(paranthetical aside - I didn't necessarily mean this to go into a renga. I was open to any response; curious more than anything. I find the Issa haiku very optimistic, FYI. It might be fun to do a renga. I tend to be very formal in haiku writing, and most of what passes for haiku in the west is not haiku. But that is okay.
To not digress too much and be a wet blanket, this site is a good place to study haiku technique.
http://www.ahapoetry.com/haiku.htm#metaphor
if this puts you in the middle of the page, go to the top and the first article to read would be "Haiku rules that have come and gone"
Syllable count is the least important aspect - think of it more as an upper limit than a demand. Anyway have fun.
Jump Start to Renga
Jane Reichhold
Renga is a form of linked poetry which evolved from tanka, the oldest Japanese poetry form. The word is both singular and plural as in our English "sheep" and "deer" so you don't have to learn two foreign words.
In renga's eight hundred year history it has gone through many fashions and changes of goals and ideals. When it first began the trick was to turn the reader's thinking to admire a pun or jest as a three-line verse (of 17 syllables) was continued with a two-line verse of 7 and 7 syllables. If you have the feeling this is related to haiku, you are absolutely correct. The beginning three lines of a renga become haiku when they were snipped off (500 years after it began) by Basho (whom you know already).
As you read some of the renga the important thing to watch is what happens BETWEEN the links. Think of each stanza as a springboard from which you are going to jump. As your mind leaps (and you think you know where the poem is going) you should be forced to make a somersault in order to land upright in the next link. It is the twist your mind makes between links that makes renga interesting.
Some leaps are close (as in the beginning and end of the poem) so the subject is moved only slightly ahead. In the middle of the poem renga whizzes can pirouette until your head spins -- and that is just what is desired.
Take your partner by the hand. Start tapping your feet. Bow. And away you go. Well, renga is not really dancing in the barn or ballroom concept, but it does witness to the dance of minds. Therefore you should take it seriously as you remember it is game with words.)
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"The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
17 Nov 2005, 9:03 pm
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