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WHC Renku Seminar
Haikuforum Seminar on "Traditional" Renku in English
Session 7: "A Kite Rises," a kasen renku begins (with finished renku below)
Paul MacNeil
In this installment, we will begin to write a kasen renku, 36 verses, and to discuss this form in more detail. I have set up a method whereby the members of Haiku Forum can participate as a "player" in the renku. I will give more information about this and provide a form and rotation near the end.
Patricia Donegan quotes Tadashi Kondo regarding renku:
... [it] makes art a communal dialogue rather than a mere monologue of one's own self-expression." Donegan herself wrote: "Such collaborative and improvisational art is an ongoing part of Japanese culture -- there is nothing quite like it in the East or West, there are similarities in the linked poetry of China and in the sonnet sequences of the West, but Japanese linked poetry differs by its set number of stanzas, strict rules, alternating authors, and its social function.
So, haiku forum-ites, leave your egos at the door and let us delve into the odd admixture of the individual and the communal that is renku.
As previously discussed, renku (haiku no renga of Basho's era) evolved from renga, a long tradition. That we write today in our language, English, but call it renku (or renga) is a statement that we follow a Japanese tradition. This is exactly analogous to the writing of haiku in English. Renku without a nod to "The Past" is a pleasant, linking, word game. Traditional Renku in English updates the subjects to those of our own milieu, perhaps simplifies the "rules" a bit, but is grounded in the Japanese model. The difference gained is to add the possibility of Art to a game. And further, with the development in the recent past of renku by postal mail, now supplanted by computer E-mail, and even on-line "live" renku sessions, the organization of renku has changed from the in-person day or evening sessions experienced by Basho and groups of followers, renku clubs and parties in the Japan of today, and similar renku gatherings in the west. There is a different style and certainly a different etiquette with an E-mail renku. I have discussed one shisan, 12 stanzas, written via Internet and we have demonstrated an on-line shisan method among equals. But, still, in order to experience the creative aspects, one must be grounded in renku tradition whether writing via computer or across a living room or patio deck from each other, glasses of tea, ale, or sake in hand.
Discussing shisan I previously used the metaphor of a chain. Each renku verse links to two others, as in chain links. Except both of the ends. The hokku, first verse, and the ageku, last verse, are the only singly attached parts. The body of the shisan is the inner 10 links. With kasen renku in 36 verses, tradition dictates three parts -- each longer than the end link of a chain. As discussed in the last installment (#6) these are shown on different pages or sides of the tradition papers (2). The first part of a kasen, comprising six verses, is called in Japanese the jo, or opening section. The inner part lasts for 24 verses is termed the "ha." The third part of a kasen, six verses, is the last page conclusion or kyu(u) in Japanese. Each of these three parts has very different characteristics from the others.
Analogy may best show these distinctions. Jane Reichhold (I recommended her web site to you before) refers readers to the three parts of a dinner party. First comes conversation among guests as they arrive and interaction with the host/hostess. This is followed by the longest part: the dinner table topics. Chit-chat and some serious topics are heard, but wide-ranging, perhaps nearly simultaneously. Variety will occur -- jokes, perhaps a political argument, catching up on family goings on of death, illness, weddings, births, etc. This mixed with sports, vacation trips can cover the whole gamut of experience in infinite combination. Then, the third phase of the dinner party, is the leave-taking. Conversations sum up, conclude, and quick goodbyes are exchanged. Last words are often optimistic in thanks and "see you soon's."
I might suggest a piece of music. In a baroque suite is the opening, perhaps at "grave" tempo, followed by a variety of dance forms (minuet, gigue, etc.) and a closing part, perhaps a coda. In a comic opera, there is the overture, the story, the predicament, followed at last by the denouement, the happy ending, the cast links arms and bows. The analogy to an opera is not perfect because, as has been discussed, renku has no plot, no narrative. But there are sequential elements and sections. Seasons are introduced and explored for two to four or so stanzas. Likewise with love.
