The host Laura Bloomsbury for MTB: Rocking the Imayo, d’Verse Poets invites us to write an Imayo poem about rocks.
The Imayo
The imayo is a poem form from 12th century Japan that was originally intended for song.
It has since been adapted into a poem with four 12-syllable lines, each divided up into sections of seven and five syllables by a caesura.
This is its structure:
- 4 lines (8 lines permissible)
- 12 syllables per line divided as7/5
- make a pause space between the 7 and 5 syllables
- use comma, caesura or kireji (cutting word) as the pause
- no rhymes
- no meter
- no end of line pauses – the whole should flow together as though one long sentence
Please Note: Your subject must be the noun ‘rock/rocks’ (can be interchanged with stone).
I wrote about a favourite stone I found on Normans Bay beach, E. Sussex. This is my first attempt at writing an Imayo.
The Happy Stone
The happy stone smiles unseen, alone and yet not faceless stones are everywhere, tons are on the beach where sun shines and glints oblique, over all of them The stone is content to be; alone in a crowd Lesley Scoble, July 2023
My thanks to Laura Bloomsbury and to the d’Verse Poets for introducing me to the Imayo. I’d never heard of it.
POST SCRIPT
I post this poem for OLN #342 as I missed the deadline for Laura’s MTB: Rocking the Imayo
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright, (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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