Solo Renga

Good Friends:

I first started using some of the 12-verse renga forms to experiment with certain approaches to renga that I wanted to explore. Initially I wanted to explore the relationship between time and season and what happens when time and season are treated as separate categories. I found the 12 Verse forms congenial to these kinds of experiments because they were short enough to enact the experiment in a reasonable period of time, yet long enough to contain many of the basic elements of the longer traditional forms of renga, such as the 36 and 100 verse forms.

Because I was experimenting with non-traditional categories I deliberately did not want to have partners until I had the opportunity to observe what happened. Does the theory that time and season can be treated as separate categories work out in actual usage? That was my key question and the 12-verse forms proved helpful in creating conditions for being able to answer that question.

After a while I discovered that I had written a large number of these solo 12-verse renga. At some point I began to notice how much I enjoyed writing solo 12-verse renga and I began to write them whether or not I had a specific experiment in mind. I began writing these solo renga out of simple enjoyment. I had the same feeling I get when writing other solo forms, such as tanka and sonnet. I thought I would share some of the thoughts which have arisen on writing solo renga. These thoughts are in no particular order.

1. Renga is traditionally a group effort. But there have always been examples of solo renga, and some of them are really excellent. A few have been translated. So solo renga are known, but seem to be thought of as a kind of wayward stepchild of the form. I can understand that, and in some ways I feel the same way. Nevertheless, the solo renga is sanctioned by tradition and is not a radical departure for the form.

2. I suspect that more people would write renga if the solo form were more sanctioned, more honored. It is difficult to find a group of like-minded people to compose a participation renga. First, very few people in the west know about renga. Second, among those who do know about it, few are interested in actually writing renga. Third, even if someone knows about renga and is interested enough to actually write it, finding the time and place to get together to actually do so is often problematic.

All of these difficulties are diminished in the practice of solo renga. Just as someone interested in the sonnet can simply begin to practice the sonnet (all they need is a desk and some paper), just as someone interested in tanka can simply begin to practice tanka, so also someone interested in renga can simply begin to practice renga by writing solo renga.

3. By writing solo renga the dedicated practitioner has an opportunity to perfect the craft of renga with the steadiness and dedication that other crafts, done solo, have to offer. Having written a renga, one can observe link and shift, seasonal flow, placement of required topics, etc. One can refine one’s approach. It is similar to practicing a musical instrument at home. One listens carefully to one’s own musicianship, noting areas that need to be improved. Or it is similar to potters perfecting their craft on the pottery wheel.

4. One of the differences between the solo renga and the participation renga, with multiple authors, is that the solo renga tends to have a more uniform voice. The traditional solution to this has been to suggest that if one is writing a solo renga one wear several “masks” while writing. For example, you might wear the mask of a novice renga poet, or the mask of an elderly woman, or the mask of an executive who doesn’t have much time. By wearing these masks one facilitates the shift in voice that a participation renga naturally offers.

On the other hand, I have come to think that the more uniform voice possible in a solo renga can also be considered a virtue of the solo renga, particularly when done in English, or another non-Japanese language. I think that we have had a tendency to exaggerate the degree to which different voices in a participation renga actually differ. I say this because in traditional renga all participants are committed to a fixed syllabic structure, a structure that no one deviates from. In the west, however, it is very common for line length to shift radically from person to person. In some renga I have observed there is almost no unity of line length as one proceeds through the renga. For this reason, in many English language participation renga the difference in tone of voice as one moves from one participant to another can be greater than what one would find in a Japanese participation renga where the participants are committed to a uniform syllabic flow.

In other words, I am suggesting that a solo renga, done in English, in some ways, more closely resembles the overall flow of a traditional Japanese renga because a solo renga in English is more likely to have a standard approach to syllabics, to line length or lineation.

5. Finally, writing solo renga is rewarding. It is rewarding in the same way that writing in any other poetic form is rewarding. Just as crafting a sonnet has its reward, so also crafting a renga on one’s own has its rewards. The beauty of a well-done renga is there whether done by a group or by an individual.

Best wishes,

Jim