Backlink

On Backlink
seizing the renku moment
2011 revision

I was in a renku session once where the leader said, "I'm sorry, Gary, you can't have hubcap in this stanza because it is a backlink to beer". I said, "WHAT?!?!?!". And they said beer was obviously in a can, which is round, and hubcap is another man-made round metal thing, which obviously could not be allowed.
Gary Warner

There's a postgraduate thesis to be written somewhere down the line that traces the exact origin of the word backlink in the sense that it has come to be used in English-language renku circles. The researcher could do worse than examine the sources before, during and after the Renku North America tour of 1992. Whatever the outcome of such enquiries one thing is certain: the theory of backlink is useful only to the extent that anyone urging its application may be safely ignored.

In truth, in so far as it can refer to the intention to move forward in a renku sequence, to avoid thematic development, and to ensure as much variety as possible, the term backlink might be seen as having a degree of legitimacy. Unfortunately in the minds of many, rather than describing a general principle, it has come to be viewed as a precise stricture, doubtless a translation, which somehow equates to a specific aspect of renku theory and practice. In this it is seriously misguided. Elsewhere in Renku Reckoner the article Occurrence and Recurrence examines some of the forces which govern the dynamics of change within a renku sequence. The current article examines in more detail the ubiquitous, yet strangely amorphous, fallacy that is backlink.

Seizing the Renku Moment

Like all the best delusions backlink starts from a good place: a recognition of the importance of category to Japanese perceptions of topic. It is generally understood that for centuries poetry collections, treatises and competition criteria have promoted the belief that certain subjects fall into natural groupings; this is as true for classical styles as for haikai. The Japanese poet is therefore sensible of the fact that smoke and clouds fit into the category of Rising Phenomena, whilst rain and frost belong to the category of Falling Phenomena, and will make aesthetic judgments accordingly.

When renku began its spread into English there was some debate as to whether it was more appropriate to originate a fresh series of categories than to adopt those which had arisen in the parent literature, but there was general consensus that, whereas any given category might be culturally specific, the notion of category was vital to an understanding of the centripetal as well as the centrifugal forces at work in a sequence. Regrettably the realisation of this essential truth appears to have been marred by a single, but catastrophic, misapprehension.

By way of illustration let us take the Japanese category Nocturnal Phenomena; it comprises such things as dawn, lightning, fireflies, and fishing with cormorants. In the context of linked verse this category has an associated value of intermission, in the Japanese: sarikirai. All categories have such a value which varies according to their perceived primacy. Sarikirai dictates that there should be a minimum number of clear verses before topics from any given category may reoccur, and the more prime the category, the greater the degree of separation. In the case of Nocturnal Phenomena the required degree of intermission is three. Therefore, when any given verse refers to fireflies, at least three verses should elapse before dawn, lightning, or fishing with cormorants may appear, as all are from the same category. By the same token, when any given verse refers to fishing with cormorants, at least three verses should elapse before fireflies, dawn or lightning may appear. And so on.

It is possible to imagine a category for English-language renku called Urban Litter which contains, amongst other things: beer can, cigarette butt, polystyrene and hubcap. But any application of category-driven exclusion theory, drawn from Japanese literature, would merely say that a given number of verses must intervene before cigarette butt could be mentioned after polystyrene, or beer can mentioned after hubcap. What renku theory does not say, and has never said, is that if beer can is mentioned then hubcap cannot appear at all, ditto cigarette butt, polystyrene or any other topic included in the category Urban Litter. The mere fact that one item is mentioned does not mean that all other items from the same category are now disbarred from the poem. Renku is more subtle than that.

The Damage Done

It is not difficult to understand the implications of such a fundamental error. With the content of each added verse entire swathes of allegedly related topics and tones are suddenly rendered inadmissible, for the duration. And whilst it could be argued, with some justification, that such absolute injunctions as are illustrated here are not always what people intend when they cite the principle of backlink, that in itself is a part of the problem. If backlink does not mean beer-can-no-hubcap-ever then what does it mean? And in the absence of any such agreement, how can it mean anything at all?

The present author can attest to the Kafkaesque effects of such uncertainties in practice: the forensic combing of previous verses for God knows what kind of correspondence; the seemingly arbitrary interventions of the poem leader; the arguments and frustrations; the corrosive impression that the genre is more rebus than revelation. Little wonder that many gifted poets have looked at the genre, scratched their heads, and walked away. They have after all been presented not so much with Urban Litter, as with garbage pure and simple.

It is of course the case that poetic theory and practice must evolve over time, but it is difficult to see how the mere assertion of this or that axiom constitutes evolution. It smacks rather more of creationism. Or perhaps the simple clutching of straws. Most galling of all is the contention that notions such as backlink, flawed as they are, represent a necessary simplification of renku theory, the field being otherwise too difficult for the layperson to understand. This is nonsense; the field is only perplexing because it is full of cabbages purporting to be globe artichokes.

Variety at All Costs?

The renku revival of the last several decades has been characterised by the search for ever shorter sequences. One unfortunate feature of this trend is that it appears to validate some of the more crude approaches to variety in renku - instincts which are abetted by a partial awareness of certain aspects of historical theory.

In the medieval period, when renga sequences spanned 100 verses, a common injunction was that subjects drawn from a particularly prime category should have intermission values of seven or more clear verses. There were also a small number of individual words and topics considered so striking that they were limited to a single appearance per side (14 verses), per page (28 verses) or, in exceptional cases, to once in the entire poem. To that extent notions of extended or absolute exclusion do have a precedent

Throughout the Edo period, and into modern times, some schools of thought, drawing particularly on Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, have treated a renku sequence as an instance of mandala: as a poem which should contain all 10,000 things. Metaphysics aside the newcomer to renku composition is invariably struck by a poem's astonishing appetite for ever more topics and materials, and the temptation is to feed the furnace willy-nilly.

Given that the most popular short sequence of recent years, the Junicho, is only 12 verses long it is not difficult to see how theories predicated on the search for variety at all cost can appear not only attractive, but essentially correct. And it is all too convenient for the poem leader to cry 'backlink' when faced with a candidate verse which may be deficient for a whole range of reasons. Yet any theory which propounds absolute novelty throughout the course of a renku sequence is clearly false. Matsuo Basho championed the Kasen. The Kasen typically has four or five love verses, three moon verses, two of which are almost invariably set in autumn, and two blossom verses, both set spring. Would the advocates of backlink really like to contend that Basho didn't understand his subject?

Renku theory and practice has developed over the centuries thanks to the diligent engagement and artistic endeavour of poets and commentators. It is neither necessary nor desirable for those in the English speaking world to propound facile hypotheses that distance us from our source material. If renku is to be considered as literature any worthwhile aesthetic or technical theory will hold for all forms of the genre, in all languages, and in all cultural contexts. There is no such thing as backlink.