Since we are about to begin a kasen, I'll examine the opening or jo more closely. The first six stanzas are perhaps more stylized than any other part of the work. As we have seen with the shisan, the first verse is a free-standing one, a haiku. This hokku is, by tradition, a season verse and is of the season the renku is written in. In the case of Internet renku, it is done in at least in the season when the piece was begun. Since it is now spring in the northern hemisphere where I am and two of the players also reside, our hokku will be spring as well. Our members from Down Under are asked to pose a half-year off. After the first three verses we will be in different seasons anyway -- rotating through all of them, some twice.
In the fifth installment I discussed the traditional place of the master in the role of writing the hokku. In an Internet session without a master, the first player can be chosen by the group or rotated if more than one renku has been done by a partnership. I have played both ways. The second verse is called the wakiku. It is supposed to be of the same time and place as the hokku in most ways. This is the place of the host of the session, the home-owner, or the organizer. The third verse, daisan or daisanku, is expected to push off from the hokku in subject and tone.
Overlying these considerations, the jo or first page (omote = first side of a paper) will avoid controversial or emotional subjects. All six stanzas are a bit quieter, less lively than what is anticipated to come in the second and third pages, the ha. Likewise the links will be a bit more plain, "square," and direct than what will follow later.
The first page is a feeling out, as Jane Reichhold puts it, a phase of getting to know you. Each verse is a statement of concrete elements, but also has another subtext. Mainly by tone and subject matter, the writer of the hokku will in some way compliment the host or the gathering. In computer renku perhaps the author will hint at the undertaking ahead. In a mastered session, the master might also make some allusion that is self-deprecatory. The author of the second verse, the wakiku, traditionally the host, will seek to compliment the honored guest and to also be self-deprecating personally or about his provision of the facilities. These can be very complicated verses to write.
This page is the most tied to seasons in a renku. At least the first two verses, usually three, are the season of the hokku. A traditional place of the first moon (of three moons in a kasen) is the fifth stanza. This also is set in a season, usually in a group of three or more autumn verses. Traditionally the first moon referred to is in autumn. If, one fourth of the time, the hokku is an autumn one, the moon will come in the first three verses, most often in the hokku or the third. Then, a different season will start a grouping in the fifth or sixth verse. Thus in many renku at least five of the first six verses are in one season or another -- and the seventh is usually a season, too. The whole work will have a balance of roughly equal season to non-season verses. The opening sequence is top-heavy.
Before introducing the players, the form, the hokku, and the procedure for your own participation, I'll let the words of Makoto Ueda, scholar and translator, offer some conclusion.
These and many other rules of composition are imposed upon each renku poet, making his task not at all an easy one; he has to be an individual and part of the team at the same time. Too original a verse is not commendable since it does not fit well with the rest of the verses, while too conforming a verse makes the poem monotonous.
I add a last word for you: za. Haruo Shirane defines it as:
The site of a linked-verse session and/or the participants of such a session. More broadly, it means the dialogue and communal sense that arises from linking verses together."
This then is the pleasure for me in paying homage to the Japanese Tradition and meeting the minds and sharing mutual creation of others. Let us have good za!
From the World Haiku Club's Haiku Forum, I have invited Cindy Zackowitz and John Crook to be two of my equal partners in writing a kasen renku on-line, in public. Neither has a lot of renku experience. I believe each has finished one in the past. For a fourth partner, I invite you, the readers of the List. This mixing of master and democracy has never been done before, to my knowledge. I hope it will work smoothly. In the form that follows below, there are four players listed as A, B, C, and D. The Haiku Forum will be player "D." I have asked Cindy to give the hokku, which you will see in a moment. I shall go second and John third.
The three of us will function as democratic partners, correcting and helping each other JUST as Ferris, Peggy and I did in "A Shiny Icicle." When it is player D's turn I will accept possible verses sent to me directly from the group at large. I will choose, master-like, one that is in accord with the tradition (rules) as I know it and offer it to John and Cindy for consideration. If it needs amending, it will be and then I'll announce to the List who was the partner in this instance. I may then go into some of the runners-up and give critique as time and space permit.
