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HAIKU TALK SPRING 2005 (Note: Suitable colors and background images will be added as we go along.) Goto the Renku (bypasses this general introduction). Goto Table of Contributors (shows distribution of verses, other info). Click a number in the table below to go to a numbered stanza. Hint: Click on the number before the verse you want, to see it in context with verses above and below.
Horizontal rows equate to the "preface (verses 1-6), development (7-30), and fast close (31-36)", called the jo-ha-kyû in Japanese. Click on this link for an explanation of the basic structure of a kasen renku.
Welcome to the "On the Road to Basra" information page! Introduction by William J. Higginson This page contains some general background information
on "On the Road to Basra: A Kasen Renku", with links to other pages with
information on renku in general, as well as annotations on the verses, stanza
by stanza. While "On the Road to Basra" retains many of the features
of a traditional kasen renku, it was not composed in the usual manner, and,
because of the world situation at the time of its composition and the feelings
of the contributors, it has an overall theme, opposition to the American and British
war against Iraq in the spring of 2003. Composition:
"On the Road to Basra" began as a couple of informal series of linked
verses on an Internet bulletin board and a private e-mail list in which a
number of us participate. At one point parts of the two threads were joined. One
version of the free-form linked poem appears in the archives of
that e-mail list under the title "Blood and
Oil". Other linkings appear on the bulletin board archive. At a certain point, I was invited to join the effort,
and after contributing I saw the potential for a full-scale kasen renku using 20
or so verses from the final version of "Blood and Oil". I organized the verses
into chains of a few stanzas placed into the matrix of a traditional kasen.
(Click on this link for an explanation of the basic structure of a kasen renku.)
This reorganization involved considerations of pacing and the flow of the
seasons throughout the renku, verse length and rhythm (one-line verses became
verses in two or three lines), and traditional linking and shifting. (Follow
this link for a guide to linking and shifting in renku.) This left somewhat fewer than half of the verses still to be written to complete the thirty-six verses of a kasen.
Unlike the situation in normal renku composition, the "holes" where missing
verses needed to be filled in were scattered throughout the poem. Working
with a private Web page with information on the verses similar to what appears
below, and corresponding by e-mail, participants took on completing the renku.
Over a period of three weeks, we filled in the remaining verses. This took
a while for many reasons, not least of which was the tightrope we were walking,
balancing our strong feelings against this war with traditional renku guidelines.
Some of the members of our group had participated in a number of renku before, while
others had done quite a bit of free-form linking (a common activity on several
haiku e-mail lists), but had not previously been involved in a traditional
renku. All queries and explanations were shared by all members of the group.
The renku's participants live on four different continents, and so while
one or another wrote, others were sleeping. Also, of course, life intervened,
as various other personal commitments and complications took one or another
of us away from the project from time to time. This method of composition, that is, using a number
of pre-existing stanzas and then "filling in the blanks" among them with
new stanzas to complete a formal renku, is unusual. It does create challenges, in that in some locations
poets must link with both the verse in front of theirs and that which follows.
Linking both ways at the same time is not easy, but I think our poets have
risen to the occasion admirably. In the renku, you will see the names of individual
authors of the various verses. Actually, any linked poem written collaboratively
depends on the participants' individual responses to one another, both in
terms of how they respond to a previous stanza by another author and in terms
of the back-and-forth involved as authors call for and receive help from
one another. Many of the verses in the final renku have been reshaped in
collaboration with other members of the group, and we are all grateful to
one another for this mutual assistance. Renku Guidelines and "On the Road to Basra": A traditional
renku has many features controlled by guidelines established over the last
800 years or more during the growth of the genre in Japan. Some call them
"rules", but we prefer "guidelines", for as in any living art form, there
is always a tension between received tradition and new composition. And various
poets writing in English have made modest adaptations of the traditional
guidelines to better suit an English-language cultural environment. For example,
traditional renku include "blossom stanzas" in specified places, and
the words "blossoms" or "flowers" (both hana in Japanese) are always
taken as referring to cherry blossoms unless another plant is stated. Many
Americans practicing traditional renku have accepted Robert Spiess's suggestion
that we recognize the words "blossoms" or "flowers" alone as referring to
cherry blossoms, but also allow our blossom verses to mention specific spring-blossoming
trees that are especially showy in our temperate regions. Those appropriate
might include apricot blossoms, apple blossoms, and any other early-blooming
fruit trees whose flowers create a warm glow in the light around them. (To
fit into the seasonal cycle of traditional haiku and renku, such trees must
bloom in the months of February, March, or April. More on the traditional
seasons below.) More than this, however, on this occasion our
group has also figuratively rewritten some more generic guidelines, or ignored
them, if you will, in order to achieve our purpose in this poem. To those
renku purists who feel that we move outside the genre in this respect, I
can only point out the thematic solo renku by early haikai masters recently
translated by Chris Drake, in Copying Bird Calls by Nishiyama Sôin (1605-1682) and Haikai on Love by Matsuki Tantan (1674-1761), both part of a set of small books published in 2000 under the collective title An episodic fetschrift for Howard Hibbett by highnoonmoon, 9121 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90069. Seasons:
Unlike most traditional linked poems, this is a thematic renku, with most
of the verses relating to the war current while it was being written. Therefore,
war has a status comparable to a nearly all-pervasive season. This is one
of the main differences between traditional renku and "On the Road to Basra".
