Composing a
Yotsumono Renku*
In July 2010 six
haiku poets participated in a an on-line renku workshop lead
by John E. Carley to learn some basic renku principles which
they demonstrated in two Yotsumono renku compositions. John
Carley commented on submitted verses and acted as sabaki for
the exercise. The
Renku Reckoner site by John E. Carley contains much
useful information about renku.
Almost Ripe
Apples
Cristian Mocanu,
RO, John Daleiden, US; John E. Carley, UK; Zhanna P. Rader,
US
almost ripe apples
matching the colours
of the sunset— (cm)
in the horse barn
a pinto colt suckles (jd)
he walks with a limp
half a leg
lost to the talibs (jec)
a whiff of fine perfume
from a passer-by (zh.r)
Tomegaki
John E.
Carley, UK
The hokku is a
perfect summer verse which nonetheless hints at the cusp of
autumn. It offers a very subtle internal tension between
near-fruition and completion – between youth and age. The
wakiku also evokes a life cycle, but takes us earlier and
shifts scale. In this it is ideal – a furtherance and
enrichment of the hokku rather than a contrast. Daisan takes
us through some sudden evolutions: starting with the rural
and the familiar (is the horse or the horseman lame?) and
ending with the alien (the man is disfigured by a foreign
war/ideology). At one level ageku gives us the tangible –
the figure of the expensive lady. But on the other it is the
intangible only – she is impermanent, present by scent
alone, and a scent which is not her own, but applied.
Certainly she is unattainable. It is this last aspect that
makes the verse so suitable. The poem as a whole is shown to
address potentiality and intent. The concluding suggestion
that ‘gain’ is illusory fits very nicely with a verse form
that originally majored on Buddhist metaphysics.
Nailed in
the Wall
Zhanna P. Rader,
US; Judith Gorgone, US; Karina Klesko, US; John Daleiden, US
tornado passes—
a chicken feather
nailed in the wall (zh.r)
her long hair mingling
the bear skin rug (jg)
moonlight reveals
someone's lost shoe
near the ferris wheel (kk)
I add another stone
to the cairn as I pass
(jd)
Tomegaki
John E.
Carley, UK
There is a
theory that the hokku always leaves its mark the entirety of
the sequence. Certainly the tension between calm and storm
permeates this poem. Thanks to the strong and direct linkage
the piece evolves through a gamut of suggestions of sex and
sensuality, romance and excess. The ageku loops us back to
the beginning, except that now we know things will end
badly: more than a shoe has been lost.
These poems could hardly be more different: the first is
elliptical and light, the second packed with emotion. What
they have in common though is a classic balance between
‘person’ and ‘place’ verses, fresh use of imagery, effective
attention to language as an organisational as well as an
expressive tool, and a successful understanding of the
differing functions of the different verses (hokku, wakiku,
daisan and ageku).
I’m very grateful indeed to everyone for generating such a
wealth of potential from which these glimpses of the world
are woven. The Yotsumono is principally conceived as an
dialogic exchange between a pair of writers, but you’ve
shown that it can be approached differently.
Exercises: *Yotsumono
hokku, wakiku, daisan and ageku
2010 revision
John E. Carley,
UK
What
Yotsumono is an
exercise devised by the present author. It extends the
historic Mitsumono exercise elsewhere on these pages by the
addition of ageku as a closing verse.
The structure of the resultant four verse sequence is
similar to that of the Chinese Jueju (Wade-Giles: Chue Chu),
known in Japanese as the Zekku. It may be that the Yotsumono
comes to be viewed as having some merit as a distinct form
in its own right.
How
Two poets take
turns to compose a sequence comprising hokku, wakiku, daisan
and ageku, the initial verses being shorn of such
performative functions of greeting or augury as may be found
in formal composition.
In order to guard against thematic development, all
discussion of the meaning of, or intention behind, any
aspect of a particular verse, the conceptual linkage between
verses, or the overall direction of the poem is disbarred
until completion of the text. By contrast active discussion
of the phonics of the piece is encouraged.
Resources
This exercise
demands an understanding of the particular compositional
requirements of hokku, wakiku, daisan and ageku. Persons new
to these terms should refer to the article 'Beginnings and
Endings' elsewhere in Renku Reckoner. Please note the
caveats in the section 'How' above.
Some aspects of the grammatical structure of
English-language renku verses are discussed in the article
'Cut or Uncut?'.
The 'Yotsumono' button at left directs to a schematic guide.
The article 'Common Types' contains a description and
appraisal of the sequence.
Comments
Yotsumono
reflects some aspects of the Chinese Jueju which is believed
to have influenced the emergence of linked verse in Japan.
Known in Japanese as the Zekku, this ancient verse form
comprises four short phrases or verses. The first, kiku,
gives the setting of the poem. The second, shokku, amplifies
the head verse whilst the third, tenku, turns away from the
opening pair, the resultant juxtaposition revealing the
unstated essence of the poem. A resolution to the tension
generated by this break-and-turn is provided by the fourth
verse, kekku, which provides closure to the whole, a quality
described as 'the determination' (ketsu).
Yotsumono equates these functions to those of hokku, wakiku,
daisan and ageku. Unlike the Zekku, the Yotsumono is however
dialogic, being written typically between an alternating
pair of voices. It is also avowedly anti-thematic although,
as is noted below, a skillfully written poem will seem
otherwise.
There are no tonal or topical exclusions in the Yotsumono.
