Welcome to the Renku Column of Simply Haiku. It seems
just a few short weeks since I was writing in this column about
unseasonably warm weather. Well, now winter has unmistakeably
arrived here, with its hard frosts and bitter north winds. However
it is in the nature of the submission/editorial process that renku
we bring you now will have been composed, or at least begun, somewhat
earlier in the year, and how pleasant it is to be reminded of
the warmer days of spring and summer with the hokku from the four
renku we bring you in this issue:
plum tree
folds unfolds folds
unfolds, plum tree
sunrise—
I can see some daffodils
showing through
laughter rising
as the ribbons grow shorter
maypole dance
third journey
to the grass labyrinth’s core —
sun breaking through
Although the conditions under which these renku were composed
vary hugely —from live session to email to snail mail—
as well as the individual poets' backgrounds —ranging from
first time to experienced renkujin, from Japan to Europe and North
America— all of these hokku share a sense of joy and delight
in nature or the interplay of nature and humanity.
Yet these renku, as they progress, move in radically different
directions, and I invite you to enter and enjoy the worlds of
these poems, a live Irish Shisan, a Kasen with poets from Japan
and the US, a Triparshva bringing together writers from several
countries in Europe and North America, and last but not least
a British Triparshva done by snail mail.
Norman Darlington,
Bunclody, November 2007
