The Gift

There's no reason for beauty,
The cosmos does not need it,
Beauty is the gift of God,
It is how God redeems it.

Renga Ramblings 5

Renga Ramblings 5

Renga and Rhyme

Japanese poetry does not use rhyme as an element of construction in its poetry.  It isn’t the case the Japanese poetry does not use rhyme at all.  In Jane Reichhold’s “Basho: The Complete Haiku” Reichhold has a closing section on ‘Haiku Techniques’.  Two of the techniques, numbers 8 and 19, refer to uses of rhyme.  In my study of Tanka I have observed that Tanka poets will, at times, cultivate a particular vowel sound producing both assonance and end rhyme.  Reichhold also points to the use of ‘Frame Rhyme’, what I would call ‘Slant Rhyme’, to produce a humorous effect in haikai.

But this kind of rhyme isn’t part of the way rhyme is used in, for example, English or Chinese poetry.  In English poetry rhyme is an element of construction.  By this I mean that if you are going to write a Shakespearean Sonnet you need to follow a particular end-rhyme scheme because the rhyme scheme is a structural element of the form.  The same is true of the Rubai Quatrain or the Englin Quatrain or Chinese Quatrain forms.  In Japanese forms rhyme is sometimes used, but such usage is not definitive of a form like Tanka or Haikai.  That is to say if there is no rhyme in a Tanka, which is to say the majority of Tanka, that is not considered a flaw.  But if there were no rhymes in a Shakespearean Sonnet, or if they were placed incorrectly, that would be a strike against it.

In general English language poets who write in Japanese forms have found the absence of rhyme in these forms to be congenial.  For one thing, it resonates with the modernist tendency to retreat from rhyme.  I suspect that one of the attractions of Japanese forms for English language poets is the absence of rhyme in an ancient tradition of poetry.

But, since I am writing poetry in English, and since English poetry does use rhyme, I began to explore the possibility of incorporating rhyme into Renga.  I wanted the rhyme usage in Renga to reflect the manner of Renga.  By ‘manner of Renga’ I mean the link and shift patterning, or texture, which distinctively marks Renga.  After a lot of experiments I came up with something which seems to work.  The pattern of end-rhyme I’ve developed is as follows:

The last syllable of the last line of Verse X

And the last syllable of the first line of Verse X + 1

Rhyme.

Here is an example:

Summer ends with the first chill

One more blanket on the bed

“I think that instead

Of purchasing brand new clothes,

This year we’ll make do.”

Dawn, with many shades of blue

Seen through many colored leaves

(From ‘Sunset Sky’)

The last syllable of the last line of the first verse is ‘bed’.

The last syllable of the first line of the second verse is ‘stead’.

The same pattern applies to ‘do’ and ‘blue’.

These rhymes link the consecutive verses sonically.  One commenter on this blog noted that the effect of rhyming in this way was a kind of braiding of the images.

The shift occurs because no two consecutive rhymes are the same rhyme.  In other words there is a shift from ‘bed/stead’ to ‘do/blue’. 

In the two line verses the first line rhymes with the previous verse and the second line rhymes with the following verse; both lines, then, are involved with rhyming.

In the three line verses the second line does not rhyme and adds some sonic spice.  My feeling is that if the second line of the three line verse was also involved in the rhyme scheme it would tend to become too sing-song.  The second line of the three line verse adds a little variety and unpredictability to the sonic flow.

Another aspect of traditional Renga esthetic I’ve incorporated into rhyme usage is that the last line of the first verse, the hokku, does not rhyme with the first line of the second verse.  This gives the opening verse its traditional stand-alone feel.  Using the river metaphor I often rely on, the opening verse gives us the setting, but the journey really begins with Verse 2, and hence the introduction of rhyme begins with the last line of Verse 2 rhyming with the first line of Verse 3.

What is the effect of incorporating rhyme into Renga?  The immediate effect is that when a poet follows a rhyme scheme it limits the available words the poet can use.  I felt this immediately.  This is both a plus and a minus.  It is a minus because what happens if I come up with a really superb link, but the link does not lend itself to the rhyme scheme?  That can feel frustrating.  It is a plus because if I relax into the rhyme scheme commitment, it gives me more focus as I compose each new link.  It is a way of whittling away at too many possibilities.

Lately I’ve experimented with the idea of using such a rhyme scheme in parts of a Renga.  This happened because I was composing a Renga, and I came up with what I thought of as a really good link, but it didn’t rhyme.  By this time I had written enough rhyming Renga to feel confident about my abilities and in this instance I decided to forgo the rhyme and see what happened.  I discovered that I was able to return to the rhyme scheme a few verses later.  What I noticed is that the non-rhyming sequence stood out in this 20-verse Renga of rhyming links.

The Renga poet can use this, I think, to highlight, for example, a moon verse sequence, or a fall verse sequence.  Instead of a sequence that is distinguished by lack of rhyme, what if three to five verses followed this kind of rhyme scheme and they were all on the same topic?  It would add a lyrical dimension to a moon sequence, particularly if the rest of the Renga did not follow this rhyme scheme.  In other words, the rhyme scheme is not an either/or.  It can be used in an entire Renga, but it can also be used as an effective means for creating unity in a topic field.  And the reverse is also true: in a Renga that follows this rhyme scheme, the absence of rhyme for three to five verses will highlight those particular verses as significant.

I have come to regard this approach to rhyme in Renga as an optional tool.  Sometimes I use it, and often I do not.  It is a tool that the English language offers the Renga poet as part of our English language heritage.

