Paul Nash, Flight of the Magnolia, 1944
New Year’s Day—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
Issa
Advertisements
Botanical
Poetry & Plants
Tag Archives: haiku
At Allen Banks
I’m spending a lot of time at Allen Banks these days – stepping out of the garden into the wild. It’s the site for my current PhD research at Newcastle University and I’m looking at its history as well as its ecology towards writing a book-length sequence of poems.
As part of my endeavour to consider it as a collective site, it seemed natural to invite a group of folk to participate in a walking renga at the end of the summer, on the brink of my starting my second year of study. We walked on the East side of the river, up through Moralee Woods to the tarn, stopping along the way to write and share our verses.
Here is the renga we made together:
The Landscape, Ourselves
Today’s truth –
the seventh month is our ninth
white river brown
a startled heron
wingbeat of silence
what is that sumptuous smell?
she only knows it
as ‘country’
a choice is made
to keep to the middle way
uphill
tripping on roots
my breathing quickens
through the ghost of a window
we gaze over the valley
mirror tarnished
by pondweed
waterlily
layer upon layer
memories settle
my companions are painting light
collecting earth
gathering pollen
by the water
a stack of wooden bones
and so we lean
into the landscape
ourselves
picture the moonlight
shadowing these branches
in a wild grove
between two fields
with all that’s unspoken
Allen
muttering, meandering.
A 14-verse Renga at Allen Banks,
Morralee Wood,
on 6th September 2017.
Participants:
Jo Aris
Matilda Bevan
Holly Clay
Martin Eccles
Linda France
Malcolm Green
Sharon Higginson
Alex Reed
Eileen Ridley
Christine Taylor
Sound artist and fellow PhD student, Martin Eccles recorded the day and you can read his own renga here. As well as writing our collaborative version, this time I encouraged everyone to keep all their verses and make their own individual renga, imagining them all as parallel shadows of our shared experience.
Celebrating Capability Brown
John Cobb as Capability Brown in ‘The Eye Catcher’ at Kirkharle Courtyard
Making the Lake
This far north
dips and hills
unpredictable as summer
outside the tent
tall grass waves westwards
making the lake
a long lead time
different machinery
capability shifts landscape
in the mind
chittering swallows
twist in flight
white-blue-white
on the ridge of his horizon
a skeleton tree
pegs show contour
banks woodbound
piles driven level
bring me a basket of bread
for the road to Cambo
moon in his eyes
will he be hunter
gardener or poet?
wheelbarrow stands in sunlight
casting a dark green shadow
these rattling meadows
our ancestors
our hope
a spider runs between cracks
in the dried earth
for this place, this day
a necklace of beads
of heat, mud, honey
where is the boundary to be drawn –
planned and unplanned?
begin with an outline
a structure, a framework
anchor it then overlay
Kirkharle – eight hours from Newcastle
on dirt roads
harsh edge of roofs
gives way to
serrated larch against the sky
the price of a line of beauty –
twanging muscles, calloused hands
looking north, new energy
beyond the oil route
wind turbines, wood
when the wheel stops
it starts all over again.
A renga in celebration of Capability Brown
on 17th August 2016
at Kirkharle, his birthplace three hundred years ago.
Participants:
Birtley Aris
Jo Aris
Michelle Caulkett
Linda France
Patricia Gillespie
Rosie Hudson
Lesley Mountain
Diana Smith
Tony Smith
Clara May Warden
Liz Wilkinson
Margaret Williams
On Nasturtium Street
On Nasturtium Street
July, behind the school
no one enjoys
the shade of the chestnuts
white house
conversations in the garden –
the past is inside
a wall of crooked stones
supports a line of box
my aching back
no cry of cicadas
just the sound of a baby
falling asleep
the only bloom
on next door’s patch –
an abandoned parasol
concrete tiles, concrete bricks
a shoot of ivy on a trunk –
is it strong enough?
Linda tells us
about 24 hour poetry
the plot of the clouds thickens
new grass comes in squares
slugs and ladybirds
not included
trees in the yard
nature constrained –
a human soul in the world.
A 9-verse ‘simultaneous renga’
in the Literature & Translation House,
Latinka Street, Sofia,
on 27th July 2016.
Participants:
Boris Deliradev
Linda France
Yana Genova
Stefan Ivanov
Zdravka Mihaylova
Margarita Peeva
Yana Punkina
Unusual to work with a group of folk for whom English isn’t their first language writing in English in their own country – hence the impromptu/simultaneous nature of this renga and the three-line verses throughout. Everyone responded to the space and wrote their own verse and then we worked on the editing of the whole piece together. It was a great chance to share the renga form in a country where it is unknown and a lovely way to get to know more people there interested in writing and poetry.
