Monday, September 24, 2018

Renga With Basho #9 A Mark On The Wall


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

It is time again for a new episode of our special feature "Renga With Basho", our special feature in which you have the opportunity to create a renga together with the master, Matsuo Basho, one of the most famous and renown haiku poets on earth. I think that a lot of people will know his famous "frog pond" haiku, but he has written a lot of other wonderful haiku in his lifetime. Renga With Basho gives you haiku he has written and which are not renown by a greater public. So this is an opportunity to become familiair with other haiku of Basho.

The goal is to create a renga with the given haiku, the line-up your own choice, through adding your second stanzas of two lines wit approximately 14 syllables. I have made another nice choice (I think) of haiku by Basho taken from Jane Reichhold's "Basho, The Complete Haiku".

Here are the six (6) haiku to use in your own line up, of course I hope you will create a beautiful "closed chain of stanzas" by adding your stanzas and a wonderful last verse or closing verse the "ageku".

path of the sun
the hollyhock leans into
early summer rain


don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two


wait awhile
cut the soy beans to the sound
of monks beating bowls



White Egret (image found on Pinterest; photo © Norman Johnson)

building a bridge
between snow-covered mountains
white egrets


plovers fly away
the evening grows later with
cold mountain winds


summer rain
where the poem card peeled off
a mark on the wall


© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold, taken from: Basho, the complete haiku)

A wonderful selection I would say, but if it's a selection to create a renga with I don't know, but maybe you can do it in a great way.

This episode of "Renga With Basho" is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until October 1st at noon (CEST). Enjoy this "work-out" ... (smiles).


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