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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Poetry School Renga workshop

With a nod and thanks to Alec Finlay for his inspiration
and superb renga book: shared writing: renga days


Slug and Lettuce renga
(see below)
Renga Sabaki: Alan Summers
participants:

  • June Hall
  • Libby Houston
  • Donald Gibson
  • Linda Saunders
  • Be Mattingly
  • Lynette Rees
  • Karen Hoy


Nijuin Renga
A renga is a series of very short verses, linked into one long poem, composed collaboratively by a group. 'Nijuin' means a 20-verse renga created by 20th Century renga master Meiga Higashi. He considered the Nijuin renga to be the shortest form that could be both contemporary yet capture some of the classic feel of renga.

There are three movements in Nijuin Renga: a four verse section; a twelve verse; and another four verse section. We started in Spring going through the seasons, as well as writing love, and moon verses, to end back in Spring.
The intrepid rengaistas get their first few verses down:

Reflective rengaistas*
(*Alec Finlay's term for renga poets)



More thinking and working out a verse
that has to both link and shift!
Renga fun moments!
Although we look serious and reflective at times,
there was a lot of fun too, especially with the 'love verses'.


Action renga!


Last verse! Then some of us went on to Yen Sushi,
it's a hard life for rengaistas!



Nijuin Renga


A renga is a series of very short verses, linked into one long poem, composed  collaboratively by a group.

'Nijuin' means a 20-verse renga created by 20th Century renga master Meiga Higashi.  He considered the Nijuin renga to be the shortest form that could be both contemporary yet capture some of the classic feel of renga.

There are three movements in Nijuin Renga: a four verse section; a twelve verse; and another four verse section. We started in Spring going through the seasons, as well as writing love and moon verses, to end back in Spring.

This was composed jointly by the Poetry School workshop led by Alan Summers, which met in the Slug & Lettuce Restaurant in Bath in April 2008.


four hundred species

nesting gulls–
leaves carved
in Bath Stone

demolition reveals
hills and archaeology

we've lost the moon
on the way
to the station

cherry muffin
or wasabi peas

ninety-three million miles
is too close
sometimes

cider-headed
stuck in the hedge again

collapsed
in the middle
of a banking crisis

warm tattoos
Harley lovers' engines purr

text me
fizzed the love heart
on my tongue

all the screens in Curry's
have gone dark

the imprint
of a departed leaf
on the pavement

bracken light
kipper smoke

in their window
the luminous goose
rivals the moon

breaking cups
screams below

tea time
limbs thrown
in the cauldron

fleecy vests wait
for the coming child

we are hiding
from chaos
behind the sofa

a really thorough
one-eighth spring clean

four hundred species
of dandelion
ready to tell the time

are cuckoos
allowed?


Renga Sabaki: Alan Summers

Participants:

June Hall
Libby Houston
Donald Gibson
Linda Saunders
Be Mattingley
Lynette Rees
Karen Hoy

Breaking news as of May 2012:

Libby Houston wins major award:

The Linnean Society is one of the premier scientific societies in the world, whose mission is the cultivation of the science of natural history in all its branches. 

Libby Houston is also a great poet:

Other poets:

June Hall:

Linda Saunders:

Lynette Rees:

Donald Gibson (St. Andrews University):
‘Pseudo-statement or Creative Misreading: What Happens to Science in Poetry?’  

Karen Hoy works in TV Development and is a published haiku poet:
http://area17.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/karen-hoy-appears-in-major-new-haiku.html 

Bea aka Be Mattingly is an adventurer and adores bikers.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Herefordshire Haiku: poems on the move

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Library van image by Alan Summers; Emma & myself image by Simon Holroyd.

I met Emma Stevens, Library Learning Officer at Hereford Station, and met up with the mobile library van at Fownhope to start my one day library van haiku poet-in-residence. Here are the five places we visited:



Herefordshire's lovely countryside replete with crows & rooks:


carrion crow call
refracted river-ripples
on the horsechestnut



mist haze -
a crow cleans its beak
on a rooftop aerial


2 haiku by Alan Summers


on a leafless branch
a crow comes to nest -
autumn nightfall


Basho (1644 - 1694) trans. Haruo Shirane



harusame no
dobei hi tomaru
karasu


mud wall perch
in the spring rain
a crow


Shiki Masaoka (1890-1902) English version trans Alan Summers.


The people:


picture by Simon Holroyd
Mrs Hulbert, who paid us a visit, (and helps out at Age Concern), is an artist who was interested in the tradition of combining pictures with haiku known as haiga in Japan.


(Please click onto the pictures for a larger image)
Mrs Hulbert deservedly is awarded a haiku detective badge!


picture by Alan Summers
Mrs Slade was the second of my home visits to people unable to get out and visit the library van. Mrs Slade will be 100 in June this year. We also visited Mrs Oxley, in her nineties, who was also great fun, despite her fragility.


Simon Holroyd, the library van driver. It was a shame it was a very wet day, but the visitors we did have made it all worthwhile.

I left some of our haiku detective badges to encourage many more haiku being written at local libraries and with Simon Holroyd on his library van so I hope even more haiku get written.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Herefordshire Haiku: poems on the move



I'm going out on Herefordshire's new mobile library this Saturday, 15th March 2008, meeting people in each location. The van visits a variety of countryside and village locations, and we're going to try and capture some of those surroundings in haiku with the people we meet. The haiku can then be shared and displayed around the county. If you are local, please come and find us, and write a haiku or two!



"Sat, 15 Mar 2008: come along and join Haiku poet Alan Summers on the Mobile Library. Using the fabulous scenery of Herefordshire as inspiration, Alan will be on hand to encourage your imagination and enable you to write your own haiku. Feel free to bring along your own Japanese Haiku poetry, or have a go whilst choosing your books as the mobile visits Fownhope, Goodrich, Lea, Whitchurch and Llangrove."

images from sign-rite

weblink: Council brings Japan to Herefordshire this Easter

myherefordshire.com weblink: Herefordshire Haiku: Poems on the Move

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