Haiku Society of America Haibun Renku Awards for 2008

Haiku Society of America Renku Awards
in Memorial of Bernard Lionel Einbond

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HSA Renku Awards for 2008

Christopher Herold and Patricia J. Machmiller
judges

Grand Prize

The Smell of Earth

Peggy Willis Lyles
Ferris Gilli
Paul W. MacNeil

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The Smell of Earth

wide-brimmed hats
a trowel loosening
the smell of earth

Peggy

on the run
he unreels the box kite

Ferris

Federal Express
knocks at my door
and a butterfly enters

Paul

the textbook open
to Common Sense

Peggy

only the full moon
helped her study
for mid-terms

Ferris

I step carefully
to avoid the mushrooms

Paul

chandelier swinging
as our loud boogie woogie
rattles the crystal

Ferris

courtesans wave
from the gondola

Peggy

bright petals
down the wedding chapel’s
center aisle

Paul

could I conceive
in the eye of the storm?

Ferris

let’s imagine
this magnetic tape
is your DNA

Peggy

illegal immigrants
caught with forged papers

Paul

the snow leopard
leaps higher
winter moon

Peggy

leafless shadows
mark the oak grove

Paul

a big green X
in place of his hair
then the chains

Ferris

for the birthday girl
old jade restrung

Peggy

surrendering myself
to lily of the valley’s
timeless appeal

Paul

those tadpoles with legs
look so curious

Ferris

two by two
the Merry Men
greet the Queen of May

Peggy

her television stolen
while she dreams

Ferris

so few good points
that my matchmaker shrieks
“Impossible!”

Paul

bananas flambé
kindle our mood

Peggy

giant boulders screening
his slow ramble to
the erogenous zone

Ferris

undertow at this beach
in Zanzibar

Paul

another sell-off
sweeps away
my market gains

Peggy

every toilet flushed
with the janitor’s bleach

Ferris

I promise Mother
the little alligator
will be no trouble

Paul

“See ya’ later,
conjure man.”

Peggy

chicken blood drips
into the circle
pale moonlight

Ferris

the harvester follows
a row to the horizon

Paul

in this place
they bale marijuana
along with the hay

Ferris

we’ve found the needle
that threads itself

Peggy

indubitably
Sherlock shows me
the crucial clue

Paul

at last I know a way
out of the twisty maze

Ferris

blossoms blown
from six directions
toward the obelisk

Peggy

finding its new level
so many brook sounds

Paul

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First Honorable Mention

a glass of red

John Stevenson
Yu Chang
Paul W. MacNeil
Hilary Tann

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a glass of red

Jo

balancing
on the floating dock
a glass of red

js

loon calls
echo our laughter

yc

please hold
for the next available
representative

pwm

she attends the birth
of her grandchild

ht

Ha

the moon revealed
what else
was there . . .

yc

it’ll be tricks
if we’re out of treats

js

their heirloom bed
seems oversized
these chilly nights

ht

new lingerie
however briefly

pwm

a complete landscape
in a few deft
strokes

js

Climb aboard
the Great Western locomotive!

ht

two scorpions
already occupy
my motel room

yc

snowflakes
fall in moonlight

js

prayers for peace
after a homily
on Bethlehem

pwm

the dream catcher
takes another twig

yc

he schedules an appointment
with his massage-therapist
wife

ht

appraising her curves
and hollows

pwm

Kyu

small town stories
often have a touch
of irony

js

Dorothy returns
to Kansas

yc

even early blossoms
fill the esplanade
with picnic baskets

pwm

a windrow of
cottonwood fluff

ht

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Second Honorable Mention

The Hour

John Stevenson
Michele Harvey

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The Hour

Jo

the hour between
children and parents waking
presents under the tree

J

a ball of wool socks
in the calico’s clutches

M

I promised myself
I would learn
to play guitar

J

echo of a train whistle
rides the cusp of dawn

M

Ha

the moon
seems permeated
with a smokey scent

J

without you
the leaves have less color

M

we turn to each other
for the warmth we need
as autumn deepens

J

today’s mail
sent to the recycle bin

M

battle sites
named one way by the Yankees
and another by the Rebs

J

nobody needs a tattoo
the body itself is art

M

thumping
a series of melons
to check their ripeness

M

moths prefer the porch light
to the moon

J

the Braille book
of blonde jokes
raises some funny questions

M

she signals her readiness
with a slight pause

J

they bond
because it’s understood
they are not bound

M

“on my honor,
I will do my best . . .”

J

Kyu

Murphy’s law
can be overcome
by improved design

M

a second pair of legs
for the tadpole

J

the neighbor’s fence
has vanished
in the bougainvillea

M

bursting bubbles
as we blow more

J

~ ~ ~

 

 

 

The Haiku Society of America sposors this annual award for renku of 36, 20, or 12 stanzas.

See the contest guidelines for the HSA Renku Awards.

For more information about the goals of this contest, download a copy of the HSA Renku Contest Committee Report (pdf) published in Frogpod XIII:2 (May 1990).

Awards by year:

| 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |

 

2008 judges commentary:

Renku is a form that thrives on variety and imagination. As a long poem it benefits from changes of pace and tone: surges of liveliness are interspersed with moments of quiet, tenderness follows rough-spokeness, playfulness gives way to more somber thoughts—these are ingredients of a masterful renku. All three of the renku we chose, "The Smell of Earth" (Grand Prize), "a glass of red" (First Honorable Mention), and "The Hour" (Second Honorable Mention), had these qualities; each takes the reader on an extended and enjoyable journey through an imagined and imaginative landscape that, for the most part, sustained its energy.

