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Reading through the Blo͞o Outlier Journal senryu special, imagine my delight at finding my senryu in the Editor’s Commentary! Sharing::

all of the raspberries
with grandson
on tiptoe

Neena Singh

“I can almost feel myself on tiptoe as well. I never knew any of my grandparents but have met thousands in action and know how special they can be. Here a grandparent is having fun with their grandson, both as an adult guardian but also to share a childhood both gone and one still happening. The approach to this poem is longest line first, and it’s almost as if the line lengths mimic a tree’s shape.

There’s more to this, as the information is given in a poetic order, involving us, rather than ‘telling’ us something as a passive bystander. If I reversed the poem into a short long short tercet (3-line verse):

on tiptoe
all of the raspberries
with a grandson

We’d need to add ‘a’ or ‘my’ or ‘the’ before grandson otherwise it’s a bit of a clunky line. In the original, poetically we do not need something before ‘grandson’:

If I stretch out the first two lines:

all of the raspberries with grandson

Reading those first two lines, but as two lines, it’s a rich and involving phrase already. All three lines over a single line:

all of the raspberries with grandson on tiptoe

A wonderful line, but Neena Singh has astutely used ‘enjambment’ where the breaking of the poem over different lines creates a stronger tension. Those first two glorious lines giving us a family image are shot up several notches by the third and last line of ‘on tiptoe’.

There’s a lot of craft in a simple image of two generations fruit-picking!”

Alan Summers
Bloo Outlier Journal,
Winter 2022, January 1, 2023

Grateful dear Alan Summers, for selecting my senryu and the beautiful skillful commentary on it. This senryu is dear to me as it brings back memories of my days in Seattle with my little grandson.