a beautiful poem.

   Namaste!

   L

   1. Thank you, Linda, for your hard work and instruction. This has been a wonderful learning experience for me.

2. Hi Linda – I look forward to your Tomegaki. So many new words to learn! I wanted to point out my last name is misspelled in the renku body. There is no “c” in Winkler. So much appreciate your teaching and discernment. Thank you again. Liz Ann

   1. My apologies. Will correct immediately.

3. Congratulations, Liz Ann! What a fantastic ageku. I imagine it to be a yellow kite. Maybe yellow like a daffodil? 🙂
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   Linda, I am happy with your thoughts for the title and tweaks. I also appreciate Liz Ann’s suggestion for a title. I enjoy Todd’s idea, and I think it would make for a most interesting haiga project.
   *
   Thank you for all your hard work as sabaki. You have been extremely thoughtful, generous, patient, personable, and creative. I sincerely appreciate all your teachings. Thank you for providing so many links. I have and continue to learn a lot.
   *
   And many thanks to all the contributing poets along the way. Looking forward to your future renku verses.

4. So delighted to have my offering selected for the ageku! It has been a wonderful learning experience participating in my first Triparshva. Like others, I have really appreciated Linda’s guidance and selections. What a challenging task! Thank you, Linda. Your gifts do deserve a round of cheers.
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   As for the tweaks, I wondered about “hardly afloat” or “barely afloat” in verse 13. I do like all the other tweaks.
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   The title “A Bowl of Cherries” reminds me of a haiku collection called “With Cherries on Top”. For this reason, I lean toward “The Snap of a Breeze” from verse 2. As I’m not familiar with these matters, I really should stay quiet, but I think this title from Barbara’ Ks verse has a lot of resonance. As Paul points out 4 verses have the sense of sound and even Judt’s wonderful “neon flicker” is snappy! I’m happy with your wisdom on this Linda. Thanks again to you – and to the others I’ve shared this poetic journey with, all your comments and offerings inspired. I really don’t want to let the kite go!

5. Hats off and three cheers for Linda! This is an unique and educational opportunity to learn an ancient art form. You’re a valued guide with your lessons in discipline. Liz’s verse seals the renku up nicely.
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   You may make any change to my verse as you wish.
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   Re: Title. There’s a danger in titles — they can bias the mood or image in the reader’s mind. So instead of word(s), I’d like to propose that an illustration be used, perhaps calligraphy or an ink-brush or whatever.
   .
   Another proposal — is it possible to build a renku without any prepositions?

   1. Yes, titles can bias the reader’s mind because we tend to look to them as indicators of what the poem is “about”.. In modern form renku where the title has been chosen from a verse farther down, I find that I tend to read the poem looking for the verse rather than just staying in the moment of each link.

      Renku with images is an interesting possibility. I’ve been involved with projects like that a few times, though never a renku form longer than 12 verses.

      As for writing a renku without any prepositions, I think you’ve sensed a weakness we do have in this renku–it is rather loaded with them. I’ve gone through it to see how many could be removed with a bit of rephrasing (without affecting the sense of the verse) and found only one. So I let it be.
      This could be something for everyone to work on in future THF renku. I don’t know about a stricture of none at all, though–it could tip you into “theme”.

      1. Some other title possibilities:
         another round
         just because
         another round just because
         ; )

6. I really like the result. It was a pleasure to participate in this renku and read all those lovely offerings. So inspiring! Thank you for guiding us, Linda. I’ve learned a lot.

7. Thank you Linda for all your hard work and guidance. I’ve leaned a lot. Your final tweaks and the title are awesome. It’s a beautiful renku and so much fun to read. Thanks to everyone for your comments and contributions – they really help a beginner like me. 🙂

8. _/\_
   Back atcha!

9. g’day Linda,

   I love the title, and the ageku is perfect.
   Thank you so very much for you expert guidance throughout.
   It’s been a real pleasure to watch, learn and participate
   in this journey. Working with you is always enlightening
   and I look forward to further collaboration.
   Thank you to everyone for the trip.

   Peace and Love
   B

10. .
    Great stuff, enjoyed the process. A big congrats to everyone involved.
    .

    warm regards,

    Alan
    .
    .

11. It has been great fun participating in this process…so much to learn! Thanks for all the work you put into it, Linda. I think it is beautiful. The gestalt that happens is amazing. I really like the title, and as soon as I saw Liz’s kite verse, I was sure it had to be the one. Job well done!

12. What a great result, Linda – you must be pleased with this. It is my first Triparshva and I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I love the title which, of course, brings to mind the saying, ‘Life’s a bowl of cherries.’ I also see the kite in the ageku as red, mirroring those shiny fruits!

    Paul makes a good point about renku being read aloud and it would be lovely if this could be turned into an ‘audio Triparshva’! THF haiku moderator John McManus edits and produces the excellent audio journal Frozen Butterfly, so he would know how feasible it would be.