Counterbalancing the importance of variety is connection—linking—brief synapses of communication that bridge the span between adjacent stanzas, and only adjacent stanzas. A good link offers evidence that one poet has understood the essence of the preceding poet’s stanza. Furthermore, reading ought to flow swiftly through areas in which connections are meant to be close (prologue, love sequences, conclusion) and in areas where shifting is emphasized (the rest of the renku), connections ought to be subtle, thereby slowing the flow and demanding a more sustained attention from readers. In these respects, much of the linking in the three renku we chose was very good.

These aspects—variety, linking, imagination, change of pace, and change of tone—made all three of these renku contenders for the Grand Prize. The following discussion of the details of the poems and how they conformed to, or worked against, the renku “rules” is meant to reveal our thought processes, but we do not want it to detract from the overall success and the enjoyment we felt in reading and studying these final three poems.

There were some weaknesses in the renku we received, including the three we chose for awards. Since writing renku is by no means easy and perfection in the craft is, as far as we know, unheard of, we were willing to forgive some aberrations. Also, it is much easier to accept flaws, even critical flaws, with the understanding that, as important as the rules and guidelines are, it is equally important that we have fun with renku and support one another’s efforts to create these unique word-sculptures. When there is obvious enjoyment by the writers, of the process and of each other, it shows in the liveliness and verve of the resulting poem. In this spirit, we offer the following praise and criticism.

We would like to commend both linking and shifting in all of the renku we received. Each has sequences, some quite long, that are delightful in the ways they connect and separate from one stanza to the next. Take for example verses 9 -12 in “The Smell of Earth.” Verses 9 and 10 give us the image of a bride walking down the aisle as a storm approaches, wondering to herself whether she will be able to conceive in the eye of it. When verse 9 falls away and verse 10 is read with verse 11, the woman, instead of thinking to herself, seems to be sharing her concern with her lover, whose reply takes on a slightly professorial tone, “let’s imagine / this magnetic tape / is your DNA.” As we move on to consider verse 11 with verse 12, the speaker of “let’s imagine…” becomes, perhaps, a border patrolman, and the whole tone of the paired verses takes on a hard, sarcastic edge. This is superb connecting. Another sequence in this poem worth studying is 15-20. It was this kind of variety and imagination, as well as deft linking and shifting that earned “The Smell of Earth” the Grand Prize.

Look at the passage of verses 7 through 10 in “a glass of red,” a nijuin renku and our choice for First Honorable Mention. In verses 7 and 8 we see a couple standing together before their heirloom bed (7), one clad scantily in lingerie (8). When verse 7 fades into the background and verse 8 is read with verse 9, the scene shifts to an art studio and the implication made is that the subjects formerly seen as lovers are now an artist and a model. Continuing, when verses 9 and 10 are read together, the scene shifts outdoors to where a plein-air painter is capturing a locomotive on canvas!

We found another example of good link-and-shift technique in “The Hour,” also a nijuin renku and our second choice for an Honorable Mention. Consider verses 8-11. Reading 8 and 9 together, we can imagine someone on the computer reading e-mail and checking out a site on the Internet with a map of the battles of the Civil War. Verse 10 moves that map from the Internet to a human body, where it is seen in the form of a tattoo. The person who was a rather neutral observer in verse 9 now offers a point of view. Read with verse 10, verse 11 changes the scene to a supermarket and the person with a tattoo is suddenly thumping melons while grocery shopping. The linkage could be interpreted in more than one way: that there is an “art” to selecting a melon (by thumping its “body”) or that the melon itself is nature’s “art.”

The good writing in “The Smell of Earth” fell off toward the end. Starting with verse 30, the connections are a bit too obvious (harvester — bale/hay — needle — clue — maze). Four of the last seven stanzas have to do with finding things (the needle, a clue, a way out of the maze, and a new level); two, 34 and 36 (the ageku itself), link penultimately to stanzas 32 and 34 respectively. The delight we felt throughout the rest of the renku was thereby diminished. In addition to these difficulties the ageku itself, required to express a spring theme, features no such kigo. We understand that it is hard to sustain energy to the end of a thirty-six stanza poem. If this renku was written at a single sitting then the writers did very well up to verse 30 and are to be commended for consistently high quality writing up to that point. A good variety of topics was covered with few instances of repetition. Two were notable, however, occupations (stanzas 8, 21, and 26), and tools (stanzas 1, 32). Generally, a minimal repetition of subject-matter (in this case tools) is not a problem if there’s sufficient space between the references, but since the first mention of a tool comes in the hokku, the mention of another, anywhere in the renku, is a serious oversight.

The poems chosen for Honorable Mentions also ran into difficulties toward their conclusions. In “a glass of red” verses 17 and 18 seem too close (small town / Dorothy / Kansas). More problematic, its lovely closing verses use summer kigo (picnic baskets and cottonwood fluff) rather than the spring kigo required. There is also an imbalance between natural scenes and stanzas featuring human topics, the latter accounting for about 3/4 of this renku’s subject matter.

“The Hour” also weakened toward the end. After verses 15-17 linked “bond” and “bound” to a quote about duty, the dictum of Murphy’s law continues the theme. In addition to this, the blossom verse presents a summer flower before the final spring verse.

We are happy to note that, of the three renku we chose to honor, two were written by more than two poets. Our feeling is that renku’s greatest wealth lies in the variety of voices involved—the more the merrier. It’s what makes renku-writing so amazing.

We enjoyed reading all the poems submitted to this year’s contest. Our critique is offered with the best of intentions and we hope that our thought processes will prove useful to those who wish to refine their renku-writing skills.

~ Christopher Herold and Patricia Machmiller, 2008 Judges

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