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Renku (連句, "linked verses"), the Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry formerly known as haikai no renga (俳諧の連歌), is an offshoot of the older Japanese poetic tradition of ushin renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse. At renga gatherings participating poets would take turns providing alternating verses of 5-7-5 syllables and 7-7 syllables. Initially haikai no renga distinguished itself through vulgarity and coarseness of wit, before growing into a legitimate artistic tradition, and eventually giving birth to the haiku form of Japanese poetry.

Development

Traditional renga was a group activity in which each participant displayed his wit by spontaneously composing a verse in response to the verse that came before; the more interesting the relationship between the two verses the more impressive the poet’s ability. The links between verses could range from vulgar to artistic, but as renga was taken up by skilled poets and developed into a set form, the vulgarity of its early days came to be ignored.

Haikai no renga, in response to the stale set forms that preceded it, embraced this vulgar attitude and was typified by contempt for traditional poetic and cultural ideas, and by the rough, uncultured language that it used. The haikai spirit, as it came to be called, embraced the natural humor that came from the combination of disparate elements. To that end haikai poets would often combine elements of traditional poems with new ones they created. Perhaps the most famous example of this early attitude is a poem by Yamazaki Sokan (1464-1552) from his Inutsukubashū (犬筑波集, "Mongrel Renga Collection").

He was given the following prompt:

to which he responded:

This poem clearly derives its humor from shock value. Never before in Japanese culture had anyone dared to talk of the goddess of spring in such a manner. Taking an ostensibly traditional and poetic prompt and making it funny while maintaining the connection of the damp hems and the spring mists was exactly the sort of thing that early haikai poets were famous for.

A comparable, though less evolved, tradition of 'linked verse' (lién jù, written with the same characters as 'renku') evolved in Chin-dynasty China, and it has been argued that this Chinese form influenced Japanese renga during its formative period.

Bashō and haikai

Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) was one of the most famous poets in the Edo period.

He defined “haikai spirit” as following: first of all, haikai spirit implied the interaction of diverse languages and subcultures, particularly between the new popular culture and the poetic tradition, and the humor and interest resulting from the sociolinguistic incongruity or difference between the two. Second, haikai spirit meant taking pleasure in recontextualization: defamiliarization, dislocating habitual, conventionalized perceptions, and their refamiliarization, recasting established poetic topics into contemporary language and culture, the haikai spirit was also marked by a constant search for novelty and new perspectives. Finally, the haikai imagination implied the ability to interact in a playful, lively dialogue that produced communal art.

Bashō’s haikai treated of the ordinary, everyday lives of commoners. In contrast to traditional Japanese poetry, he portrayed figures from popular culture such as the beggar, the traveler and the farmer. In crystallizing the new popular haikai he played a significant role in giving birth to modern haiku, which reflected the common culture.

Formats used in renku

Here follows a list of the formats most commonly used in writing renku

Notes

1. Reckert, Stephen, Beyond Chrysanthemums: Perspectives on Poetry East and West, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0198151659, p.43
2. Sato, Hiroaki. One Hundred Frogs, from renga to haiku to English, Weatherhill 1983, ISBN 0-8348-0176-0 p.11
3. Carley, John E. Common types of renku sequence.
4. Carter, Steven D. The road to Komatsubara, Harvard University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-674-77385-3.
5. Higginson, William J. Shorter Renku in Renku Home
6. Darlington, Norman. Triparshva, A trilateral pattern for renku, in Simply Haiku vol. 3, no. 2, 2005
7. Yachimoto, Eiko. October Rain, the first English-language Rokku Renku, a Tomegaki, in Simply Haiku vol. 6, no. 3, 2008

See also

• Renga
• Kigo
• Winter Days - a 2003 animated film, based on one of the renku in the collection of the same name by the 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō.

External links

• renga platform's renga guide
• William J. Higginson's Renku_Home
• John Carley's Renku Reckoner
• How to Renga by Jane Reichhold
• Translations of Basho-school renku by Sean Price

• Japanese poetry
• Japanese literature
• Edo period works
• Collaborative poetry
• Haikai forms
• Japanese literary terms