A Poetry Game - Timothy Hicks's Blog

Hey Soupers!
 

Normally I don't post poetry on blogs, but in this case, I wanted to try and share my experience with a very old Japanese poetry format known as renga.

Renga was a popular poetry format in Old Japan, and was actually the precursor to haiku. A renga poem is composed by two or more poets, each taking turns adding two or three-line verses to the poem. The three line verses have a MAX syllable count of 17, while the two line verses have a MAX syllable count of 14. The poem stretches however long you wish: from a dozen verses to several hundred. The idea is to create the element of change, by every two verses adjacent verses being connected in some fashion, while NOT being connected to the verse written before THAT.

This is called "linking and shifting". 

Traditional renga poetry can be very complicated, having many, many different rules that poets must follow. As time progressed though, and renga became more popular among commoners instead of the more educated, people developed rules that were easier to follow.

One of the more common rules among renga poetry is to write a continuing poem that goes through all the seasons, as the poem progressed. Going from winter, spring, summer, fall, and so forth (starting in whichever season you like).

When writing a renga poem, you don't want to stay in one season too long, but you also don't want to change too quickly. My general rule is too not stay in the same season for more than three verses, so for example if the first verse is a Winter poem, you should be in Spring, at least by 4th verse.

You can have as few as TWO poets taking turns adding verses, but you can also have over a dozen if you like. Back in the Old Days, people would write them in huge groups, which meant that sometime it took several hours for it to be your turn again! I've only done it with one other person so far, which keeps it more simple, and you can do it in person like say a coffee shop, or also through email.

To change things up, poets can decide before hand to have a "Switch" incorporated, where poets trade places writing the two-line and three-line verses. The most simple way to do this is in the middle of a poem have one of the poets write TWO verses in a row, switching the order around.

So far I've written only two renga poems, the first being 12 verses called January Jest, and the second being 18 verses called Birds in Tuxedos. I'm sharing the second one with you because I believe it's more well put together ...

In addition to the Seasonal Rule, we made up our own rule called "The Animal/Insect Rule". This means that for every 4 consecutive verses there must at least ONE animal / insect reference, but no more than TWO. This is a lose rule, but makes for a bit more of a challenge. The beginning verse and ending verses must ALSO have a connectiong to one another ...

Here is the poem ... I hope you all can give it a try one day! :D

The verses in italic are written by my friend Jesse Whitehead,

and the verses in normal font are written by me.

You can also check out this link for further information ... http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Haikai-(Collaborative-Poetry-Game)

Can you name the connections between two adjacent verses?

Birds in Tuxedos

Can you name the connections between two adjacent verses?

P.S. Another form of connection is by borrowing lines. For instance, if someone adds a two-line verse it can connect with the last line of the previous three-line poem ...

take the first two verses for instance.

birds in tuxedos

marching through snow

stifled laughter

a pair of short legs

behind the coats

The next poem is "borrowing" the last line of the first poem, thus changing the meaning ...

stifled laughter

a pair of short legs

behind the coats

P.S. The animal / insect references are as follows: "birds in tuxedos", "brown pelican", "howling wolf", "Jurassic Park", "cattle driver", "ladybugs", and "penguins" ...