In a 36-verse creation there will be nine times that D is up, when it is D's turn. As you will read below, D is the 4th player and has several important verses for the whole work including the ageku (last verse) and the first flower verse. D will get some love too. I'll give explicit directions when it is D's first turn, but I believe some will be: one entry per writer sent to me privately, and no limit on the number of different D verses that can be tried for. We could have nine different contributors, or someone could have more than one. Of course, I'll try to be fair, but this one aspect of this kasen is not a democracy. By definition, known to all, I must make an artistic choice and also one based on craft. All I have written in these seven installments will pertain to a verse being accepted. Link, shift, non-repetition, concordance with the form's season or other criteria, proper number of lines, lack of punctuation (or cuts -- these stanzas are not haiku), originality, the fit with the other verses to date, etc. will all be considered.
Introducing the two partners ...
short biographies:
Cindy Zackowitz was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and makes her home in Anchorage. When not working she is usually on a haiku walk. She also enjoys cross-stitch, photography, fishing, and watching her niece and nephew play ice hockey. Her first involvement in haiku was over the Internet.
One of her haiku was featured in the annual book series from Red Moon Press: Snow On The Water, The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku 1998. Cindy's work can be found in print publications such as Modern Haiku, FROGPOND, Acorn, Tundra, and on the Internet at The Heron's Nest.
John Crook lives in England. Due to illness, he recently retired from teaching Mathematics at the University of Warwick. He is currently earning a crust or two designing web-sites from home. John was first introduced to haiku at Teachers' College over 30 years ago and used to teach something akin to haiku in Primary School, one of which he can remember:
The baby goldfinch
Fell from the tree and died
With a small life.
(Alison B, aged 8, 1970)
He re-discovered haiku on the internet in March last year. John is delighted but surprised that his work has been accepted and/or published by a number of haiku journals, including Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, Blithe Spirit, Still, Snapshots, Presence, and Haiku (in Croatia); in books, The Art of Haiku 2000 and the BHS anthology; on the net -- Temps Libre/Free Times and editor's choice in the The Heron's Nest; he has also been well placed in several competitions, including a prize in Snapshot's Calendar 2000. John is interested in haiku education and his web-site, Grains of Rice, http://www.haiku.org.uk/ is currently being used with children in Primary School. His hobbies are reading and activities associated with walking -- such as photography, bird watching and wild flowers.
The form with Cindy's hokku:
Renku form: spring kasen for four poets adapted by Paul MacNeil -- March, 1998
stanza/ # lines/ poets A--D/ season
page one
1 3 A hokku Sp
new grass
on the playing field -
a kite rises
1. cz
2 2 B wakiku Sp
3 3 C Sp optional
4 2 D
5 3 A moon Au
6 2 C Au
pages two and three
7 3 B Au
8 2 D love no season
9 3 B love no season
10 2 A love no season
11 3 C
12 2 D
13 3 B moon Su
14 2 C Su
15 3 D
16 2 A
17 3 D flower Sp
18 2 C Sp
19 3 A Sp
20 2 B
21 3 C love
22 2 A love
23 3 D Wi
24 2 B Wi
25 3 D
26 2 C
27 3 B
28 2 A
29 3 C moon Au
30 2 A Au
page four
31 3 D Au
32 2 B
33 3 A
34 2 B Sp optional
35 3 C flower Sp
36 2 D ageku Sp
notes to renku form for 4 poets:
Placement of special verses, season verses and love verses are based on texts of Jane Reichhold, Wm. J. Higginson, and Dhugal Lindsay. The interpolation is mine. It should be noted that a form such as this is a guideline. Experienced writers can and do change things slightly as the renku is written. The order of the four poets is my own invention, with advice from A.C. Missias, and is based on a premise that no poet should go twice in succession. Further consideration was made for each poet to have an equal number of stanzas, a roughly equal share of the special verses, and a roughly equal split of two- and three-line verses. This form also allows each poet to follow each of the other poets a roughly equal number of times -- hence the staggered rotation of poets. In at least two surviving kasen (At The Tub of Ashes, Even The Kite's Feathers) Basho used staggered rotations for four that he brought to the sessions. They are slightly different from one another, and show less even division among the participants than the one here. In a kasen for five (Withering Gusts) by the Basho Group, a staggered rotation was also used. None of the Basho rotations have the same writer going twice in succession.