Also, a sort of blessing for the Literature House, which is in the middle of renovation and expanding into its wonderful role as a sanctuary and resource for writers and translators from all over the world. It’s on Latinka Street, which means Nasturtium in English! We also had in our midst a Geranium (Zdravka) and a Marguerite (Margarita)…
Photo by Zdravka Mihaylova
A Day for Capability
Turning the Landscape
Roads that brought us here –
blink them away
three hundred years
rain crackles the safe tent
inside, gentleness
layers of water, earth, white rock
nothing straight
all balancing
Brown charted the sweep of these contours
shifted nature
songs of dragonfly and jackdaw
spread over the lake
a rippled roof for fishes
plodging, rafting
petting, gutting
ornamental maple
next to copper beech
salt next to caramel
feet circled
satellites flung from a planet
tumbled scraps of moon
sheep graze
this divided land
the other side of the day
slowing down again
in the pink
foxgloves
shimmering question marks
a hand’s brush
two droplets fall
waterlilies
a touch of Monet
upon Rothley Low Lake
ground sinks away
a natural ha-ha
over the old railway
you’ve gone too far
turn back
history’s fraud –
the foggy fort – kindly meant
sounds of planes, birds
but rain (the demanding child)
will be heard
glimpse of modern barn
through a Brownian gap in trees
Beware
soft edges
take care
bonfire piled high
waiting.
A renga in celebration of Capability Brown
at Rothley Low Lake, Northumberland,
on 25th June 2016.
Participants:
Linda France
Sharon Higginson
Liz Kirsopp
Nick Owen
Jon Randall
Eileen Ridley
Anna Smith
Tony Smith
Christine Taylor
Herewith…
…Information regarding Capability Brown’s 300th birthday celebrations
CAPABILITY BROWN AT KIRKHARLE – SUMMER 2016 – RENGA
Brown’s contract with the Earl of Scarborough for his work at Roche Abbey in Yorkshire included the clause that his proposals should proceed ‘with Poet’s feeling and with Painter’s Eye’. It is therefore particularly fitting to hold poetry sessions in two of Brown’s beautiful Northumberland landscapes, Kirkharle and Rothley. All three sessions will be based in a medieval pavilion put up overlooking the Kirkharle lakes and Rothley Low Lake.
Award winning poet Linda France will run three Renga sessions this summer.
The collaborative renga process will introduce participants to a classical Japanese tradition, which encourages greater attunement to the landscape and the natural world, as well as to our own relationship with them. It will help participants to recognise and appreciate the ‘capabilities’ in the landscape that Brown wanted to bring out. The resulting poems will be made available on the website and so will broaden others’ experience of the landscape, providing a snapshot of the spirit of the place at a particular time on a particular day, a palimpsest of Brown’s own vision.
All at £8 each, 10.30am to 4pm. To book a place, please contact Nick Owen (nickowen20@gmail.com). Please bring exact money and pay on the day. Bring picnic lunch/flask/blanket, as well as wear sensible shoes.
- Saturday 18th June at Kirkharle
- Saturday 25th June at Rothley Low Lake
- Wednesday 17th August at Kirkharle
It all sounds wonderful and they have a gazebo tent for us so even the weather needn’t be a problem. I’m going up to Kirkharle on Sunday to have a look around with an eye to creating the schema for the renga. An interesting focus with Capability Brown as our Muse…
New Moon Renga
Today, as part of the Northern Poetry Library Project, a small group of us gathered in Hexham Library to make a 12-verse renga sparked by our ‘food’ theme – which even after six months seems inexhaustible.
The first verse, or ‘hokku’, is a version of one by the Japanese master, Basho. It seemed like a good place to start – him knocking back the saké on the day of the new moon (and an auspicious Spring eclipse).
Fennel, Saffron, Silver
No blossoms, no moon,
the Master’s drinking saké,
see, all on his own
dried fruit sweetens the mouth
picked on a sunlit day from the slopes
autumn unfolding
chewing the passing year
bitterness of loss
ginger wine, ginger biscuits
home-made, Gran’s spice against cold
quickly the mushroom
strives for light under the door
a hint of decay
looking down on Crag Lough
we stop to munch dark chocolate
who knew such longing
could be poured into a bowl
of apple crumble?
my love and [garlic]
a conflict of interest
red seeds on your tongue
fennel, saffron, silver
perfumed breath – mukhwas
leek, onion, potato, simmered
into soup that opens each cell
Café de l’Opéra
coffee and croissant
splash of traffic
table, the first noun learnt
in a new language – we eat around it.
A junicho renga
at lunch time
in Hexham Library
on 9th March 2016.
Participants:
Birtley Aris
Jo Aris
Matilda Bevan
Linda France
Patricia Gillespie
Simone Silver Path
Margot Waters
Your Origami Life
Last year ended with my travels in Turkey, where one of the many highlights was a hot air balloon ride as the sun rose above the astonishingly beautiful valleys of Cappadocia.
Back in the North, the new year began as usual for me at Harnham Buddhist Monastery. Yesterday a group of us gathered there for one of our occasional renga sessions. In the chilly winter conservatory we saw the light fade as we worked our way through a new schema, with the additional rigour of conforming to the traditional 5-7-5 and 7-7 syllable count throughout. After five hours of finger-tapping and head-scratching, the odd spat of wrangling, we’d created this seasonal renga catching the year as it turns.
