alotus_poetry

This is perhaps my second experimentation with renga with other poets. (My first is over at red Ravine.) Interestingly, putting together a renga over Twitter was quite interesting as it wasn't entirely perfect. However, I'm glad we could work out a few tangles with some of the verses. Overall, it was enjoyable, and I look forward to doing more renga experiments with more poets (not just on Twitter).

I posted the entire 36-verse renga below as to not interrupt the flow. The original source is at the end of this renga. Please enjoy!
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Original post: Morden Haiku.

P.S. Matt & Alastair noted that this #twenkuxp renga was submitted to Alan Summers' 1000-verse renga project! That's a lot of verses!! I can't wait to read the whole thing when it comes out!

On New Year's Day, I launched alotus_poetry on Twitter because there was such an enthusiastic encouragement from my friend, April, who thought that my haiku & senryu were short enough to be featured globally and that in this way, I would get a chance to share my work among the greater masses. (Thank you, April! I cannot thank you enough!) Little did I know, my Daily Haiku & Senryu 2009 Challenge turned out to be more than I expected. I not only met lots of people out there but also made many great online writer/artist-friends who wanted to learn more about the world of haiku and poetry. And I too have learned so much from them.

Somewhere in my subconscious, I wanted to do collaborations with artists as one of my creative 2009 goals. Then lo and behold, I somehow stumbled upon the work of Holly Friesen and fell in love with her work. Her landscape paintings are magnificent; the colors of each painting evoke some of the most complex emotions--a profound combination between nature and human nature. It is that very foundation that I began to realize that my haiku/senryu are just as analogous to those colors of emotions in Holly's paintings. They not only touch the imagination but also the reflection and self-awareness sometimes we take for granted in life. I am finding myself seeing many facets of our artwork combined (mine is words, hers is pictures) when I view our combined artwork (haiga) several days later with fresher eyes--the meaning of each artwork transforms itself to something new, as if it is in the moment like a haiku in and of itself. (The words cannot go without the picture and vice versa. They complement each other.)

I am excited to see where our journey leads us to for this year and most definitely look forward to building more words with more pictures.

Here are some of our work:

Cloud Spill

Lush Brush

Fire Portage

Water Receiving Sky

Please enjoy!