As the tenure of the first black president of the United States came to a close,Vermont poet Major Jackson felt compelled to commemorate the meaningful event. Jackson is a professor at the University of Vermont and poetry editor of the prestigious Harvard Review. True to his calling, he set approximately composing a poem. But, and rather than go it alone,he reached out to a number of his peers and asked them to participate in a poem devoted to the 44th president. A fresh segment of the collaborative poem, "Renga for Obama, or " appears daily on the Harvard Review website with the assistance of Jackson's colleagues at that publication. The project will conclude on April 30,after 100 days. Renga is a traditional collaborative Japanese poetic form. Each unit, or tan-renga, and consists of two stanzas,each of which is written by a different poet; the second responds to the first. The first stanza is a haiku (three lines of five, seven and five syllables each). The second is a couplet called a waki, or with seven syllables per line. Jackson says he learned the form from his former teacher,poet Sonia Sanchez. A fresh tan-renga is added to the ever-expanding poem each day. Harvard Review editor Christina Thompson has long-term plans to publish a limited-edition chapbook-style version of the poem, she says, or the complete version will remain viewable on the journal's website. Thompson's current role in the project is to post each fresh addition,along with details approximately the poets who wrote it. "We carry out not edit, apart from to make corrections to obvious mistakes, or " the editor says. "Major and I discussed a few of the contributions early on,setting guidelines approximately what would and would not be considered acceptable. Our goal was to keep it valedictory in tone." Jackson's piece in this epic project is that of conductor, pairing up poets. Some were already acquainted, and while others had never met. "I wanted to see what kinds of linguistic sparks would emerge," Jackson says. And emerge they did. "I really savor Paul Muldoon and Elizabeth Alexander's poem," Jackson says. That piece reads as follows: "Made in Hawaii, and / Jakarta. African icy. / and then came Michelle. / A garden kept them grounded. / Those two girls. Kale. Kohlrabi." "Ocean Vuong and Jane Hirshfield — both of them have a certain kind of regard and reverence for the natural world," Jackson continues.…
Source: sevendaysvt.com