Renku Sessions

The Renku Sessions: Triparshva — call for wakiku

renku_300
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.

Our Renku So Far: 

There were more than forty offers for the hokku. Many thanks to everyone who submitted. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, spending time with each, and picturing the direction each would take us. So interesting the many different ways to express the joys of summer and of gathering to celebrate or begin a journey!  We had summer clouds, cloudless skies, rainbows,  an open air concert,  graduation, a wedding, lawn parties, a  festival, beach chairs, umbrellas and beach balls, swimming, a Ferris wheel, boating, picnics, campfires, cuckoo, loons, a swan, gulls, fireflies, a lizard, a cicada, bees, squirrels, an elephant, roses, crepe myrtle, strawberries, cherries. . . Within the variety there were recurring images and themes that speak of commonalities in experience of the summer season. Isn’t this what makes Internet renku possible?  Who could resist billowing waves, an excursion boat with pennants flying, or an ice chest of beer floating along on an inner tube?

Finally, though, I’ve settled on

a bowl of cherries
sitting on each white plate
someone’s name

Lynne Rees

Place settings of red summer fruit on white china–It’s simply, finely observed, and layered too.  I love Lynne’s analogy of picking verses to selecting a cherry a bowl, and the white plate as the tabula rasa of our renku itself. Scanning our roster of participants, I see  friends, familiar names, renju with whom I’ve often written, and several new acquaintances.  So I also like the analogy to place cards as we take our seats.  Thank you so much, Lynne!

Before we move on, a bit of heads-up:  By my count we have ca. 25 participants, and undoubtedly there will be more as latecomers arrive, squeeze under the beach umbrella and sit on the lawn.  The catch is that triparshva as a form has only 22 verses. I’m thinking on how to mitigate this when not everyone will have a verse placed in the final poem. One way is to deemphasize “competitive” in the degachi selection of verses, in favor of collaboration and support. My own philosophy is that we will actually be composing two parallel poems 1) the triparshva, and 2) the poetry of the process itself, the outcome of which is the finished poem. For me, renku is in that sense a conceptual art form, and whenever I’m involved in one I remember what Christo has said of his installations such as Running Fence or The Gates, that the art is not the poles and the fabric.  Rather, the work of art is the “all together”.

In live renku, once the party is over what remains of this secondary, larger poem lies in memory and in the “pocket verses”–unplaced submissions that participants collect and take home.  In online renku, in each post with its comments thread we’ll be generating an archive of our proceedings and every verse offered will be there, a part of the renku. To pile on another metaphor, think of the unplaced verses as “roads not taken”, still there as possibilities to be visited another time.

Thus, whether you have or have not yet had a verse placed, I hope you will stick with us. Even the unplaced verses are part of the poem, and the more we have the richer the renku will be.

Now for the wakiku:

Second in the opening sequence, this two-line verse was traditionally written by the host as a response to the compliment offered him in the hokku.  In function it is a support verse that complements, reinforces or extends the imagery of the hokku without overshadowing it. The hokku-wakiku pair may remind you of a tanka or tan-renga, though with capping it to closure.  A good wakiku complements the hokku without overshadowing it, while bringing enough new imagery to the renku that the next verse, the daisan, may link to it in such a way that moves the poem forward.

Again, this is the hokku to which you will link:

a bowl of cherries
sitting on each white plate
someone’s name

Other things we’ll need in the verse:

  • two lines, more or less calibrated in length to line 2 of the hokku
  • a summer season reference
  • imagery that complements, reinforces or extends without repeating images or topics in the hokku

What else to you see or hear? You could zoom out to a larger view of the setting, zoom in on a detail of someone or something else present. Where does your imagination take you?

 

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. As Paul has reminded us, the comments feature does not recognize double spaces so do remember to separate your offers with a line of asterisks, hyphens, dots etc.  Calls for submissions will remain open for one week, at the end of which I’ll collect everyone’s ideas, consider each and choose the one that best serves the renku.

This call, for the wakiku, will remain open until Monday, July 06, 2015 at midnight (EDT).

Links and resources:

  • If you’re just joining us, please take a moment to review my introductory post
  • For a discussion of the hokku, wakiku and daisan in renku, see John Carley, “Renku: Beginnings and Endings” in Simply Haiku 2.1, January-February 2004)
  • This renku will follow a schema by Norman Darlington. The layout for a Summer Triparshva may be found by reading down the second column from the right.
  • If you don’t already have a favorite saijiki (season word list), here are a few of my favorites that are readily available online:
    • Kenkichi Yamamoto, “The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words,” tr. Kris Kondo and William J. Higginson, online at Renku Home (2000, updated 2005)
    • ” The Yuki Teikei Season Word List”, online at Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, 1997.
    • World Kigo Database, ed. Gabi Greve,  also includes links to a number of regional kigo lists and saijiki.