The poem should be swift moving. All types of uniformity are
to be avoided. It may follow the more formal contemporary
renku conventions regarding the seasons and their associated
fixed topics, or adopt the freer approach typical of the
Junicho and Rokku. Alternatively a Yotsumono may embrace the
concept of seasonless mukigo, or choose to disregard these
concerns altogether. Where formal kigo are used, or other
emblematic key words and topics such as haikmakura, these
should not alternate, appearing either consecutively, or
with a two verse separation i.e.in the first and last
positions.
The Yotsumono requires the same absolute intolerance of
uchikoshi no kirai (reversion to the last but one) that
characterises the Rokku. This includes register, grammar and
syntax as well as content. Further, Yotsumono extends these
strictures to the relationship between hokku and ageku
excepting those cases where ageku incorporates deliberate
echoes of the hokku or wakiku for specific expressive
purposes.
Whilst avoiding all contrivance and versification, great
emphasis is placed on the poetics of utterance; the minor
tropes which are automatically disbarred from much
English-language haiku may be used sparingly. As with the
Chinese and Japanese source poems, it is particularly
important to achieve balanced and proportional cadences both
within verses and between verses.
At no stage during the preparation or composition of a
Yotsumono should participants discuss their aims, intentions
or predispositions in respect of either the poem as a whole,
the meaning of a particular verse, or the semantic aspects
of inter-verse linkage. All critical analysis is to be
welcomed. But in the case of the Yotsumono this should only
ever occur after the poem has been completed, and the text
signed off as definitive by the participants.
The purpose of this injunction is to ensure that the
Yotsumono satisfies a minimum condition for renku: that it
be non-thematic. It is an intriguing paradox of the form
that a skillful determination, at ageku, will generate a
post-facto semantic coherence across the span of the four
verses that gives the impression of a conscious and
preexisting purpose, of an ineluctability of flow.
Source:
The Renku Reckoner
*The
Yotsumono - 4 verses - an appraisal
John E.
Carley, UK
Is the Yotsumono
anything other than a writing exercise dressed up as a renku
sequence? Indeed can it claim to be renku at all?
In so far as a definition of renku might be 'haikai no renga
written in the manner of the Basho school' the jury must be
out. Clearly Basho and his immediate disciples didn't write
Yotsumono. But then nor did they write Nijuin, Triparshva,
Junicho, Shisan or Rokku. Of these the Junicho and Shisan
present radically different structures to those which were
the vehicle for the development of Shofu, whilst the Rokku,
in purposefully limiting seriation to a maximum of two
consecutive verses, directly contradicts a central feature
of Basho's carefully refined poetics. Further, all three
promote or at least permit fixed topic treatments which are
decidedly unconventional.
But it is reasonable to object that there is a matter of
degree here: the Junicho might feel like a drastic
contraction at only a third the length of a Kasen, yet the
Yotsumono is only a third the length of a single face of ha!
However the proposed definition is not 'written by Basho's
immediate school' but 'written in the manner of the Basho
school', and possibly this criterion may be met.
Whatever the length of sequence the Shomon sensibilities of
fueki rukyo (the ever changing within the perpetual) and
kogo kizoku (awakening to the high returning to the low) may
be evidenced, particularly in contrast to the Danrin
tendency towards the flashy and absurd, or the restrictions
and pretensions of the Teimon school. The style of linkage
is also crucial, less a matter of pure scent linking, than
of a layered approach which mixes nioi with more simple
methods.
The emphasis placed on balanced and proportional cadences
between verses, and on the poetics of utterance in general,
is a further reflection of aspects of Shomon renku which
were integral to the source material, but which have
received scant attention, and very uneven emulation, as the
genre has emerged in English.
More problematic is the question of variety and change.
Clearly, at only four verses, the Yotsumono cannot be a poem
which contains 'all ten thousand things'. Yet this objection
may readily be leveled at the twelve verse Junicho and
Shisan, and the suggestion that the anti-thematic nature of
renku is simply a function of the inclusion of a surfeit of
materials is contentious at best.
Of the source genre, the majority of Jueju or Zekku are
little more than a thematic or para-thematic exploration of
a setting or topic with a pleasant or wily midpoint
digression and an ingenious conclusion - an arrangement
which bears little resemblance to renku. Equally the
post-enlightenment poet may struggle to resist the
temptation to see the Yotsumono as an invitation to some
form of rational explication of a subject via the Hegelian
dialect of thesis (hokku + wakiku), antithesis (daisan) and
synthesis (ageku).
In order to avoid these pitfalls participants are directed
to avoid any and all discussion of a poem's meaning either
before or during composition, ergo: the poem cannot be
thematic. Where it is adhered to this injunction has the
welcome effect of focusing the attention on precisely those
areas of prosody which otherwise all too frequently receive
scant attention, whilst further boosting the importance of
empathy in linkage. It also proves to generate an intriguing
paradox in that a skillful determination, at ageku, will
tend to generate a post-facto semantic coherence across the
poem that gives the impression of an over-arching, and
predetermined, intention.
The Yotsumono may indeed prove to be simply a writing
exercise with ideas above its station. However the
phenomenal success of Garry Gay's avowedly thematic Rengay
and the continued experimentation with para-thematic short
forms of linked verse such as Vaughn Seward's Renhai suggest
that the appetite exists amongst English speaking poets for
short collaborative forms which are both enjoyable and
creatively rewarding. If the Yotsumono can satisfy this
demand whilst respecting the most inviolable features of
renku it might come to be viewed as a legitimate proposal
for a renku sequence in miniature.
Source:
The Renku Reckoner