In this rotation, a kasen for four works out this way: poet A has
only 8 times to follow.
A follows: B 3 times; Cx3; Dx2
B follows: Ax3; Cx2; Dx4
C follows: Ax3; Bx4; Dx2
D follows: Ax3; Bx2; Cx4
special verses:
A: hokku#1, moon#5
B: wakiku#2, moon#13
C: moon#29, flower#35
D: flower#17, ageku#36
love verses:
A: 10 , 22
B: 9
C: 21
D: 8
All poets have nine total verses each. Each poet A --> D has either 5 or 4 three-line verses, and 4 or 5 two-line verses.
- Paul
Fri, March 24, 2000
Originally posted to WHChaikuforum as the seventh essay-lesson in the Haikuforum Seminar on "Traditional Renku in English".
A completed copy of the kasen, A Kite Rises, with some annotation:
"A Kite Rises"
A Traditional Spring Kasen Renga for 4
Cindy Zackowitz of Alaska, USA (cz)
Paul MacNeil of Florida, USA (pm)
John Crook of England, GB (jc)
and eight members of the World Haiku Club
Haiku Forum participating as the 4th player
via the Internet 24 March -- 25 May, 2000
**********page one**********
new grass
on the playing field --
a kite rises
1. cz [hokku,spring]
debris rims the mud puddle
behind first base
2. pm [wakiku,spring]
covered in dust
as we spring-clean
the garage
3. jc [spring]
from a box of photos
forgotten faces
4. Debi Bender [no-season]
a dragonfly rests
near both moons
in the cracked window
5. cz [autumn,moon]
toasting marshmallows
on the embers of a bonfire
6. jc [autumn]
**********page two**********
Salvation Army
kettles and bells
greet holiday shoppers
7. pm [autumn]
a bridesmaid winks
at the best man
8. Alison Williams [no-season,love]
you model
my cummerbund
but hang your slip
9. pm [no-season,love]
do-not-disturb sign
swings on the doorknob
10. cz [no-season,love]
down the road
searching for gas
at 3 am
11. jc [no-season]
her joyous shriek
through the bingo hall
12. Elizabeth St Jacques [no-season]
snake tracks
blurred by canyon heat
the pale moon
13. pm [summer,moon]
legs dangling
a heron circles the tree
14. jc [summer]
spotlights
come to a stop
on the cellist
15. Joann Klontz [no-season]
archery quiver
bristled with arrows
16. cz [no-season]
he strokes his chin
as a grandson counts
cherry blossoms
17. Paul Conneally [spring,blossom]
laughter echoes
across the warm streets
18. jc [spring]
**********page three**********
yellow sky
at the end
of a long day
19. cz [spring]
I let loose the anchor chain
and taste salt spray
20. pm [no-season]
after the train
her goodbye tears held
in my handkerchief
21. jc [no-season,love]
an envelope
sealed with a kiss
22. cz [no-season,love]
snow flurries
slowly enclose
the bear den
23. Betty Kaplan [winter]
deep in the recliner
with a hot buttered rum
24. pm [winter]
from the pages
of a borrowed book
a hint of incense
25. Alison Williams [no-season]
dim figures
cross the city rubbish dump
26. jc [no-season]
marble statues
pitted by acid air
of Venetian merchants
27. pm [no-season]
shiny crutches
and a cast to match
28.cz [no-season]
all that remains
of the scarecrow tilts
towards the moon
29. jc [autumn,moon]
dry leaves caught
in the windmill's current
30 cz [autumn]
**********page four**********
candle flames
inside jack-o'-lanterns
flickering
31. Sue Mill [autumn]
TV hosts make small talk
between war and weather
32. pm [no-season]
she stops to untangle
the marionette's
frayed strings
33. cz [no-season]
a Gypsy woman
focuses her crystal ball
34. pm [no-season]
the colour
of plum blossom shines
out of the fog
35. jc [spring,blossom]
just-hatched tadpoles
dart into a shadow
36. Ferris Gilli [ageku,spring]
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