Okay, so say you don’t really feel like traveling any great distance, or you don’t like crowds, and you don’t really want to buy any more books (maybe you’re like me and your bookshelves will implode if you put anything else on them), and you’re not feeling wildly ambitious about getting published or winning contests … but still, you have a yen to do something besides sit around writing haiku by yourself. So: Why not join, or form, a haiku group?
Grow Your Own
Charlotte Digregorio, the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and a seasoned veteran of organizing many haiku events, has some advice for those who might like to start their own group:
“As far as starting a local group, it’s not difficult. In fact, it’s easy to get a room at most libraries. If you talk to the librarian in charge of Adult Services and tell him you'd like to start a haiku group, he will most likely volunteer to post a notice on their online calendar. Saturday or Sunday afternoons are usually a good time to hold meetings, depending on when the library usually holds its own programs that take precedence. If you meet at a branch library, they have a small meeting room. If you meet at the central library, they probably have multiple rooms for groups.
Often, major newspapers and local weekly papers have online editions where you can post a notice about a meeting or your interest in starting a group. You can also contact public radio stations, as they sometimes have online community events' postings. You should also let any literary groups you are affiliated with know that you are starting a group. There will often be interest among some of their members.
Interest for haiku is everywhere. Do you know teachers in grade school through college level that you can contact? If not, just look on websites for names and email addresses of language arts teachers or English Department chairs, or contact creative writing centers at universities.
You can also post a flyer at Starbucks and other coffee shops about your interest in starting a haiku group. Always list time, date, place, and your email address or phone number.
Don't feel badly if only a couple of people show up at first. The group will grow.”
Link Up
Okay, but how about if you’re ready for something completely different? The collaborative linked verse form of renga or renku (please don’t ask me to decide between words; wars have been fought over less, and in my discussion below I will use them interchangeably and honor the personal preference of my interviewees) might be waiting for you. Renga, from which haiku originated in medieval Japan but which fell out of favor in the nineteenth century, has experienced a resurgence lately all over the world.
The Internet has probably facilitated much of this; it’s easy now for poets living great distances apart to collaborate on poetry, so many more poets are introduced to the form on websites like Ashley Capes’s Issa’s Snail (discussed above in the Stuff to Write section) or Green Tea and Bird Song, hosted by William Sorlien (see below). But there’s an increasing amount of live renku action as well. My three interviewees below have varying and varying amounts of experience with composing renku both online and in person. Maybe their accounts will interest or inspire you to try the form.
William Sorlien
Willie is the proprietor of the blogs Haiku Bandit Society, Green Tea and Bird Song, and Renga-Haiku Bandit Society. He discusses his extensive experience composing renga online both on his own sites and those of others.
Why do we write renku?
Ms Eiko Yachimoto recently stated, "I have felt so many times that renku has a mysterious power to predict and forecast things." (She is well, and safe, after the recent trouble in Japan, by the way.)
Beyond the pleasure of a well-turned phrase, there is a certain power, a spirit, or intuition I've noticed present in the collaborative process that unerringly reveals itself when I write with other poets from all around the world. I'm probably the last person to ask about renku, certainly not an authority, yet most certainly a willing and eager student, fumbling, embarrassing myself, yet I continue to write. It is most the generosity and compassion of my peers that carries me forward. On reflection, I was surprised to realize I've been involved in three dozen or so collaborations. Of course, this means I'll need hundreds more and years of practice before I may start to consider myself adept in the form at all. I am, however, committed to that practice.
This, from a recent comment I wrote at the Renku Group:
Part of the pleasure I find in the practice of renku is learning from the participants and observers, even in this "digitalized" mode, where the whole world could be watching.
It's more the prosody and cadence for me at the moment. And, admittedly, the beauty of individual creation! Foremost, however, learning about and interacting with other people: their preferences, manners of speech, and points of view, the humor and common humanity of peoples from around the world.
Raffael de Gruttola
Raffael has been writing haiku for many decades. Below he describes his experience learning about renku and forming and participating in two in-person renku groups in the Boston area.
Our groups were formed after I met Tadashi Kondo back in 1999, a renku scholar who teaches in Japan and was in the Boston/Cambridge area to further his interests developing renku groups here in the States. Tadashi was a visiting scholar at Harvard and was here to study with Dr. Edwin Cranston, the foremost scholar of renku in the world today, who teaches a graduate course at Harvard in renku. Tadashi taught me the importance of the renku linked verse forms and we did many renku during his two year stay in the area. After he returned to Japan, I continued my interest and, as a founding of the Boston Haiku Society in 1988, I recruited some members who were interested in forming a group. This in essence how our two renku groups — “the immature green heron” and “renkubluz” — were started.
