"Linked Elegance": Students Respond to Basho

kareeda ni/ karasu no tomarikeri/ aki no kure

(on a leafless branch a crow comes to rest –autumn nightfall)

-Basho

Today I introduced my senior classes to communal Japanese poetry with a special activity. The activity was designed for them to:

1. explore the relationship between words and images in Japanese poetry

2. understand that in Japanese art, the painting and the poetry were often composed in a dialogic exchange

My students thus participated in a dialogic exchange of words and images. The class divided into groups of three students each. I gave each group one image, alternating between two different Japanese paintings created in response to haiku by Basho that appears above. First, they responded to to the images in words on chart paper. Then they swapped chart paper with another group and responded to the words with an image. Students kept swapping papers until the end of the period, alternating between words and images. Below are the resulting communal poems. [Note: they did not read the haiku until they finished their own.] The results actually made my day.

Class A: “Linked Elegance”
A Response to Basho

Gloomy, Dark, the bird silently sits
Rippling water beneath the darkness of the bird
The Branches flow in the evening wind
And the bird sits calmly through the night

In the silent night
The bird rests upon the branch
Gazing at the world

The twilight sky shines;
Birds a’flutter in the Air,
The night, cool & crisp.

The crescent moon shines
The stars twinkle in the night
The birds are flying home to sleep

The solo bird resting on a branch
Short, swift, distinct brush strokes.
Peaceful, calm, and serene

The white, smoky clouds
float past the perched penguin
basking in the sun’s rays

The black birds dance
across the autumn sky
seeking rest upon a branch

Even the blackbird
Alone on the distant branch
Knows not its glory.

Birds fly in the sky
Red flowers bloom on the branches
In an orange-brown sky

flying by swiftly
with the wind blowing gently
on an autumn night.

the birds roam freely
flying in the autumn sky
and perched on the tree

Birds drift nonchalantly
They wander about in the crisp autumn sky
Seeking a place to call home

As winter settles,
My lonely feet crunch the snow
My home is no more

The cold feeling through my mouth
And pink nose and fingers numb
Makes me love winter more

Class B: "Linked Elegance"

A Response to Basho

Black bird calmly rests
on his perch upon the sky…
steady as it sits.

Whoo whoo says the owl
Lonesome in the night
Bye bye says the monkey
as he closed his mouth tight.

the crisp autumn leaves
hung from the dreary branches
as the silence surrounded the
still of the dusk

Hid behind the tree
the sun sets upon the leaves
Giving it an amber glow

Bitter branches
Break beneath the
Sexy bird’s sad song

Watch the birds fly free
Others perched upon the tree
Calm wind leaves them be

Swirls of wind around the tree
Depict how free we could be
As autumn leaves fall from the tree.

Great broken branch
Your leaves carry a heavy burden
As you support the birds of old

Weak, injured branch,
Oh how you linger,
As you hold this ancient bird.