    For me, the kite taking off at the end suggests the participants are releasing this renku, much like parents sending their offspring out into the world. Who knows when we might meet up again? 🙂

    Thank you, Linda, for your careful guidance throughout “A bowl of cherries”.

    marion

13. Linda, I like all of the proposed tweaks. Good to do as long as substance is not changed, and it is not here.
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    This is an interesting, diverse, well-guided renku. Pleasurable to read. It is only the second Triparshva in which I’ve participated — so I am far from experienced in this medium-length form. When writing live, in person, Groups I know do read it aloud, each poet doing her/his verse as conclusion. Cannot do this on line, but gentle readers do speak it to yourself. The variety and tones of English words adds a great deal to the experience.
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    I feel Triparshva does get to many traditional areas available in renku, but its length, vis-a-vis kasen, does constrict possibilities for expansion.
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    Traditionally, renku are structured to contain about equal parts of “seasoned” stanzas and non-season. Our Sabaki has achieved a rough split. I find 12 verses with season (close calls for some— and all comments are only my opinion).
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    One thing I prize, just my opinion, not a criticism, is having some verses of pure nature. Perhaps beautiful in their way… at least absent humans. Bowl of Cherries has 4 obvious such: 5,6,14,15. Two more are close to either camp: 2, 20. Yet, this leaves 18 stanzas about people in some way, directly on by context.
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    We did achieve a lot of variety…….. Variety is King, or at least a major goal of the mandala-like expansion this form uniquely allows. Linda has directed: religion, alcohol, firearm, transportation, music, number, remembrance. The renku has 4 animals, all different (well 5 as one stanza had two different beasties) reptile, bird, insect, mammal/mammal; and 4 different plants. For weather there is mist, but no sun, rain, ice, snow, etc. One cannot get everything, topic-wise- into a form this size. As mentioned, there is music, but no painting, sculpture, drama, and maybe are oblique references to written Art… “Galdalf” and “Valhalla?”
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    Christopher’s #10 gives great contrast and originality!
    .
    The senses are not as well represented. There are 4 with sound (3,6,16,19) but none with taste or smell. A kasen would certainly have these other senses. Plainly sight is in most stanzas, but the sense of touch is not obvious. One verse mentions warm temperature — another sense.
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    No key words are repeated — a big plus!
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    Variety in parts of speech to begin lines and grammar within are things to consider for variety. There are 5 proper nouns within.
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    Bowl of Cherries has no interjection, or exclamation. There is one interrogative. There is no quotation.
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    Lots of parts of speech at line beginnings:
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    article: 2 each of “the” and “a” — 14,20 & 1,19
    adverb: 5,15
    adjective: 4,9
    verb: 10
    noun: 3,8,21
    pronoun: 8,12,17
    preposition: 2,6,7,11,13,22 (all different ones, at least)

    .
    ALL this is academic analysis. The Art in the verses is wonderful — the variety of linking technique give a fine flow. Most verses have superb feeling. Poetry.

    .

    Kudos due to our Guide whose labor is rewarding throughout this poem! Hear hear!
    .
    – Paul MacNeil

    1. Thanks so much for your detailed reflection, Paul. Helpful to me in writing my final debrief–especially your observations about the consequences of triparshva’s shorter ha section.

       Re no exclamation points–back when I tweaked Gabriel’s verse to get a more varied syntax I was thinking that an exclamation point could go there if none came in through later verses; then I forgot to add the punctuation when I did the editing for this post. I’ve gone back and done so now.

       Re your point that we have few purely nature verses. Here in our triparshva, there were actually times when I called for a purely nature verse and received offers with humans in them anyway. Sometimes I’ve noticed a scarcity of purely nature verses in renku on The Renku Group also and have wondered if this could be a signal that we spend in our lives in a built environment these days and just don’t go out to commune any kind of nature that doesn’t have some sort of human impact. Thus we don’t have an idea bank of imagery to draw on when called to write from experience.

       The aesthetics of purely nature–wilderness–may be a Western concept anyway. Early on I used to think in terms of nature vs. human verses, and lump everything that included people or even artifacts of human presence–a coin in the gutter, a contrail, a coffee machine in an empty kitchen–in the human category. I think what changed for me was reading Herbert Jonsson and realizing that the Japanese categorization would be simply person (first and third, singular or plural) vs. non-person. I now tend to see verses with humans on stage as person. Verses with inanimate human artifacts–built environment–fall on the non-person side of things if there’s a sense of is-ness about them.

       But I agree–it’s important to have purely nature imagery substantially present in the renku. It’s something else to work on in future endeavors here at THF.

14. I’m happy with the tweaks to my verse, and love the way our ageku rounds everything off 🙂

15. I love that final verse! Sounds like the perfect end to our linked scenes. Title sounds great. I support your gentle tweaks on 13 and 17. I do have a question about 20/21; despite the colon it does still feel like a kire right there, although I get intellectually why it would grammatically underline that it’s not meant to be. I just wondered if adding in some more plurals would clear it up completely and fix the article issue:
    *
    fools
    always find perfect
    apple blossoms
    *
    …although this does take it fully into aphorism-like territory, and that may not be desirable? I have greatly enjoyed this collaborative writing process and look forward to the next.

    1. Good question you’ve raised here. As I was thinking about this verse, I tested in my mind whether it was a kire and syntactical break and finally decided that it was syntactical. As your edit shows, the break between line 2 and 3 is syntactical break within a unified image–not a juxtaposition of two separate images. Interestingly, though, if you were to read this as a hokku and assume that “one” referred to something separate from the apple blossoms–interesting that you could in fact read it that way.

       Re kire in the hokku and not elsewhere in the renku: The rationale as you know is that the hokku being the first verse has only itself to link to while all subsequent verses have the verse before and the verse after. I’ve participated in shisans and other modern forms in which we’ve written zip verses and realized that when you have a cut or caesura within verses, the consequence is fragmentation: each verse tends to fold in on itself, detaching from the previous and subsequent verses.

       On the other hand there’s the need for syntactical variety, as Paul has noted. Did I ever get around to giving everyone the link to Ferris Gilli’s article “English Grammar: Variety in Renku” in World Haiku Review? Pacing the flow of the language is important because it’s how you make a renku continue to be readable as poetry when the fun of the writing is over.

       So in this case, my question was, does the verse break or aide the pacing of the renku? Early on in the renku a construction like this might well have been disruptive but here at the penultimate verse we’ve build a strong foundation of expectations and have a full head of team up, so I actually like the syntactical break rather than another smoothly flowing verse. It’s like the orchestra in a short rest before the final chord.

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