“Waymarks” by Michele Root-Bernstein, Laszlo Slomovits & Jennifer Burd

April 15, 2024Posted by

Michele Root-Bernstein, Laszlo Slomovits & Jennifer Burd

WAYMARKS

smalle raine downe
        … this longing
   for a change
mrb
 
 
       shall I compare thee
       sunlight caught in the web
ls
 
 
              new preferred pronoun
              did gyre and gimble
              in the wabe
jb
 
 
let us go then, you and I  
(motorized wheelchairs)
mrb
 
       forked lightning
       … took the one
       less traveled by
ls
 
              outside the checkbox                                                          
              the hill we climb
jb
 

—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration

__________

Michele Root-Bernstein, Laszlo Slomovits & Jennifer Burd: “We have been writing rengay together since the start of the pandemic in 2020. A rengay is a six-verse collaborative poem, using a set alternating pattern of three-line and two-line haiku. Usually two poets compose a rengay; a threesome like ours is unusual. For each rengay, we begin by suggesting some opening haiku and posing a theme. Then the round-robin begins, as we respond to, link with, and shift from each other’s haiku. When we complete a rengay, we work together to clarify the theme, hone the language, and safeguard the space between lines and verses which allows the poem as a whole to breathe. When the rengay takes off in a direction none of us could envision on our own, it’s a sheer delight.”

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