Creative writing class shares collaborative poem
By Kristen LaRue-Sandler — March 5, 2025
Last November, the fall 2024 ENG 562 “Forms of Poetry” class wrote a collaborative poem called a “renga.” Professor of English Sally Ball said that writing the poem was “an unforeseen act of togetherness.”
A renga is a multiauthored poem which starts with a first verse, the hokku (ancestor of haiku), of 17 syllables. That three-line poem is passed to the second poet, who writes a haikai, a rejoinder of 14 syllables (in two lines), related to the first, but also standing alone. The third poet writes another 17-syllable hokku that relates to the two lines (haikai) that precede it, the 4th poet adds another 14-syllable pair of lines, replying to the three lines immediately before, and on from there!
From the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetic Terms, "Every link after the first hokku elicits three possible readings: as a verse in isolation, as a rejoinder to the previous verse, and as the inspiration for the following; part of the artistry and pleasure of the form inheres in the way one poet's interpretation may be recast (torinashi) by the poet who follows.”
Here is the full poem; each author’s name appears at the end.
Class Renga
Thirty-one sounds or
sparrows or red fall pears lure
your uneasy eye.
In the lake, ruby salmon
flash and gape their mouths like wounds.
Do you ask yourself
if there’s a particular
reason for your edge?
Autumn fog clinging below,
hiding secrets in its folds.
Under November’s cloudy stare,
dead things shuffle forward.
Your lips, cast with scabs.
My blue mouth seeks land. Cold air,
it will freeze me. And?
I saw your eyes, mouth,
shutter closed against the wind.
Eyelash, rain’s small perch.
Your eyes two norias grinding
drought, desert fountains serve wrens.
Cupped hands, a dark hole,
filling to its lip to lap
at a lost lover.
The wind sows shadows
across the barren furrow—
a crow’s cry fractures.
Droughting silt river oozes
then clots. Pupfish gasping mud.
Their breath thrown against the banks.
Rust rivers made of rubbish.
Do you remember?
The whispers of rot rolling
against your tongue
I hear a deadened promise,
A leaf sodden and heavy.
Puddles soaked through. Street
cats shiver, lick at wet. Wait
for lights in windows.
To be a cloud, to be sky
and then some. Pain can’t reach me.
Tomato blossoms
shrivel beneath the moon’s dreams.
I water them still.
I’ll extend a hand to you
swirling in winter blue
***
The poets (in order of appearance):
Sally Ball
Siobhan Murray
Annie Stutzman
Chris Du
Lauren Licona
Chiara Naomi Kaufman
Emily Khilfeh
Zêdan Xelef
Brandon Blue
Patrick De Leon
Maura O’Dea
Zack Lesmeister
Aaliyah Daniels
David Marquez
Katie Grierson
Ayling Zulema Dominguez
Isabel Lanzetta
Hana Saad
Image at top: "Blossoming Cherry on a Moonlit Night" (ca. 1932) by Ohara Koson (1877–1945). Original from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.