NaWriPoMo 17/30: Playing With Poetry International Haiku Day

April is Nationa/ Global Poetry Month.  I’ve been “Playing With Poetry” this month along side Mary Lee Hahn, Margaret Simon, and Christie Wyman.

I have fun tools to use: Haikubes, Metaphor Dice, Paint Chip Poetry, and Magnetic Poetry. Plus I signed up for the daily prompts at Two Sylvias Press. My poems are in draft form and sometimes I combine prompts and tools.  It IS playing with poetry after all.

Feel free to join us.  What kind of poetic trouble can you get into by playing along? We’re at #playwithpoetryNPM on Twitter and Instagram.

It’s International Haiku Day today. More information can be found at The Haiku Foundation.

In haiku news, my local haiku group participate in a Renku workshop last Saturday. It was led by John Stevenson. It was my first time to participate and what a blast. Talk about collaborating.

A Renku is a series of twelve verses that alternate between three and two lines. A better definition from The Haiku Foundation is the following:

Practical Guidelines for the Jûnichô Renku Form

by Seijo Okamoto, Master of the Haikai Sesshin

translated by William J. Higginson and Tadashi Kondô

1. A renku must have literary value and a sense of stylishness. This is what Bashô called “timeless and fashionable” (fueki ryûkô).
2. A twelve-tone renku consists of twelve stanzas. There is no front or back. One blossom stanza, which may be any flower in any season–it need not be cherry blossoms. One moon stanza, which may be any sort of moon in any season. About two love stanzas, in any position. About half the verses will be seasonal (a pair each for spring and autumn, one each summer and winter), and half non-seasonal, in a flexible order. About half with human focus, the rest on places, animals, plants, and the like.
3. Progression and diversity are the essence of renku. Accordingly, a wide variety of things in nature and the world of humans should appear.

What I like about it the process is the collaboration and in the moment experience.

Here’s my haiku for today.

after rain showers

late bloomer

purple majesty

©jone rush macculloch (draft, 2019)

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