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),[1] 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 17 morae and 14 morae. 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.
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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. A well-known example of this early attitude is a verse, possibly by Yamazaki Sōkan (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. Taking an ostensibly traditional and poetic prompt and injecting vulgar humor while maintaining the connection of the damp hems and the spring mists was exactly the sort of thing that early haikai poets were known for.
A comparable, though less evolved, tradition of 'linked verse' (lién jù, written with the same characters as 'renku') evolved in Chin-dynasty China,[3] and it has been argued that this Chinese form influenced Japanese renga during its formative period.[4]
During the last decades, the practice of renku has spread beyond Japan. With the growth of the internet and of electronic communications, international renku collaborations have grown in popularity, chiefly in English. However, renku have also been published in French,[5] Croatian,[6] German,[7] Afrikaans,[8] Romanian,[9] Russian[10] and Esperanto.[11] Sometimes, renku are composed simultaneously in two or more languages.[12]
Here follows a list of the formats most commonly used in writing renku[13]
| Name of format | Number of stanzas |
Number of kaishi (writing sheets) |
Number of sides |
Originator | Date of origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kasen (poetic geniuses) | 36 | 2 | 4 | unknown | 1518[14] |
| Han-kasen (half-kasen) | 18 | 1 | 2 | unknown | 17th century |
| Shisan (four times three) | 12 | 2 | 4 | Kaoru Kubota | 1970's |
| Jūnichō (twelve tones) | 12 | 1 | 1 | Shunjin Okamoto | 1989[15] |
| Nijūin (twenty tones) | 20 | 2 | 4 | Meiga Higashi | 1980's |
| Triparshva[16] (three sides) | 22 | 1 | 3 | Norman Darlington | 2005 |
| Rokku[17] (six verses) | variable | variable | variable | Haku Asanuma | 2000 |