In closing I suggest that if you are interested in this approach to rhyme in renga that you click on the ‘renga’ label listed at the right of this blog.  I have posted some renga that use this rhyme scheme.  The Renga ‘Flow of Grace’ is my personal favorite.

Sound Steals Mind

The first of Taurus,
A cool wind bends the lilacs
Under a gray sky
The sound of wailing sirens . . .
The police?, an ambulance?

Renga Ramblings 4

Renga Ramblings 4

The Pulse of the Poem

When I first began composing Renga I wrote in the free verse style that is widespread among western Renga poets.  (You can see a few examples of this approach in ‘The Narrow Road to Renga’, published by Jane Reichhold and her Aha Press.)  My belief is that this free verse approach to lineation has established itself in western Renga  because almost all of the poets who are interested in Renga have their roots in free verse Haiku.  And even when that is not the case, they will have absorbed free verse norms simply from learning about poetry today from college courses and poetry workshops.  I’m suggesting that free verse approaches to lineation are, for many poets, normative.

The change for me came when I read Steven Carter’s “The Road to Kommatsubara”, which is an annotated translation of a Hyakuin Renga (100 Verses) by Sogi, along with a lengthy historical introduction and the translation of a manual of Renga construction.  I noted that Carter stuck fairly closely to the 5-7-5 and 7-7 pattern of the Renga verses.  Carter’s translation also contains a parallel transliteration.  I began to recite the Japanese transliteration, just to get a feel for the sonic dimension of the Renga.  Carter’s translation is interspersed with many notes, annotations, and esthetic asides.  This means that the translation only has a few verses in a row before some annotations appear; so I was able to take small chunks of the Renga and recite the verses to get a feel for the sound.

I then turned to Earl Miner’s book “Japanese Linked Poetry” which contains a translation of my favorite Renga, ‘Sogi Alone’.  Miner’s layout allows one to read the transliteration uninterrupted from beginning to end.  When I did this I uncovered a dimension of Renga that I had not understood before.  I call this the ‘Renga River’, or the ‘Renga Pulse’.  There is a subtle ebb and flow as the lines change length.  There is a steady pulse, but the pulse is like the flow of a river.  Or, and this is the best analogy I’ve come up with, it has the feel of canoeing down a stream; there is the pull of the oars, followed by a few moments of coasting.

What suddenly hit me is that it is precisely this pulse which serves to hold the images of a Renga together.  It is a dimension of beauty in Renga that emerges only when there is a regularity of line, a formal construction.  This is part of the meaning of the formal parameters of Renga; of the 5-7-5 and 7-7 verse sequences.  I wanted to reflect this dimension of Renga in my own Renga composition.  For this reason I began to compose Renga in a formal fashion, mimicking the syllable count of the Japanese.

This underlying unity of flow is, I think, an important element of why Renga works.  In a poetic form that is non-narrative, where the links between verses, how they relate to each other, can, at times, be obscure or even completely opaque, what holds these images together?  I would like to suggest that it is the underlying pulse that gives Renga its sense of unity. 

Elaborating on the river metaphor; the images of a Renga resemble the sights and sounds one encounters on a canoe trip.  If I were to write up my canoe trip as a series of images, in many ways it would have a Renga feel to it.  Except that what would be missing from my write up would be the flow of the canoe on the river itself.  By having a regulated line, Renga offers the poet and reader access to the flow of the journey.

I began chanting my Renga in a very simple manner.  I just wanted to see how that would work.  And sure enough, the pulse emerged.  In a sense one can view the verses of a Renga as verses of a song and it is the underlying meter that ties all the verses together.

The end result of this was to compose Renga as a type of formal verse in English, again mimicking the 5-7-5 and 7-7 syllable count of the Japanese.  This seemed to work well for me.  In fact, by now it has become second nature.

A few years after shifting to a formal verse structure for Renga I encountered some Renga poets who had gone through a similar evolution in their Renga writing.  The specifics differed; they did not move to a more consistently formal usage by reading Carter and Miner, although they were familiar with these authors.  Rather, they found over time that a regulated line gave the Renga a sense of unity and a stronger sense of flow.  My friends didn’t adhere to 5-7-5 and 7-7 that I do.  Instead they would attempt to consider the lineation of the link they were linking to and to mimic it in their own links, thereby giving the overall Renga a greater sense of uniformity.

I am very encouraged by the results of my own Renga composition and those of others.  I believe that a longer line in Renga, longer than one finds in minimalist Haiku, contributes to the overall sense of an underlying current that holds the images together.  And I have come to feel the wisdom of such a formal approach.   Such an approach contributes significantly to the pleasure that a well written Renga has to offer.

At Yosemite

Yosemite Falls
The tall granite cliffs
Pines cling to ledges
While clouds slowly drift

Ecclesiastes

Overcast morning
The sound of two crows cawing
In the windless warmth

Dew upon the Douglas Fir
Seen through the venetian blinds

After a moment
He returns to his laptop
To check his email

Rolling out of a driveway,
The neighbor's new S.U.V.

Bright in the moonlight
Of the waxing gibbous moon
Keeping track of time

Her mother-in-law's birthday
Coincides with golden leaves

At the gift shop
Rows and rows of greeting cards
For all occasions

Reading Ecclesiastes
The minister takes comfort

Even though the snow
Lies in drifts upon the ground
And the sky is gray

Unexpectedly the mist
Rises in the warm March air

Around the plum tree
A few petals have fallen
From a few branches

Two friends have to acknowledge
That they are now far apart

Riverscape

The rain's falling all day long
Here on the Russian River
The sky slowly turns to night,
Mists make the trees look darker