Curiosity 73: Kasen renku

This morning I suggested to my little group of "howlers"—by which I mean, Sherilyn and Kim—that we try creating a poem together. We've all been reading the book Writing Haiku: A Beginner's Guide to Composing Japanese Poetry by Bruce Ross, and Sherilyn and Kim have been writing daily haiku. 

(Me, I'm not at the "daily" point yet, but I've written a few since the first. Like this one, from yesterday:

the furnace whistles—
outside bright sun
47°

which if I were to title it would be called "Early Morning.")

One of the forms covered in the book is the renga or renku, identified especially with the master Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694). Basically, a renku is a poem written with other people. But that "basically" is belied by a couple of descriptions of the form that I found online, which indicate just how complicated such apparent simplicity can be. On the World Haiku Review archives page there are 16 entries for renku. One, "What's in a Name: Defining Renku," gives this list:

Renku is linked verse.
Renku is an art form.
Renku is a game.
Renku has rules.
Renku is not anarchic linking.
Renku has a flow, a pace, an overall effect.
Renku has no narrative.
Renku is a communal enterprise (some solo is done).
Renku is verse by individuals.
Renku is not serial haiku.
Renku begins with a haiku.
Renku makes good friends and companions.
Renku is fun.
Renku is habit forming.
Renku honors tradition.

All straightforward enough. But what about those rules? I gleaned these from the website "Haiku Spirit":

The renku consists of alternating 3-line and 2-line verses, with syllable counts (in Japanese, anyway) of 5-7-5 (i.e., a conventional haiku) and 7-7—though translated to English, the syllables become stresses: 6–7 in the 3-line verse (~14–16 syllables) and 5 in the 2-liner (~11–13). There are various types of renku, defined by different lengths; the type we are choosing to attempt, kasen renku, has 36 stanzas—so, for us, 12 each.

The first stanza, known as hokku, contains a reference to the season of composition—spring, summer, autumn, winter—via some appropriate imagery, like a nest for spring or golden leaves for autumn, or a cultural reference, like a 4th of July parade for summer.

The second stanza, wakiku, should evoke the same season, but include none of the hokku's specific imagery or vocabulary. It should stand on its own. The connection need not be logical or chronological. It could, for example, reflect a scent in the hokku, or the quality of light, or the sound of marching footsteps, but otherwise go in a completely different direction. (My mind flew just now from marching footsteps to a centipede walking over leaf litter—for example.)

That link (tsukeai) is one of the two compositional principles of a renku, and is employed in every stanza to come. 

The third stanza, daisan, could be considered the first real verse of the renku, for it will include both a link to the second verse and a shift (tenji), which means this stanza should bear no resemblance to the first one.  As the Haiku Society of America puts it, "any two consecutive stanzas form a connected poetical unit, but three in a row do not. Renku is not narrative verse."

The final stanza of the renku, known as ageku, typically ends on an upbeat image, almost always connected with spring. Usually, the most skilled poet in the group does the honors in wrapping up the communal effort.

All other verses are considered "ordinary" (hiraku) and can do pretty much what they want—as long as they employ tsukeai and tenji. Whew!

The entire kasen renku does, however, have an additional three-part structure, consisting of a preface (jo, the first 6 stanzas), development (ha, the middle 24 stanzas), and the "fast close" (kyū, the final 6 stanzas). Rather than alluding to content, these parts can be thought of as more about tempo or mood: a stately jo, a more upbeat, lively, anything-goes development, and the wrapping-up kyū. One site likens it to musical structure: larghetto, con brio, and rapid diminuendo.

Additionally, and traditionally, three themes are woven throughout the entire renku, at specific stanzas: the moon (stanzas 5, 13 or 14, and 29), a blossom or flower (17 and 35), and love, especially for one who is absent (twice or thrice in stanzas 9, 10, and 11, and again in 21, 22, and 23—or, more generally, in 7–18 and 19–30, but still clustered). 

There is—this will not surprise you—much (much) more subtlety in how, and how not, a renku should be constructed, if one is to do it right. (A whole 11-part series on the "School of Renga" can be found here.) But I suspect we howlers will be happy just to keep wending our way, through links and shifts, into something, anything, remotely resembling a 36-stanza creation, in stanzas of 3 and 2 lines, hopefully bearing a reasonably acceptable set of stresses, that gives us aesthetic pleasure and a sense of happy accomplishment. 

I found a set of four kasen renku by Bashō and his fellow poets, originally published in 1689/91 in an anthology known as The Monkey's Raincoat. (All four poems are included in the link, including the Japanese transliteration.) Here is the preface (jo) of the first one, "Winter Rain" (Hatsushigure), composed by Bashō, Mukai Kyorai, Nozawa Bonchō, and Nakamura Fumikuni, translated by Lenore Mayhew:

            First winter rain
the kite's rag-tag feathers
            sleeked down.

After the burst of wind
leaves rest.

            With morning undershorts
already soaked
            he fords the river.

Neighborhood badgers
afraid of set bows.

            Over the double doors
ivy crawling.
            Early moon.

Won't share
the local pears.

Or... here's the first ten lines of a contemporary American one, with ten authors (only nine of whom are represented in this extract—part of the "play" of a renku seems also to include trading off turns, mixing things up):

wet brown leaves
trampled on the boardwalk
Seattle morning

mallards on the autumn pond
so loud beyond the rushes

he turns down the radio
then carves a frown
into the pumpkin

a wedge of geese
slices the sunset

pizza shop
off the moonlit interstate
break from drifting snow

spare pillows piled up
on the bedside chair

sitting ovation
for our pilot's soft landing
zero visibility

falling into the cloud
Niagara Falls

spots on my glasses
the multiple haloes
of the well-lit park

cathedral windows
glittering with saints

(Note the moon's appearance in the fifth stanza of both exemplars.)

Anyway, we'll see what happens as we start our little experiment. Maybe I'll include the finished poem here in another month. Anything's possible!