The Arts, Etc.


A note from Julian Crowell:
For several years, I enjoyed a Renga-inspired conversation with Gwen Stone, an artist who lived in the northern California outback. Renga is a form of Japanese linked verse. Linked in the sense that Poet #1 writes three lines, then passes the poem on to Poet #2, who writes two lines and passes on to Poet #3, who writes three lines, etc. Except in our case, there were only two poets. During Japan's ancient days, the process could go on for hundreds of lines. For Gwen and me, it was usually ten lines or fifteen. We wrote hundreds of Renga. Because Gwen didn't have e-mail, each one took weeks: we mailed the poems-in-progress back and forth by snailmail. Below are two of those Renga. They were published in Passager in 2002. About 50 of them, including the two below, came out in a chap book entitled Galileo Weeps that Gwen got published in 2005.

Renga 4
 
Night painted Mars Black
Before night-Paines Grey-
Sumi-e
Evening chill seeping under thread-
Bare habit. Sake burning in my belly. 
            
My canvas waits.
Sake fumes
Inhabit my brush.
Silent snow. In and out 
Of sleep. Hunger calls me back.  
            
Painting persimmons
Stifles the desire 
For food.
Walls, ceiling, slowly floors glow 
With orange. My hands warm.


                	--- Gwen Stone & Julian Crowell
Renga 21
 
Autumn gathers dried leaves
Winds howl
Cold harbinger
Defenses down 
Squirrels gorge themselves
      
Words, like dried leaves,
Crack and crumble
Before I get them to paper
Cold sounds
Stay and tremble
      
On the ceiling spiders bask 
In warm air that rises
From my wordless hands
Fat poems, furry on my tongue
Fall into winter sleep

                        --- Gwen Stone & Julian Crowell
                                      
                        Thanks to Passager for publishing "Renga 4"
                        and "Renga 21" in Issue 35, 2002. Thanks
                        also to One-Off Press for publishing the 
                        above two Renga in the chapbook Galileo Weeps 
                        in 2005.  
                        Gwen Stone died in March 2007.
                        --- Julian Crowell
Julian Crowell was born and raised in Tennessee. Before becoming a poet, he taught physics and mathematics at colleges in Pakistan, Virginia, North Carolina, Turkey, Algeria and New Jersey, and then joined the corporate world for several years before retiring. He lives in Massachusetts, has been married for more than 50 years and has three adult children.

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