Field Notes – On Setsuna-nagare Verse
Every kitchen has its rules. Not the ones taped to the wall, but the ones cooks carry in their bones, how to hold a knife, when to salt, what not to waste. Poetry deserves the same.
Setsuna-nagare Verse isn’t a form I borrowed, it’s one I cooked down myself, like stock left to simmer until only the essence remains. It nods to haiku and tanka, but it runs freer, looser, more in my and your voice. A fleeting flow. A quick fire. A taste that lingers.
Here are the rules I keep close:
Compression over count. Don’t pad. Every word has to work. Trim it like fat off a ribeye.
Pivot as hinge. There has to be a turn. Outside to inside, or inside to out. Knife to cutting board, flame to smoke.
Image as vessel. Never explain. Let scent, color, texture, sound do the work.
Free stanzas, short lines. Give the words room to breathe. White space is part of the rhythm.
Ephemeral weight. Write what vanishes—seasons, longing, memory, the moment before it slips.
Modern freedom, ancient shadow. Respect the Japanese roots, but don’t mimic. Keep your own pulse, motorcycles, kitchens, cities belong here as much as rivers and snow.
Closing resonance. Don’t wrap it up neat. Leave the aftertaste. Smoke, not fire.
That’s the form. A fleeting flow. Something to return to when the kitchen is quiet and the knife has been set down, but the work of noticing goes on.
