on a frog’s tongue 
a dragonfly 
bungees   

	the spider’s reputation 
	hanging by a thread 

school of perch 
half of the minnows 
no longer attend 

baby cuckoo 
brothers and sisters 
over the moon 

	why a late worm 
	liked a lie-in 

Brock the Badger 
has Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle 
for brunch 

Curator’s Notes:

1. The first, third, and fifth stanzas above are by Ann Smith and the even-numbered, by Keith Evetts.

2. Garry Gay invented the rengay form in 1992 and defines it as “a collaborative six-verse linked thematic poem written by two or three poets alternating three-line and two-line haiku or haiku-like stanzas in a regular pattern or form ... each verse is really a stand-alone haiku in either three or two lines.”

From “Rengay: Another Way to Write Linked Verse” by Garry Gay at New Zealand Poetry Society (February 2021); link retrieved on 7 April 2023:
https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/rengay-another-way-to-write-linked-verse/

Ann Smith

After years in the electronics industry, Ann Smith is retired and lives in Wales. Her poems, rengay, and haibun have featured in Wales Haiku Journal, Prune Juice, Failed Haiku, Poetry Pea, Under the Basho, and other journals, the Cherita and Gembun anthologies, and the South Wales Evening Post. So far she has earned two bottles of rum and some toilet brushes for her longer poetic efforts.

Keith Evetts

is a retired British diplomat who lives in the UK. His scientific papers are published in Nature and elsewhere; his long-form poetry in The Oxford Magazine and Linnet’s Wings; his cherita in The Cherita; and his haiku and related short forms in Blithe Spirit, Cattails, Cold Moon Journal, Failed Haiku, Heliosparrow, Mambu, Presence, Prune Juice, The Asahi Shimbun, Wales Haiku Journal, World Haiku Review, and at The Haiku Foundation. His work has been anthologized in the Red Moon Anthologies of haiku and haibun, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Touchstone Awards.

Evetts is listed among the European Top 100 Haiku Authors in 2021, and hosts the weekly haiku commentary feature at The Haiku Foundation. He’s married, with five children, a grey parrot, and a sense of humour.