Grand Prize, 2003 HSA Renku Awards
Nijuin written at Onawa, Maine
Yu Chang
Paul W. MacNeil
John Stevenson
Hilary Tann
Judges: Alice Benedict and Patricia J. Machmiller
* * *
New Coolness
new coolness
a perfect day
for climbing
js
red maple leaves
line most of the bootprints
pwm
she reads
mother’s pancake recipe
by moonlight
ht
the usual suspects
of a murder mystery
yc
accountants
in three-piece suits
and handcuffs
pwm
I offer you my name
with a hyphen
js
at Las Vegas
our best man
hits the jackpot
yc
bright nasturtiums
frame the herb garden
ht
all five
car doors
frozen shut
js
cardboard boxes
on a subway vent
yc
tattoos tensed
the harpooner
listens
pwm
eye to eye
with an eagle
js
it rained
on their golf course
rendezvous
ht
whispering…
under a pool umbrella
pwm
sangria
on the rocks
and slivers of moon
yc
the photojournalist
adjusts his lens
ht
we sense
the silent prayer
is about to end
js
rich soil
yields to the harrow
pwm
on the classroom wall
shadows
of magnolia blossoms
ht
homemade nets
for the smelt run
yc
* * *
Judges’ Commentary:
We chose two winning poems that generally hold to the formal structure of renku and also capture its playful collaborative spirit. Both poems, in their own distinctive ways, skillfully touch on a panorama of human experience with tenderness and humor.
The Grand Prize winner is New Coolness, a nijuin (20-link) renku with four authors. The poem as a whole has a stately tone, set at the beginning with the expansive sense of the outdoors on a fine early autumn day. As expected, the first two verses are tightly linked, followed by a shift in location, topic, and point of view in the third verse. After this calm start, shifts become more lively. A freer range of topics, as well as interesting shifts in scale and focus of each verse quickens the pace. Yet because verses all have a kind of contained intensity, reinforced by similarity in rhetoric and syntax, the poem remains contemplative throughout. The treatment of the flower verses is unorthodox. Normally, these verses must refer to cherry blossoms, but the authors chose to use “bright nasturtiums” and “shadows of magnolia blossoms” instead. The effect is interesting, especially in a 20-link poem in English. However, if you were expecting cherry blossom verses with their complex allusive resonance, these verses, though well-integrated in the poem, might be less captivating.
Upstate Dim Sum 