May 2016 be peaceful and fruitful for us all.
*
Your Origami Life
Hungry now, the jaws
of winter are snap-snapping –
the upstart year prey
a row of unruly ash
gesture to the rain-washed sky
jackdaws crowd the field
sodden silent monitors
a message in black
as if the moon were patched silk
shredded honesty, falling
across Bolam Lake
a raft of male goosander
white bodies, hooked beaks
you didn’t need to say it
but what a difference it made
will this be the year
she sorts through those old boxes
clears her path of dust?
we are all responsible
and me more than anyone
pruned raspberry canes
twigs, bits, dry in the greenhouse
ready for burning
so how many paper folds
in your origami life?
telephone cable
insulated conductor
sways to wild weather
bullfinches chase their redness
through my thicket of slow thought
sweet, sharp, dangerous
licking honey off the knife –
well, that’s how it looked
the lilt of a saxophone
curling towards the ceiling
in the quiet morning
we pass windblown oak and pine
part sawn, cleared quickly
Forties, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher
storm force 12 rarely forecast
here in old tough grass
waiting for the miracle
of winter snowdrops
every day the sun climbing
higher above layered cloud.
A han-kasen renga
at Harnham Buddhist Monastery
on 2nd January 2016.
Participants:
Ajahn Abhinando
John Bower
Holly Clay
Linda France
Geoff Jackson
Linda Kent
Eileen Ridley
Tim Rubidge
Christine Taylor
The Edge of Summer
The Edge of Summer
Housed in the heart
of the sycamore
we’re recycling its green
*
loosening ties
to the ground below
*
a power tool
not a woodpecker
drills unseen
*
axis and rotation
halfway to full
*
all that buried life
bramble and dock
swelling spores
*
but how to write good verses
without a pot of oolong?
*
in the still air
flycatchers
dance their frenetic jizz
*
through the canopy
greying clouds and a chill
*
when this ash grows
past that sycamore
would you speak of win and lose?
*
fistfuls of Burnlaw berries
that never reach the bowl
*
our perimeter
protected with flames
and burnt sandalwood
*
oh to be a jaguar
slumbering in these boughs!
*
bark as skin
and like all skin
its own fragrance
*
on a cooler evening
easier to dream of woodsmoke
*
worry – a temptress
worry – a truthteller
impossible to say in the dark
*
caught in the lake
the bounce of borrowed light
*
to grow roots
or go and reinvent yourself –
the weight of choice
*
the spread of heather – August
woven purple into the hills
*
while there’s still light
we move inside
for warmth
*
the edge of summer
in reddening rowan.
Treehouse Renga
at Burnlaw,
22nd August 2015.
Participants:
Ajahn Abhinando
John Bower
Holly Clay
Linda France
Geoff Jackson
Linda Kent
Anne Marron
Tim Rubidge
Winter Renga
Yesterday we had one of our winter rengas up at Harnham Buddhist Monastery. Just a small group this time, but the renga unfolded over the course of the afternoon as usual. We decided to ring the changes by creating the schema with verses inspired by the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, another one of the lists Buddhism is fond of, interspersed between the traditional season, moon and love verses, with some left open.
The Seven Factors of Enlightenment are Mindfulness (sati), Investigation (dhamma vicaya), Energy (viriya), Joy or Rapture (pti), Tranquillity (passadhi), Concentration (samadhi) and Equanimity (upekkha). You may or may not spot these verses but it was interesting to notice this renga naturally seemed to lean towards the light, suitable for our theme and for the season.
Warm wishes for a light-filled and kind 2015.
L
x
Half Moon Plantation
*
Facing north
frost on the roof tiles
another short day
*
the flock’s breath
rises beyond the hedge
*
all our words
flow past
riverine, brackish, Anglo-Saxon
*
we walk in the dark
to the Half Moon Plantation
*
wait!
there are more of us
than I counted
*
Bulgarian Daniel asks
of Pali in English
*
even though the details
don’t matter
all there are are details
*
chisel marks in stone
how much arch is air?
*
startled grey heron
struggling upward
such awkward beauty
*
the last miles in mist and then
to climb out of them
*
he gave up
deciphering nature
orchid, begonia, geranium
*
the gift of green tea
much more than its flavor
*
a hut under attack
splinters, blood and excrement
left by an obstinate crow
*
no words come
success
*
after breakfast
they discuss
fire extinguishers and assembly points
*
food for the lion
longevity for the gazelle
*
borrowed light
does not warm you
but shows the way home
*
on the shore of the lake, gorse
bright yellow in December
*
to hold on like Philae
saving energy
getting closer to the sun
*
close your eyes
collect the sparks.
§
A ‘Seven Factors of Enlightenment Renga’
at Harnham Buddhist Monastery
on Saturday 27th December 2014.
for Peter Angelucci and Melanie Cook
Participants:
Ajahn Abhinando
John Bower
Linda France
Geoff Jackson
