A month or so ago I wrote about renga (or renku), the form of collaborative linked verse from which the haiku evolved. Everything I’d read about it fascinated me and I was itching to try it, so I issued an invitation for renga partners. Steve Mitchell of Heed Not Steve was the only one brave (or crazy) enough to take me up on it. This means that Steve was the only one who got to have the fun of spending the last month emailing renga verses back and forth with me as we tried to master the notorious intricacies of renga link and shift.
See, here are the most basic rules of renga: each verse should link to the verse immediately before it — should connect to it somehow, say in subject or tone or viewpoint or just linguistically, as for instance when one word suggests a variety of meanings that can be played on in different ways. It should also shift completely from the verse two before it — should have nothing in common in the ways I just mentioned. You’re also, technically, not supposed to repeat significant words (nouns, verbs and the like) in the course of a renga. And you should try to cover as many different subjects as you can in the course of a renga — to create a little microcosm. By the time you get to about verse 18 of a 36-verse kasen renga, the type we attempted, these rules are starting to drive you (and by “you” I mean “me”) out of your mind. In a good way, of course.
Steve and I, both complete newcomers to this form of poetry and a little intimidated by the whole thing, elected to take the (relatively) easy route of using one of Jane Reichhold’s ready-made seasonal kasen renga forms — in this case, the one for summer. These specify for each verse who should be writing it (with two people writing, you more or less switch back and forth each verse, except when you don’t), how many lines it should be (you alternate 3 and 2 line verses), and what the subject matter should be. Jane’s forms are loosely based on the great Basho’s kasen renga rules: the renga moves through the seasons, making a couple of complete cycles of the year, and contains a certain number of references to moon and blossoms and love. You can entertain yourself trying to figure out which verses are which in our renga.
Steve was lots of fun to work with — I enjoyed trying to figure out how the heck each new verse he sent me was supposed to link to the verse I’d just sent him. Links can be very subtle and devious sometimes. We both kept notes on each verse we wrote — how we linked, what we were thinking as we wrote it and how we saw it fitting into the renga as a whole. I’ll link at the bottom to a separate page I’ve created with all our notes, so if you feel like reading them you can.
The overall impression a renga should leave is not of a neatly ordered landscape, as in a traditional Western poem with a unified theme, but a sort of whirlwind tour of the world via several different modes of transportation and with a constantly changing group of travel companions — moving like lightning from one subject to another, from one kind of weather to another, from one mind to another. For this reason, they can be challenging to read if you’re not used to them — but once you start to get the hang of it, they are exhilarating. Or at least I think so. Hope you do too.
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Shared Water
a summer kasen renga between Steve Mitchell and Melissa Allen
June-July 2010
balmy blue lakes
shimmering dry heat
shared water
organic milk on the strawberries
the shortcake dissolves
copper strands
entwine the land
quaint bitumen
bright socks on her needles
she watches the people on the bus watch her
playing parlor games
unmindful as the moon peeks
through the drapes
bleached plastic pumpkins
holding a seance on the lawn
stalking through frosty grass
the cat leaps
on the tail of a leaf
the young boy makes a muscle
dad gives a low whistle
biology class picture
the children
divided by sex
anonymous in the dark
feral peafowl invade the trees
the third day of fever
he writes a poem
about the war
those brothers interred
their silence accuses
the moon
through a row of icicles
flashes of insight
on the roads a glacial crawl —
fly away Snowbirds!
andante
their conversation waltzes
to the music
light steam in his nose
hot tea hides his fortune
bright pink sweater
the unexpected shyness
of the blossom
iridescent hummingbird
faster than gravity
the soothing cool wind
so brief
windows left open
under the microscope
the fruit flies are born and die
(ME) gnashing ego
believes (ME) its own truth
fear (ME) and (ME) death
half asleep, waiting for the sound
of the false teeth being brushed
the a.c. hums
our summer lullaby
the meter spins
fish reeled from the river
silver-clad for the boating party
dressed for dinner
“Where’s your new brooch?”
she pins it on
cuttings from the jade plant
he returns her Polaroids
the oak tree
with enduring scars
carved initials
Moscow beer line —
passing the communal cup
moonlit haze
I think I hailed this cab
it looks amber
goosebumps on her arms
he rushes through the painting
cold autumn rain
she counts the money
one more time
fragile sand dollars
half-buried by the surf
the oily sea
punishment from the gods
for digging too deep
wool coats forgotten
a reprieve from the frost
damp violets underfoot
trying to imagine
cactus flowers
the riverbed mesquite
imagining water
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You can look over here if you’re interested in reading our notes about our writing process.
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(And if you’ve made it this far and you are intrigued by renga, I hereby issue another invitation. Ashley Capes of Issa’s Snail, a renku site, who has done a whole lot of writing and coordinating of this fascinating kind of poetry and really knows what he’s talking about, has kindly offered to organize a renga for readers of this blog to participate in — leave a comment if you are interested in participating.)
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