John Keats (1795 - 1821)
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.
Simonides (556 BC - 468 BC
WRITING OR PLAYING RENSHI
In this article, when I refer to renshi I am incorporating all forms of short, linked verse that is completed with more than one poet as author. Generally, renga is a more formal form of court poetry. This poetry was created at parties as a type of game. Renku is the more common form written in the coarser tone of average folk.
SAY WHAT?
They are pronounced either wren-she (renshi), wren-gah (renga), or wren-coo (renku).
BRIEF HISTORY
Renga have been around for about a millennium, and is a form of linked tanka written by several different authors. The aristocracy would write these as a party game. They were about court and aristocratic life and made many Asian literary references. Renku is a variation of renga that is usually shorter, makes more “real life” references and is in the tone of the average citizen. It was created by Basho, a famous haiku poet, and they tend to inject more humor. Renga gave birth to the haiku and senryu.
MUST HAVES
- Must not be written or read as a story. It’s a play with no plot and each stanza, or scene, has the barest thread of a connection to the one before and the one after. The beginning and ending strings of renga stanzas tend to have stronger connections than the middle section of stanzas.
- First verse must set the scene with an image of a time/season and place. This first verse is called hokku and is the mother of haiku.
- Do not repeat material or repeated images from stanza to stanza. The object of the game is to make clever twists from one stanza to the next without repeats.
- More than one author* (see “could haves” for more about this).
- Each stanza is an image that must stand on its own. Imagery is a key element in renshi, collaborative linking poetry.
- Alternating three-line and two-line stanzas. The three-liners have a 5-7-5 syllable count and the two-liners have a 7-7 syllable count.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS
- How many poets participate is totally up to you. Generally speaking you will have 2 or more, and in this internet age it could be infinite! *Can you be the only poet? Sure, many poets do them alone, but the spirit of the game is to have a collaboration of minds. So, while you could do one by yourself – why? Draft family, friends or fellow internet poets!
- Choose to be formal (strict with your rules, the pace, and how you choose to link** [see below in the notes for more on linking] – you could even have someone be the “director” to keep everyone on track. I’ve seen renku with very strict rules, like the type of image that should be done in a particular stanza) or informal (relaxed with the rules, pacing and linking).
- How many stanzas you choose to have is totally up to you and your group of poets. Renku tend to be shorter and thirty-six is a standard length, because it was Basho’s favorite. This type of linking poetry has a lot of leeway in this area, and can even go past a thousand stanzas.
OF NOTE:
There are a couple things you want to take into consideration when you are taking your turn or when contemplating the rules for pacing your poem chain.
Pacing
I love the way The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms Edited by Ron Padgett explains pacing in a thirty-six stanza renga:
”The first six or eight stanzas of a renga are like the beginning of a party, when people introduce one another, a bit formally. In the middle twenty to twenty-four stanzas the party warms up, with stanzas that include humor and the whole range of human emotions. A renga ends with six or eight stanzas that move quickly through closely related images, with simple straightforward linking, like the end of a party, when everyone gets ready to go home.”
Linking
There are several ways to link one stanza to another, and it all depends on the rules for the particular renga you are working on, and how witty we can be. Let’s say we have freedom to pick any way we want to link, and that the stanza that came before the one we need to create was an image of a dark cave with dripping water. How can we be clever with our link? We could bring on an image of surf hitting the beach, or the dripping of a faucet. We might want to contrast and bring out an image of the blinding, parched desert. How about we use similar smells and use the musty smell that can be in dank caves and bring an image of a musty attic? We might decide to stick with the cave and bring out an image of an ancient Indian creating cave art. Let’s say the previous stanza used the words “drip, drip, drip” for effect – we could use an image of an ice cream store and the cashier handing us a triple dip, dip, dip cone. The possibilities can wind down many paths, but that’s the fun part!
~ayman~
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