Feather photo by Paul Brookes

Gogyohka

1.

rain falls and falls from grey oceans
sky colour of gulls and pigeons
laps shorelines of golden grasses
where kestrels hang
banners of long red wings

2.

mornings
grey as twilit cats
ripple into song
as the first nightingale
draws breath

3.

donne-moi ta main
let’s run where the blackbird sings
et le ruisseau rou-cou coule
night is over
le rossignol s’est tu

4.

pluie fine comme cheveux de loutre
brumeuse comme l’entre-deux-lumières
ou perle des profondeurs
s’étale en entrelacs sinueux
et je sens l’odeur du lointain embrumé

5.

loriot
dans les peupliers
fait frémir l’été
avec sa voix clarinette
boisée et fruitée

How did it go?

I enjoy these very short, imagistic poems without the constraint of counting syllables. Looking on Wikipedia for examples, my browser took me to the French Wikipédia and it struck me that this form, like many short, imagist forms, is very much suited to the French language. I tried the form in English, both English and French, and in French. First attempts tended to be longer, possibly trying to add too much detail, and later poems much sparser, which is arguably more in the Japanese spirit.

Jane Dougherty

Three Gogyohka

Shadow Study #33

Without any regret
Walking towards a shadow
Horizontal space across a wall
Stepping back
A vertical clothespin lengthens

Lake

Peeled bark fronds
Leaves and stones
A loon lands
Dives for fish
More ripples still

3am

Come towards to mirror
Tears and anguish
Sleeping waking
Pacing a room
Perhaps music will help

How Did It Go?

A miniature form created by Enta Kusakabe in Japan in the late 1950s, this five-line poem, a freeing of Tanka rules, contains narrative, a crunch, and absurdist humour, from what I’ve read. I like the meditative simplicity of forming a simple setting for five phrases, attempting through it, to add some odd element that twists it away from a simple snapshot towards irony and paradox. This was another enjoyable new form for me – it took time to shift voice from description alone to modern/post-modern consciousness & observation.

Robert Frede Kenter

Thunder rain falls in drops
so big
you can see each one
before their cloud-cold
stings your skin.

How Did It Go?

I found this one quite easy as it’s haiku-like without the restrictions.

Tim Fellows

Bios And Links

Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, visual artist, editor, and the EIC/publisher of Ice Floe Press (www.icefloepress.net). Published widely Robert’s work includes books, journals, on-line and in print, incl. The Storms Journal, Best of Blood and Aphorisms (Gutter Press), Talking about strawberries all the time, Northward Journal, New Quarterly, Olney Magazine, Streetcake Magazine and many others. Work forthcoming in anthologies: Glisk and Glimmer, (Sídhe Press), Speaking in Tongues (Steel Incisors). A visual poem collection, EDEN, is available at Rare Swan Press.

Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.