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Harmony and Variety A Collage of Images The twin poles of renga are unity and change. Any given verse is too short to permit narrative or rhetorical development, and the movement from verse to verse, given the number of participants, will tend to the tangential. Far from being a weakness this is the genre's greatest strength. A renga is a collage of images and perceptions, an assemblage of moments and observations that, as with successful advertising, achieve their greatest power when associations are suggested rather than directly stated. The collage is most striking when it can draw on the widest possible range of moods and materials, but as individual elements are relatively small they are tractable even for persons with little background (or faith) in poetry. Stimulating the Sensorium The sheer brevity of individual verses makes them unsuited to the examination or exposition of abstract concepts. More than seventeen syllables are required to discuss theories of war and peace, but they are enough to convey the shock of seeing that bloodied corpse on television, the moment the first fist lands, or the fear of sudden noise in darkness. Essentially renga deals with topics that are within the participants' own experience, which form part of their actuality, or which can be imagined in personal terms. Great emphasis falls on the full sensorium. In relaying the experience of a seaside excursion what exactly are those things that make it unique… the sound of the slot machines; the smell of the donkeys; the colour of the trams; the taste of the hotdogs? And what are those quirks and combinations that are so unmistakably Blackpool, Southend-on-Sea or EuroDisney? Guiding Structures The danger for this collage or mosaic is that it can easily become atomised and purely fragmentary, or over-long and amorphous. To paraphrase the sabaki Eiko Yachimoto: the larger the kite, the more spars it needs. The Japanese tradition does not use set themes. Instead it has evolved a number of substructures that underpin the larger poem. These comprise a tripartite arrangement of seasonal cycles, symphonic movement (larghetto, con brio etc), and the appearance of certain traditional topics. By way of illustration two such poems are included in this study: the twenty verse Nijuin Renku 'Simmering Heat'; and the twelve verse Shisan Renku 'The Dolphin Circles'. The participants in these two renku (Basho-style renga) are all adults and internationally published poets though a number are new to collaborative verse. For the purposes of introducing novice or occasional poets to linked verse it is important that the organisational structures are not too daunting and that the poem can be completed in a reasonable time-frame. A degree of simplification is therefore advisable. Six, Eight or Ten verses have proven to be successful target lengths. A sense of place can provide a guiding parameter: the experience of being in a museum, a trip to an arboretum, a walk around the centre of town. These lend a degree of overall cogency while leaving the verse-to-verse movement wide open. A natural progression is another ideal organisational tool: the stages of a day, the periods of a life, the succession of the seasons. It is important to note that these are cycles not linear processes, and that they relate to basic aspects of the human condition… renga is the poetry of shared experience not of solitary speculation. Progressive Strictures If the substructures are needed to guarantee cogency, there are also considerations which ensure variety. At its simplest one verse should link to the next by some shared association rather than a purely narrative progression: the stillness of the classroom contrasting the clatter of feet in the stairwell; a sudden gust of wind becoming a blast of music; the fart-spray from the joke shop giving way to images of a polluted seashore. As participants become more proficient considerations of perspective can be introduced: verses should vary between first person, third person and landscape. These latter should move between long shot and close up. Sequences should be avoided that are predicated on the same sense - all mainly visual, all mainly tactile etc. Similarly the same activity or object must not predominate in a set of verses, or the same mood. Clearly these strictures are scaleable depending on the ability and experience of the participants. There is however one constant: they must be used to encourage imagination, not defeat it. There is no point in a rule for a rule's sake, and renga should be challenging but above all enjoyable! |
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