Class Renga PoemAs a class, we worked to compose a collaborative Renga, each student adding a stanza add the after carefully reading only the previous stanza. In a traditional Renga, the poet writes a new stanza that leaps only from the stanza directly preceding it.
Renga, means “linked poem” and has been practiced for over 700 years. It started in Japan to encourage collaborative composition of poems. Poets would take turns composing alternating three line and two line stanzas, often building a poem hundreds of lines long! Themes are typically pastoral in nature: imagery surrounding seasons, nature, and love.
Spring 2020Brooding blossoms waitSomething to say held tightlyPetals surrender
Gentle rain answers a callHelping lift a heartfelt bloom
Dancers clad in pinkMove to the drumming of rainFinal performance
Spring 2019Long grasses submit to winds of lost loves and livesCirrus meanderings
Floating aimlessly awaySoft, light, and undemanding
But grasses descendLay resting with the earthHushed whispers, gone
The ground sits naked and uncoveredWaiting for the grass to come
The rain falls loudly Water flows freelyYellow turns into light green blades
Emerging from the soft soil,Reaching up to the heavens
The flower blooms Like paper unfoldingIt embraces the sun
I like the wind in my hair I walk down without a care
I sit, darting eyesTracing the wild sun Silently waiting
Her colors embrace the worldGold and green mingle between
The scent of the oceanSo salty yet so sweetI dive into blue
Yet I know something is offHowever, I don't know what
I can move freely,But in this crystal coffin,no one can see me,
Out of sight out of mindHome in my coffin, I am safe
Warm and dark, gloomyBut safe and secureI love my warm home
In the light with no hope leftSoothing dark smothers my home
Many years from nowI will open to the sunBlooming once again
Once I bloom again I’ll find the road to equanimity
Spring 2017Roof shingles crumbleOur memories turn to dustBuilding fragmented empires
A pile of childhood--heaps of sandblown moments litter space
But Time cleared the massEbbing away the litterAnd shaping selfhood
For a boy who knows no homeAnd has no cleaning to do
Born in unlit streets And raised by forgotten hands From filth to greatness
A place harboring no hopeFound a way to forge his own
Here he is nowHigh and Mighty and unwaveringBut he will still fade
Trespassing borders, edges, leaving nothing, asks to be saved
Graffiti stained wallRust covers his painted nameDecayed and crumbling
Past his fingertips he seesWhat was a forgotten past
His forgotten pastEventually all will washOut with the old waves
Nothing but trembling flashes of memories, heavy moon-pull
Moonlit secrets, liesEvening looming with distrustChills up a spine, cold
Tense muscles seeking solace,he shuts his eyes and powers off.
Imagining the starsAs if knocking on the skyHe waits to be heard
But no one has stopped beforeHe is unwanted; unseen
He feels more aloneThan he ever has before.He is trapped inside.
Nose and palms pressed to glasssilence masks words caught beneath skin
They push for freedomFrom their flesh-colored cageJust trying to be heard
Eating from the inside outHe is consumed by darkness
Curling into himselfLike dried leaves in the fallHis eyes gently close.
Sun up follows sun down When the wind gets warmerHe leaves troubles behind
Waiting on someone to take himFar far away from that place
Gnawing on his knucklesStaring at white wallsHoping for a reprieve
While glass presses into skin He stares past the red rimmed hole