Friday, May 04, 2012

Poetry Friday - Part of the Chain

So, I've been silent for a while, dealing with family, life, and work. Graduation is this weekend, so now that my grades are done, I'm thrilled to be back with a little something my poetry sisters put together.

It started on April 24th with this nudge.
Anyone want to go for six days straight of haiku with me -- post yours on blog or facebook and I'll mention you or link to you??? OR, anyone just want to aim for a haiku Friday this Friday -- final Friday of April?  
Or linked haiku for Friday? One of you guys starts, like right now, and sends it to us. Then someone else uses it as a jumping off point, writes her own, sends it to us, etc. They're just haiku so we should easily have a whole batch by Friday? Anyone want in? If so, who's ready to kick us off???? 
Everyone needs a nudger in their writing group, the one that gently prods or suggests something outrageous. That's Liz. She started the fire at 4:00 pm. At 4:19, here's what showed up in the inbox.
I'm in! I've been doing a haiku or senryu every day, too. So short. But just keeping up... I do mine very fast, down and dirty. No revision, so they're not polished at all. Just warning you.

Happy to just link to your blog, or if you want to do a haiku daisy chain, here's one to perhaps start us off:

fall leaf in April
wearing last season's fashions--
shunned by the green crowd
That was Laura. By 6:31 pm, every member was in, except Tanita. Now, she's across the pond, so we can forgive her the difference in time because she was right there the next morning. New pieces started coming in (isn't it wonderful to have poetry arrive in your mailbox?), and then Andi threw out this idea.
These are wonderful! I am so glad it is spring and your poems are full of green and tart. I can't remember now if we started this game based on the Japanese tradition of haikai? Maybe it wasn't mentioned yet so I will bring it up. The earliest Japanese haiku started from a poetry game the masters used to play with each other. One person wrote a three line, 17 syllable haiku. The second person added a two line verse that linked to the first but also shifted slightly to another theme/topic. Then the first, or a third person added a three line verse. On and on it went, always with a link and a shift of topic. So you had a braid of poetry that could go on for ever. Over time the three line verses stood alone and became haiku. What if we tried inserting two line verses between our haiku?
Don't you just love smart, creative people? And so, after some online collaboration, we have a lovely little daisy chain haiku/renku. Heck, I'm not sure what to call it, but it's a beauty. Here's my contribution.

white melts into green
gardens blush Crayola proud
blooming shades of spring

You can read all the contributions over at a wrung sponge or the individual blogs linked below.

Thanks to Liz, Laura, Sara, Tanita, Kelly and Andi for taking the time to do this and for once again sharing their amazing talents. Head on over to their blogs to see what they had to say.

The roundup for today is being hosted by Elaine at Wild Rose Reader. Do stop by and take in all the great poetry being shared.

5 comments:

  1. This is such a great way to show our process! Thank you dear for putting it all together. I so love our Poetry Princesses!!! I'm holding you in the light of May...

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  2. Haha! I liked hearing our babble of voices. And your "white melts into green" is exactly what I wait for every spring. :)

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  3. Love the back history!

    Speaking of back, good to have you back. Hope all is going...better...settling down...falling into place...whatever is needed most in your life right now.

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  4. Perfect! I just posted about haiku--and a couple of cool Issa books--at Book Aunt a week or so ago: http://bookaunt.blogspot.com/2012/04/celebrating-haiku.html

    Haiku feels like spring to me (I say, knowing it can be summer, fall, and winter, too!).

    Welcome back! Poetry is a good way to (partly) deal with tough stuff, too.

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