Collaborative Verse

Collaborative Verse, Collaborative Verses
Origins

The Japanese literary tradition contains instances of dialogic poems dating back to the first millennium AD. In the main these constituted a simple ‘call and response’ between two people.

In later years it became common for groups of poets who had gathered for courtly contests of individual poetry (waka) to relax and celebrate in the composition of light-hearted, sometimes scurrilous, chains of linked verse. These were often little more than word association games, each poet seeking to out-do his fellows, and tended to be rambling edifices, reaching fifty or a hundred verses in length.

In the mid seventeenth century Japan experienced a great expansion of economic and social freedoms allied to a rapid increase in literacy and the introduction of affordable printing techniques. By the 1680’s one printer alone in the commercial capital, Edo, was able to offer more than 650 titles; other than for scripture and religious commentary the largest number dealt with poetry.

The insatiable appetite of the emergent middle classes for all things poetic (haikai) saw the rise of the renga master or sosho, the greatest of all being Matsuo Basho – a figure of the stature of Dante Aligheri or William Shakespeare. In his study ‘Traces of Dreams’ Haruo Shirane describes the role of the sosho thus: "The haikai master, who combined the functions of poet, scholar, teacher, literary judge, conductor and team coach, moved the sequence along at an appropriate pace, helped participants when they were stumped, provided a bridge to the poetic tradition, maintained the mood or atmosphere of the gathering, and ensured the proper degree of variety and change."

The genius of Matsuo Basho lay in his ability to bring the energy and experience of the common man to a literary sphere that had previously been the preserve of the aristocracy, all the while discovering in the hitherto playful genre of linked verse the potential for great expressive range and subtlety.

Matsuo Basho remains Japan’s most respected literary figure. For the sake of simplicity this study uses the term renga to describe all styles of linked verse; in modern usage poetry composed strictly in the style of Matsuo Basho is often referred to as renku.

Relevance

For those raised in the occidental tradition - where poetry is the quintessential preserve of the introvert - linked verse can come like a bolt from the blue, for linked verse is composed by a group of people, collaboratively, albeit under the tutelage of a master poet (sosho) or guide/conductor (sabaki).

Traditionally the principal methods of selecting a verse are hizaokuri and degachi. The literal translation of hizaokuri – ‘passed from knee to knee’ – gives a charming image of each person taking turns to add their verse to the ‘chain’. Degachi by contrast is ‘competitive submission’ – offering a more blood curdling suggestion of poetry red in tooth and claw.

But the most important word in the renga vocabulary is ‘za’ the maintenance of which is the renga master’s ultimate responsibility. Za describes both the place of composition and the state of mind of the participants; it may be given as ‘happy togetherness’ or ‘cordial assembly’. Any renga master who allows a person to feel left out, belittled or otherwise unhappy with their experience of participation has failed the most basic test.

This is very much a group activity, with all parties discussing all aspects of each verse as it emerges. The degree of dialogue between participants, and between master and novice may be gauged from the often quoted remark, attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Basho himself: ‘Even if all that remains of your original text is the word of it is still your verse, and will appear against your name’.

Application

For a group of individuals new to the concept of linked verse, and perhaps entirely unused to either poetry or active collaboration, the verses may, in the first instance, be assembled by the renga master from snippets and fragmentary images supplied by the participants. An important feature of this early stage is that individuals are not expected to out perform each other with ever more novel suggestions. If, when asked to imagine an essential feature of late afternoon, half the persons present reply, 'jam butties,' that image becomes a likely target for inclusion.

As long as the attention of all is properly engaged it is not long before individuals, or sets of individuals, will start to present more cogent suggestions: complete lines, full verses, pairs of verses etc. Ideas bounce from person to person and a considerable creative energy becomes apparent.

Once this degree of confidence is reached, and especially where there are a large number of participants, teams of two or three individuals might be formed, each team tasked with the creation of verses which might be included by turn or will be expected to 'compete' for any given verse-position. As ever the renga master is available to comment on and guide the formation of these candidate verses, all the while assuring that rivalries remain creative rather than combative.

In situations where participants gain a high degree of fluency it may be appropriate for individual verses to be the preserve of a single poet. However, whether verse selection is by turns (hizaokuri) of competitive (degachi) this is not an invitation to ostentatious displays of superiority, real or imagined. In renga all aspects of all verses are open to the comments and suggestions of all participants at all times. It may be jazz, and largely improvisation, but it is not just an excuse for a flashy saxophone solo.