A collaborative haiku — “Transit”
Congrats, Markus ★ Hammonds! Your 7-7 lines were picked by the judges from the many wonderful submissions. So here it is: the final haiku!
Transit
by Christine Rueter and Markus ★ Hammonds
Transit of Venus:
brief vision of our sister
against roiling sun.
Her bright veil in silhouette
She hides her face from the light.
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The contest rules (retained for posterity):
Renga is a form of collaborative haiku with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure. A single writer initiates the poem with the first 5-7-5 stanza and welcomes other writers to provide the 7-7 stanza.
Anyone can submit the 7-7 lines! For the sake of all renga participants, please include your lines as comments to this post so that others can see what has been submitted. I will “close” the renga to submissions on Wed., May 23 at 5 pm EDT. I will have two independent judges pick their favorite from the submissions. The final renga will be published on this blog before the Transit of Venus on June 5, 2012 and the submitter given co-credit with me in the by-line.
The Transit of Venus is an extremely rare event. The last transit was in 2004. The next transit–after the June 5, 2012 transit–will be in 2117. I’ll be observing the transit with the lovely folks at the University of Maryland Observatory. If you don’t have a transit-viewing “home” or the transit won’t be visible from your location, the Keck Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii will be doing a live webcast here: http://venustransit.nasa.gov/2012/transit/webcast.php
Some resources to inspire you as you write your 7-7:
Oliver Wendel Holmes, Sr., “The Flaneur” (Boston Common, December 6, 1882, During the Transit of Venus): http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173647
Her bright veil in silhouette
She hides her face from the light
A swift dance with flames, then gone.
Aphrodite still teases.
One Writer’s Mind
A tear forms in our Sol’s eye
She leaves us behind once more
see it soon or not again
ere forty thousand suns rise
I pray your next visit shines
Landis’ dream back to our home.
Science silhouettes my soul.
As in heaven, so below.
She who will never be ours
once again blows us a kiss.
P.S. I know I don’t get a vote, but if I did, I’d vote for Anonymous up there. That shit is real.