The Renku Sessions: Update

Our next venture will be a twenty-verse, nijûin, renku. Next week, I will invite you to submit up to five hokku (opening verse) offers. In effect, you have two weeks to compose and select your offers but please do not submit them until the invitation is posted.

The requirements will be as follows:

• A three-line verse of seventeen syllables or less
• Containing a spring season word or phrase from the site listed below
• Containing a single grammatical break, creating a two-part structure
• One of the first three verses will be a blossom verse, so the hokku may contain a blossom image but is not required to contain one
• Exhibiting a mood in the areas of serenity, gratitude, wonder, etc. in contrast to sarcasm, erotica, contention, etc.
• Exhibiting an open quality, suggesting much rather than stating any single idea

For this renku, we will be using this site (http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/500ESWd.html) as the source for our season words and images. Note that some spring topics are listed as “late spring.” Since the hokku will be the first in a series of three spring verses, “late spring” topics should be reserved for verses two or three and avoided in the hokku.

See you here next week,

John

The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/code-of-conduct/