The Renku Sessions: Salmon Run – Week 10
Hello, renku friends. I am John Stevenson and I will be leading you in a brief, twelve verse renku before Kala Ramesh starts her session in February.
For verses that require a kigo (formal season word or phrase) we will be using The Five Hundred Essential Japanese Season Words: https://thehaikufoundation.org/omeka/items/show/821
Here is my short list for the tenth verse:
hoping it’s not obvious
it’s my first time in New York
Kristen Lindquist
our daughter double-checks
my spelling with her mom
Biswajit Mishra
outside the Garden of Eden
I clubbed myself to death
Richard Straw
on a Minneapolis street
my ICE gun killed me, too
Richard Straw
my bird’s eye view
from Mount Koubru
Milan Rajkumar
My trip to Hell was
scenic and all downhill
Dan Campbell
my first good night’s sleep
in Seattle
Urszula Marciniak
Phoenix
rises from the desert
Veronica Hosking
i set my time machine
to The Garden of Eden
Diana Ming Jeong
I walk out of
the Kennedy Center
Rebeca Thomas
I see the gentry’s
taken over the Bowery
Keith Evetts
I join the tourists
visiting Alcatraz
Keith Evetts
I thirst to drink
from the Lethe
James Penha
i miss the exit
for onondaga nation
Laurinda Lind
my candle on the sidewalk
in Minneapolis
Orense Nicod
shaking my maracas
in Caracas
Tracy Davidson
I sightsee freedom
on Ellis Island
Martina Matijević
joining the army
is my Rubicon
Andrew Pineo
granny’s Super Mario World
found in the attic
Carol Jones
circumventing Washington
five years after the coup
Anne Fox
an ear worm follows me
to New York, New York
Anne Fox
the (redacted) of the
(redacted) States of (redacted)
Michael Henry Lee
for my Mars mission
I’m awarded Mom’s brownies
Christopher Seep
we go window-shopping
along the Champs-Élysées
Nancy Brady
my small disquiet
inside The Gateway Arch
VJ Green
my plot to rent Greenland
with an option to buy
Laurie Greer
we debate what
to call this Gulf
Rachel Greve
I will always remember
Gaza’s children
Pauline O’Carolan
ancestors speak to me
in the Painted Desert
John Daleiden
we move aside for
Dutch bicycle bells
Debbie Scheving
I think this may be my longest “short list” in this session. Thank you for your creative participation, everyone!
Here is my choice for the tenth verse:
the (redacted) of the
(redacted) States of (redacted)
Michael Henry Lee
This is our current events link. It gives us the proper noun that we asked for (and withholds additional proper nouns). It is not a first-person verse. Perhaps we will pick that up in one of the remaining verses. I have been reluctant to select a current events verse focusing on US events since we are a more diverse group. But I think this is probably clear enough to most of us and the political nature of it, whilel strongly linked to the US, is nearly universal.
For me, it is also a wry comment on the latter stages of a renku, where so many words can create an unintended backlink to a prior verse.
Here are some of the other verses from my short list that I would like to comment upon:
My trip to Hell was
scenic and all downhill
Dan Campbell
My selections do not necessarily represent my sense of the “best” verse, viewed as standing alone. I would say that Michael Henry Lee’s verse is certainly among the best offered this week in this regard but I would say the same of this one, from Dan Campbell and several others. The selection, in the end, is based on my best sense of what each verse might add to the renku as a whole – new subject matter, new attitude, new ideas, a strong turning of our attention, etc.
outside the Garden of Eden
I clubbed myself to death
Richard Straw
This is another strong verse, viewed alone. My reading of it considers “I” to be a collective first-person – “all of us.”
we debate what
to call this Gulf
Rachel Greve
First-person plural. Interesting that the word “Gulf” does not have to be a proper noun and, indeed, comments upon us and our endless “debates” when it is not capitalized.
shaking my maracas
in Caracas
Tracy Davidson
Is this fun, or what!
Here is our renku, so far:
Salmon Run – A Twelve Verse Renku
a brief rest
before the rapids
salmon run
Sally Biggar
crescent moon
clearing the fence
Orense Nicod
a ghost light
keeping the stage
alive
scott anderson
the echo
of slave chants
Abigail Friedman
snowflakes fall
on the shredded stalks
of cotton
Milan Rajkumar
love at first swipe
on the dating app
Laurie Greer
he shoplifts
her favorite perfume
for her birthday
Kristen Lindquist
bloated tick
on a fawn’s ear
Margaret Anderson
a confession
the priest
would rather forget
Tracy Davidson
the (redacted) of the
(redacted) States of (redacted)
Michael Henry Lee
This week we will be writing a three-line spring blossom verse. This often features cherry blossoms but any blossoming tree from our list is acceptable.
Please use the submission box, below to enter up to five of your verses. Submissions will be closed at midnight, eastern US time, on Monday, January 19. My selection of an eleventh verse and instructions for the final verse will appear here on Thursday, January 22.
Looking forward to your blossom verses!
John
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