heron

Frogpond 33.3 • 2010

Museum of Haiku
Literature Award

Haiku & Senryu

Haiku Comics

Revelations Unedited

Essay 1 - Rebecca Lowry

Essay 2 - Haibun Titles

Haibun

Rengay

Renku

Book Review

From the Editors

wordmark

Editors’ Note: The renga is an older form of Japanese linked poetry than the renku. For the HSA definition of the renku, go to the HSA Web. site <https://www.hsa-haiku.org/archives/HSA_Definitions_2004.html>. For a scholarly, but clear, discussion of how the renku evolved from the renga, read the chapter “Distinctive Features of Linked Poetry” in Miner, E., Japanese Linked Poetry, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 140-159. As can be seen in this section, both forms are practiced today. Of interest to readers will be that the authors of “36 Renga” have shared the template they used.

The Yotsumono is a renku form proposed by the English poet, John Edmund Carley, who describes it as follows: <http://www.renkureckoner.co.uk/>:

The Yotsumono is a four verse sequence for two voices. Poets alternate. The verses may be understood as hokku, wakiku, daisan and ageku. There are no tonal or topical exclusions. Season and fixed topic choices may be governed by mainstream renku conven- tions, or largely independent of them. Equally the sequence may rely largely or wholly on mukigo, or none. In all cases uchikoshi no kirai (reversion to the last-but-one) and kannonbiraki (double doors) are avoided. In order to ensure that the work remains non- thematic all discussion of a poem’s meaning should be deferred until the piece is completed.

Pleiades at Dawn:
A Yotsumono Renku

by Karen Cesar, Arizona &
Kathy Earsman, Australia

                              we climb to where
                              the snow never melts—
                              Pleiades at dawn

                              meteors scratch the blackboard
                              of our summer sky

                              time whizzing by...
                              I ask myself, was I ever
                              really that young?

                              his pulse beneath
                              the shadow of the bone

3dots