We have been expanding the style to incorporate Western ideas in how we progress with our links, although, we all started staying close to the traditional approaches as outlined by the Japanese for many years before making our renku more in our own traditions of poetry. I've been involved in the shorter forms and have done a couple of 100 link renku over a weekend with other haiku poets and friends including Tadashi.
Tadashi was also instrumental in introducing us to renku performance which he premiered at Sanders Theatre at Harvard under the auspices of Dr. Cranston. This has interested both of my groups here and we have done renku with musicians, both classical and jazz, and dance pieces with musicians and dancers. Most recently at the Mass Poetry Festival in 2009 we premiered a new concept of renku performance with a modern dancer and composer. I've been to Southern Japan on three occasions to work showcase the renku performance concept as well as being involved with international renku sessions. Our modern dance performance, sculling blackbirds, can be seen on www.vimeo.com/10998813. Again, we have moved away from many of the traditional Japanese rules. In fact sculling blackbirds is a cross-adaptation of a one act play called HAIKU by Katherine Snodgrass, the Director of the Boston Playwrights Theatre at Boston University.
Aubrie Cox
Aubrie is a student at Millikin University in Illinois who has been studying and writing Japanese short-form poetry for several years. She discusses her experience using instant-messaging to compose renku with a friend. (You can see their “March Mad Verse” in progress at Aubrie’s blog, Yay words!)
For March, I decided to write with a friend a link a day of a kasen. We've been doing linking for the last several years, but never anything longer than a rengay. So in a way, this has been a challenge for both of us, but an enjoyable one. Normally, we write over instant messenger, as we enjoy the real-time interaction while composing, and he lives in New York while I live in Illinois. When doing rengay, we can generally finish one within half an hour, but we've been rather careful with the kasen--we pace ourselves and are deliberate with each link. We both want to improve our linking skills and have been following the charts on Renku Reckoner (http://www.renkureckoner.co.uk/) and read up on linking and shifting. But at the same time, we make sure that we have fun along the way.
One advantage to this project, I think, is no matter how hectic our days are, every night we both sit down and focus on the next link. Usually whoever's turn it is has a link prepared, and we talk about how it works in relation to the previous link and together we decide on whether or not we want to keep it. Initially, we had a slight rocky start with a few links and had to scrap some, but it's getting a bit easier now as we've gotten into the habit. I think now we're more deliberately building things into the verses for the next person to link off of, and sometimes will drop a hint to one another about something in the link. Most importantly though, we poetically and creatively mesh. It makes the collaborative process so much easier, not to mention fun. We don't really have to hold each other accountable, because we both want to do it, and inspire each other with our links.
Alan Summers
Alan is a founding editor of haijinx, has been writing haiku for many years, and has also participated in and helped lead many renku session, including, as he describes below, some very large live events.
Although I've had some renku published (including "Into Sunlight" in snow on the water: The Red Moon Anthology, 1998), my main thing with renku is live events, where we physically meet, and this is where I really come alive. There have been several exciting renku events, and one's I'll never forget are when I became the Japan UK 150 roving renga-poet-in-residence through Britain.
I’ve helped run renku sessions when Marshall Hryciuk and Karen Sohne popped over from Toronto, Canada, to join me and others at the local Bath Spa Train Station; as well as run renku sessions back to back in a number of places, including jumping from one class to another and back again during the second senku renga I’ve organised in schools and engaging with a city’s population.
Reports on both successful senku (1000 verse renku) are due later this year. The last senku was in Hull where we garnered over 3000 renga contributions.
You can’t beat an actual live event renga or renku; although I love participating in correspondence renku as well, the adrenalin rush when it’s live is unmissable.
For more information about Alan’s renku events:
The City of Bath 1000 Verse Senku was supported by BBC Poetry Season and Roger McGough:
http://area17.blogspot.com/2009/11/1000-verse-renga-call-to-all-poets-and.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8316000/8316198.stm
Hull Global Renga (over 3000 contributions):
http://area17.blogspot.com/2010/07/hull-global-renga-call-out.html
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/Hull-people-urged-world-s-biggest-poems/article-2324750-detail/article.html
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