Quiet/Disquiet:
Renga Poem | By Marlene Effiwatt, John Bosworth, Michael Overstreet, Claire Dockery, Sara Gilmore, Timmy Straw, Bri Postlewait, Michaeljulius Idani
fly collector, train
catcher not all
follicles feed even Effiwatt
to exodize the ear
in middle distance Bosworth
blue sheathes
ambered grain --
furrows of droughted hours Overstreet
glaze and fade
my pasture power Effiwatt
stray flute floods
the booth dissolves
in hidden waves Bosworth
& now sugar ants
eager plant-envy Effiwatt
blowing smoke in two
the house got god
black, a symphony Effiwatt
your reverb tends the margins
I can dance with Bosworth
debt candle—white
painted entombed wasp
(emphasis) Effiwatt
but time is mulch when promised
water Overstreet
this time around, sound
bends closer
to its immolation Bosworth
cashew milk been
gone moreover Effiwatt
tape-reel’s hiss a burning
creek from which you ember
chords of rain Bosworth
and let the listener
be chorus, too Bosworth
Quiet/Disquiet - Communal Renga
wind sighs
in concert with silence
bloating the morning Dockery
in every labor
in every plain Saraann
the fact unfinished
a newt
floating in the flooded quarry Straw
satellites adrift
swollen stars pulsate Postlewait
rot walnuts, the birds
not hungry down in
humming memories Postlewait
of the drowning
grains in chorus Saraann
the cicadas shell
hangs off the sharp edges of
a cave’s gaping mouth Postlewait
morning saw
reverse lullaby curling Saraann
ghosts like fathers
came and went like cricks
in the neck like crickets Straw
moss mottles the rock face
whispers growing Dockery
into sky, where their hands
were never for proof
afraid Saraann
to name
the face that meets in ev’ry face Straw
humble and height
their anxious stalks
stirring over earth Saraann
up the valley
little comings chatter Postlewait
shells crack underfoot
memorials
fractured Dockery
darkness disappeared
hidden in plain sight Idani
a dissolution so complete
as to take
the wind with it Saraann
yellow silent shade
turns on and breaks Postlewait
their light
just reaching us now
passing in glance Saraann
the surface of
our bathing rage in deed Saraann
tended fields
chaff and husk
still alive and in chorus Dockery
veins radiating outward
verdant and true Idani
nit picked over
the apples
bruised and sweating Postlewait
florated spines
loaded and loaded Saraann
aspens mask naked
guilt with a glitter
leaves cling to sunlight Dockery
only hints of life
that will never return Idani
lean into the sage
hidden in dune grass
a nest, no eggs Postlewait
leaves fall to declare
their opposition Dockery
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Renga
Bref
Intro
This renga of 36 verses/links, composed by four poets in three different cities over the span of a week, observes and engages our shared disrupted world. We realize our making of renga in English is outside of the traditional Japanese structural setting (gathering at one place, synchronous writing with a scribe, etc.), though our practice of renga empowers us collectively to respond and act in this ever-changing/escalating moment. We join through renga, especially in this time of social distancing/quarantine and rampant racial/state violence against Black lives, as a means of communal building, support/care and conversation. Together, we reflect, feel and witness each moment we live.
Guidelines
Our circumstances of writing this renga in English and asynchronously lead us to loosely follow the guidelines of kasen renga. Using kasen renga as a base we came up with these guidelines: verses (haiku) 10-15 syllables, links (couplets) 7-11 syllables. Use images/associations of: moon, flowers, clouds and time twice. 36 verses and links, nine per poet.
Bref
Renga Poem | By Jorrell Watkins (JW), Abby Ryder-Huth (AR), Claretta Holsey (CH), ‘Gbenga Adeoba (GA)
​
Wind anew
leaves, through our headphones
tassels twist (JW)
​
Bent knuckles, we turn
see flecks of day in trees (AR)
​
One bud, then
another swept sea --
we grass, a-grin (CH)
​
We bend the pines, feel
the air, furtive, blow through (GA)
​
Spring again--
the waves carry bright
leaves beyond. (GA)
​
Shadows hold tight the bee,
two hands -- let it loose. (CH)
​
Eyeing bloom
sun greets moon with light
guides us home (JW)
​
In stains crossing us
dusted, a bright stamen (AR)
​
Starlights on
the horizon--we
are still here (GA)
​
Facing the night
with or without rest (JW)
​
My eye a looking
glass -- moon
hides her blank face. (CH)
​
Many wintry nights,
there is nothing to see (GA)
​
Hours print
on walls, fade-- hands skim
the water (AR)
​
Baby owls re-
sound, alarm. (CH)
​
A feathered
being, a small box of
sounds in flight (GA)
​
Churning cirrus
puffing contrails (JW)
​
April showers us
silver -- scene cut
the rain, drops short (CH)
​
See the puddle,
the bend of roads ahead (GA)
​
Stretched deeper,
the crevice where I
dropped a stone (AR)
​
Dandelion shaken -- she
knots the shed stem (CH)
​
Quiet field
Wild flowers sag windward
She passes (JW)
​
We will be here when
they are in full bloom (GA)
​
Crescenting
up to find the day
galactic (AR)
​
I pulse and breathe
Moons away (JW)
​
Sky exhales a second
wind. bent trees
bare, as thread (CH)
​
In between the wound light
where green broke out (AR)
​
Starlings scat
I dial down Al Green
Lighter tunes (JW)
​
Thumping the streets
Tomorrow's bright voices (JW)
​
Sea laps over -- moon
a shock
of blood -- red eye (CH)
​
See the gulls, too;
they come in waves (GA)
​
When some are
heaving with sky
others rain (AR)
​
Horizon line -- my earth
speaks only two tones (CH)
​
Black or brown,
I break the earth, or
it breaks me (GA)
​
Minutes of grass
rushing in pieces (AR)
​
Towards some site
Where found kin gathers--
Candles, fists (JW)
​
Then in mornings, all
the names for light (AR)
​
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Reflection Statements:
CH: We have learned to distrust stillness. We say, “the calm before the storm” where, already, noise and shadow turn everything uncanny. I hoped, in renga, the haiku’s traditional stillness would speak disquiet.
GA: I found the Renga to be a ritual of faith, a different kind, and an invitation to be present with others on a page, alert to our singular music.
AR: Japanese is full of homophones. Renga (連æŒ) is a poetic form, and renga (煉瓦) is a brick. I thought about brickwork and poetrywork. How does a collective hold together and not fall down?
JW: Crafting renga in this virtual space across places/times was restorative for my sense of "now" and presence. I feel more connected and closer to peace.
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Mark Rothko
No. 14, 1960, 1960
Mark Rothko’s search to express profound emotion through painting culminated in his now-signature compositions of richly colored squares filling large canvases, evoking what he referred to as “the sublime.” One of the pioneers of Color Field Painting, Rothko’s abstract arrangements of shapes, ranging from the slightly surreal biomorphic ones in his early works to the dark squares and rectangles in later years, are intended to evoke the metaphysical through viewers’ communion with the canvas in a controlled setting. “I'm not an abstractionist,” he once said. “I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”