The Renku Sessions: Salmon Run – Week 8

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 eighth verse:

on a hot day he eats
ice cream without remorse

Urszula Marciniak

fresh cut grass
of early summer

Veronica Hosking

sweet grapes from
a neighbor’s arbor

Richard Straw

cloud peaks loom
over the prison wall

Michael Henry Lee

a mosquito sips
watermelon juice

Martina Matijević

a burst of sweetness
at a Virginia peach stand

Sean Felix

tangy green plums
right off the tree

Nancy Brady

I share the melon
with a firefly

Orense Nicod

a food fight with
watermelon rinds

Andrew Pineo

inhaling a mosquito
with his call to supper

Laurie Greer

a fawn discovers
the strawberry patch

Belinda Behne

cooling on the porch
with a large beer

Pauline O’Carolan

the skin of tomato
still warm

Debbie Scheving

fragrant breeze with a
hint of melon

Melissa Dennison

bloated tick
on a fawn’s ear

Margaret Anderson

an old farmer warns
of approaching thunder

Marion Clarke

We have reached that stage in the renku when we can easily repeat topic areas that have been covered or should not now be covered because their place is in future verses. So, for instance, we cannot have another moon or moonlight verse. The same is true of love and anything that suggests love. There will be a blossom verse in the future but until it is requested, no blossom image (and probably no plant images of any sort) will be selected.

There are also subtle considerations. Nothing should be added that might echo aspects of the hokku (after the relatively close linking of the second verse). Our hokku has a body of water. So, no more bodies of water. It has fish. So, certainly no more fish and probably no more aquatic creatures of any sort in such a short renku.

At a still more subtle level, the hokku suggests a journey and the second verse takes the notion of “journey” into the sky. We need to be careful not to give the renku, as a whole, a sense of pervasive themes (as is sought in rengay). But we also need to be reasonable about this. The initial image of a journey should not be treated so broadly as to bar other sorts of movement (falling snow, swiping, shoplifting). Reasonable is the key. In the game of six degrees of separation it is posited that any two people in the world can be connected by no more than six degrees of mutual acquaintances. The same is true of every thing else in life. As I said last week, renku has caused me to look at everything as connected, either directly or by a small series intervening connectors. But the point of six degrees of separation is surprise –  and that sense of surprise is the soul of renku.

Here is my choice for the eighth verse:

bloated tick
on a fawn’s ear

Margaret Anderson

The link would seem to be “parasite” to “thief.”  This verse gives us both a bug (an arthropod) and a mammal. We will want to be extremely careful about including other creatures as we proceed.

The previous verse is emotionally complex. Is it sweet, or perhaps pathetic, that someone has stolen something meant to express his feelings (knowing it is her favorite perfume and remembering her birthday)? But this linking image is predominately unpleasant. The word “bloated” tends to make that clear.

Here are some of the other verses from my short list that were most tempting:

a burst of sweetness
at a Virginia peach stand

Sean Felix

We will want a proper noun and probably a named location at some point in this renku. Also, “burst” suggests both scent and impulsiveness.

cloud peaks loom
over the prison wall

Michael Henry Lee

This verse intensifies its predecessor from petty theft to felony. While it’s interesting to link this intensity with looming clouds, it does take me back to the “moon clearing the fence” of verse two.

an old farmer warns
of approaching thunder

Marion Clarke

We may want to include a “profession” at some point. Also some kind of religious or philosophical image.

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

This week we will be writing a three-line non-seasonal verse. It must not contain a kigo from our list of seasonal words and phrases.

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 5. My selection of a ninth verse and instructions for the tenth verse will appear here on Thursday, January 8.

Looking forward to your offers!

John

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