This Post Has 57 Comments

    1. Oops! Is there any way I can delete and redo this? “jar” is not meant to be the subject!

  4. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    — Lynne Rees
    ***
    repainted bench
    under an old oak
    ***
    porcelain doll collection
    on the yard sale
    ***
    windchimes on the stoop
    remain silent

  5. Is the second line of the hokku intended to be a pivot? (I’m guessing not, but its hard not to read it that way).

    1. I would read it as a pivot, Christopher. Lot of fine haiku can use this — reads separately as 2 pair of meanings 1&2; 2&3. For the second pair there is an understood “is.” Not a linear sentence. Definitely part of Lynne’s quality.

        1. Thinkin’ along the lines of cup & saucer. . .

          Each place has a bowl of cherries and a name tag:
          (a bowl of cherries sitting on each white plate)
          (sitting on each white plate someone’s name)

          The intrigue is left to me. . .

        2. ” I would assume one bowl of cherries, on the table.” – Chris

          But that ain’t necessarily so. 🙂 This doesn’t read to me like a “let’s all just dig in” table setting. Each has a name card, and a small bowl of cherries, placed precisely … that’s how I see it. (… and somehow, I don’t see Elton John among the names on the cards cards. P-) )

          – Lorin

      3. Absent a dash, it’s open to multiple meanings, isn’t it? At first I was seeing an image as Phil describes, but after reading and listening to the sound of it several times, I find a slight cut at the end of line 2–the shape of the s in “cherries” slides into “sitting” whereas “plate” to “someone’s” requires reshaping to form the sound, thus a brief pause. That creates still another but also intriguing meaning.
        .
        a bowl of cherries
        sitting on each white plate[―]
        someone’s name

    2. I read L2 as a pivot line in Lynne’s hokku. Nothing wrong with that. In my experience, in a formal setting, it’s usual to have the bowl (of whatever) on a plate. Not so usual to have the name card sitting on the plate as well, but I see no reason why it couldn’t be done, especially with a bowl of uncooked food, such as cherries.

      I like this hokku a lot 🙂

      – Lorin

  6. Congratulations, Lynne. Such an elegant hokku. A wonderful choice, Linda. 🙂
    *
    the glint of fireflies
    along cobblestone steps

  7. .
    the neighbors slap
    of cards in deep solstice
    .
    .
    as the hostess turned away
    the subtle gaze
    .
    .
    the farmhand’s kerchief
    this dog’s afternoon
    .

  10. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    — Lynne Rees

    ***
    remains of thunder
    behind their whiskeyed ayes
    — Betty Shropshire

  11. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name

    – Lynne Rees
    ,
    ***
    where the blazed trail turns
    you can hear a waterfall

    —
    another coin tossed
    into the fountain
    —
    under the porch light
    moth wings touch my skin

  13. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    – Lynne Rees
    **
    through the screen door
    the smell of honeysuckle
    – Karen
    **
    Sorry, this has a double kigo so I am substituting:
    **
    through the screen door
    the smell of afternoon rain

  14. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    – Lynne Rees
    **
    through the screen door
    the smell of honeysuckle
    – Karen

  15. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    – Lynne Rees
    **
    late afternoon rain
    drips from old wicker chairs
    -Karen

  16. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    – Lynne Rees
    **

    casually elegant
    in crisp linen pants
    – Karen

  20. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    — Lynne Rees
    ****
    chalk cliffs echo back
    the fountainhead’s sweet balm
    — Betty Shropshire

  21. in the cage the parrot
    speaking anew: welcome!

    inside and out smells of
    late flowers and early fruits

    the guests flowers assembled
    in a new ikebana

  22. (offer #3)
    —
    a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name

    —
    we breathe the fragrance
    of the freshly mown lawn
    —

    – Lorin

    1. (offer #3 – revised)
      —
      a bowl of cherries
      sitting on each white plate
      someone’s name

      —
      we breathe the fragrance
      of freshly mown lawn
      —

      – Lorin

  26. a bowl of cherries
    sitting on each white plate
    someone’s name
    *
    her straw hat flies off
    across the beach

    *

    hugs and kisses
    at the homecoming

    *

    palm fronds sway, shade
    the merrymakers

  33. Excellent choice!
    ***
    a bowl of cherries
    on each white plate
    someone’s name
    — Lynne Rees

    ***
    heat lightens its burden
    among the cotton fields
    — Betty Shropshire

    1. Oops!

      ***
      a bowl of cherries
      sitting on each white plate
      someone’s name
      — Lynne Rees

      ***
      heat lightens its burden
      among the cotton fields
      — Betty Shropshire

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