WHCrenku Follow This! Games 3 & 4 (Completed)

WHCrenku - Follow This! Games 3 & 4

FOLLOW THIS ! Completed Games 3 & 4
Reader Participation With Renku Verses

by Paul MacNeil, Renku Editor

GAME #3

the apprentice spills
the water bucket that he holds

22. Boncho (no season)

a house is up for sale
its broken doors and windows covered
with straw matting

23. Basho (an autumn stanza)

Here was the assignment:

Since it is rare for either an autumn or spring verse to be alone, please compose another autumn verse in two lines. This is not a moon or blossom verse. Since the two stanzas I quoted are both human oriented, and kigo is required for #24, try to avoid humanity or at least do not write a human-centered verse.

The actual stanza #24 from 1690 was:

when was it that the chili peppers
took on their ripened color

Kyorai

Here Kyorai, a Basho disciple, extends the house of his Master's verse to the garden. The peppers are ripe, already colored -- an autumn kigo. But, they are not picked. The abandoned property has no gardener. This has a good shift to a bright color, but is still part of a somber scene.

Here are the responses by you the readers (several other people commented with subdued interest in the "game" as a result of the Terror War begun just after the Second Issue's publication).

For #24:

in a booth at the State Fair
Persian rugs hang on display

Betty Kaplan

Here is a wide shift to a bustling, active place. A State Fair is, at least in the US, an autumn event. Betty links from Basho's mats to a different covering. They are both hanging, also. This is a very acceptable verse.

wild turkeys gobble
in stubbled wheat fields

Kirsty Karkow

Similarly, Kirsty has linked in a close manner, wheat stubble to straw, but has gone away from the house to a field. The element of sound, of a different human sense, is usually very welcome in renku. This too would be accepted as a stanza by most groups or leaders.

a bird cocks its eyes
ripe persimmon

semi (Terry Relf)

This verse resembles Kyorai's a bit. The link is quite indefinite: the orchard is presumably untended and it is a bird that considers the ripe fruit, not the house's owner. Interesting that we have two different birds in the readers' stanzas. The phrasing of Terry's verse, itself, causes quite a stop between lines. This should be smoothed out a bit, possibly by adding a preposition. The leader or the renku group would probably make this request -- most verses after #1 (the hokku) are not haiku, and are not "cut." One object in renku is for the reader to be led smoothly from one verse to the next. Of course, "Variety is King" in renku so a lesser pause very occasionally may help the communal poem.

wasps buzz around
a windfall apple

Alison Williams

Another verse with fruit; another with sound. This time it is an insect in place of a bird. This is a nice telling of the "truth" of wasps ... an attraction to sweets. The feeling here, of the fallen apple, is very good ... echoing Basho's sad scene.

wing beats of departing geese
and pink-edged clouds track the sky

sheila windsor

I find a slight link here from "departing" to Basho's abandoned house. It is properly about nature and is definitely autumn according to Japanese saijiki. "Departing geese" are employed to depict the migration to the south. Of course in Spring the reverse may be commented on -- it is also a truth of nature. It is the convention that birds leaving their wintering grounds need a bit of other description to nail the act down as spring. I might suggest to Sheila, were she my partner in "this" renku,
that the stanza is a bit wordy. A rearrangement might allow it to flow more smoothly. The link and the subjects are fine.

GAME #4

Here are two inner verses from a summer kasen renku: Tin Dippers -- written in 1999 by Paul MacNeil, Ferris Gilli, and A.C. Missias.

waxwing straggler
pushes higher to join
the flock's curve

7. fg (a third and last autumn stanza)

wheelchair entrance
to the evangelist's tent

8. pm (no season)

ASSIGNMENT:

Please compose a three-line stanza that is the first love verse. No season. This is about human love. It could involve the physicality or emotionality of love. As the first love verse of a sequence that of at least two (three or four is usual), it should not seem a final verse. That is to say, do not have a mourner at a spouse's grave or the like. Just as with a season sequence, there is a temporal progression in renku. The verses shift subjects and are not three parts of one love story, but they do show different aspects of love. For example, in a spring sequence the early, middle, and late parts of the season, or verses that are "all-spring" will be explored. Of course you will link to #8 and pay special care to shift away from #7. In a real renku, you would also need to contend with all the topics of the first six stanzas. But for this game, only two others matter.

The ninth stanza written by A.C. Missias (in 1999) was:

3 for a dollar
he throws the darts
to win her a teddy bear

Reader replies for Game 4, for verse #9:

pure essence
I am lost in the depths
of your dark gaze

Kirsty Karkow

I am a bit lost in considering Kirsty's first line. I do find a link from a tent to the "dark" gaze of her eyes. The directness of the first person is good. This subject is also fine for the opening of a love sequence. Remember, please, that there are always at least 2 love verses together and as many as 4, usually 3, in a kasen renku. These verses do not have to follow the same subject (link AND shift always) but they will follow a temporal order. Kirsty's is a fine initial subject of a human love relationship.

The pause created by the first line could be shortened with some reworking. Partners would ask her what was meant by the first line and to perhaps put it in slightly different, more accessible words.

he feels the heat of his gaze
smiles
turns toward him

semi (Terrie Relf)

Here also we have a gaze. This verse topic fits in with the assignment of a love sequence, but I am not able to find much to link it with #8.

hallelujah chorus
at last he manages
to catch her eye

Alison Williams

Alison has shown a wonderful wit in this one! It links through religion, the evangelist of #8 and the religious nature of the famous music of Handel. Perhaps the couple are both choristers, perhaps just in the congregation, perhaps one of each. I can liken this to a bride'smaid and best man winking at a wedding. And now "he" in this case can think "hallelujah" to himself.

our cyberspace words:
do they lightly or with passion
kiss as they cross?

sheila windsor

There is a sense of a link here from "entrance" to sending words through cyberspace. Of course, Sheila may also be playing from the word "cross." The subject/topic is fine for the love sequence. The actual wording does give a full stop after line one. This should be avoided. I might ask a partner to start with "do" on line 1, and to move "kiss" up to line 2 to replace "do they." The colon could be dispensed with. An electronic beginning to love is a fine "modern" update to an old game.

the bride's nephew
peeks out from under
a table cloth

Cindy Zackowitz

Here is a close link ... the child has made a tent. The religious ceremony has happened already. Now we are witness to the wedding feast or reception. This is the beginning of the couple's life together -- a fine first love stanza. The playfulness of the scene is with good humor and has lightness. If I was up next for #10, I might explore notions of a couple under the covers, or the see-through lingerie of her trousseau? Or even the wedding veil as a prop in their bedroom play, etc. And the beat goes on . . .

Next are two new games.

Click on...as Ferris Gilli AND Yosa Buson play renku games. I'd pay to see that!

Go to Follow This! NEW Games #5 & #6

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