Still, in addition to writing mostly about the war and war-related issues,
we have followed the normal seasonal progression of a traditional kasen renku composed
in spring. Much lore surrounds the seasons in haiku and renku, but a simple season-word list
is available on this web site. If you explore the season-word list, you may
find it helpful in understanding the seasonal cycle in any given renku. (It's
an abbreviated form of the sort of list Japanese haiku and renku poets use
all the time.) Of course, if a poet has another seasonal phenomenon
in mind, it can be used also. But don't be surprised if there are differences
between your usual seasonal impressions and those traditional to renku. Linking and Shifting:
In traditional renku, the poets work very hard at shifting away from topics
already expressed in existing verses, especially in verses close by. There
are a number of ways to do this, one involving guidelines about how many
verses in a row may be in the same season, one involving the notions of person
and place, and another about how closely the same or a related topic may
appear to a verse that already includes that topic. The seasons in "On the Road to Basra" follow a traditional
order (not simply through the year season-by-season), and observe the traditional
restrictions on numbers of seasonal verses in any given continuous group of
such verses: In a string of verses in spring and autumn, there may be as few as three verses
in the same season, but no more than five; in summer and winter, there may
be as few as one or as many as three. In a kasen renku (36 stanzas), generally
speaking, spring and autumn appear in groups of three verses each, while
summer and winter occur in single verses or sometimes a pair. (Note that groups
of spring and autumn verses will appear more than once in a kasen.) With respect to person and place, "On the Road to Basra" follows the usual practice, summarized here: "PERSON-PLACE"
includes the following: SELF (first-person experience), OTHER (experience
of another person), SELF AND OTHER (experience of self with another), PUBLIC
(experience of a group of people—can be very vague, so long as people are
there), PLACE (event or scene without present human involvement—this can
include human artifacts). Renku poets use "person-place" information to avoid
a particular kind of "throw-back"; one wants to avoid having the first and
third of any three consecutive verses in the same category according to person-place.
For example, avoid sequences like self-place-self, other-self-other, and
so on. On the problem of including several verses in succession
or near one another on the same topic, I have deliberately adapted the normal
guidelines to our subject matter. For example, in a normal renku the verses
on either end of any sequence of three verses will avoid duplicating topics,
images, or grammar. Generally, we have done the same. However, we have also
allowed some topics to continue in runs of three or even four verses
that normally would be separated by many stanzas before being allowed to
repeat. These topics which we have allowed to repeat much more often than
normal renku guidelines suggest include war and religion, both of which relate
very specifically to our theme. Also, since our focus is on this specific
war, many verses deal with current events, a topic usually found only once
or twice in the course of a kasen renku. Other kinds of phenomena generally
shift according to the usual renku guidelines. Special Verses: "On the Road to Basra" includes
most of the topics which traditionally receive special attention in renku,
such as the seasons, the moon, and blossoms. In traditional renku "love"
is also a special topic with reserved locations near the beginnings of each
interior "side" or "page" of the renku. However, we have chosen to replace
love with "peace", giving peace very directly the special locations and attention
normally paid to love. Echoes of the peace theme also appear in other places. Our Purpose:
Writing linked verse, whether in free-form linking or formal renku, is normally
fun. And I am sure that at times each of us enjoyed some aspect of what we
were doing as we composed "On the Road to Basra". At the same time, we find
ourselves both appalled at the cost and stupidity of war, generally, and
of this war in particular. Humbly, we join with those in the English-speaking
world who do not believe that war is the best solution to international problems
or the internal problems of despotic regimes. Nor do we believe that the
American-British attack on Iraq is justified by even the stated motives of
the governments involved. Other, less ethical motives are also obvious to
anyone who thinks about world political, economic, resource, energy, and environmental
issues. (We also acknowledge that the motives of some of the governments opposing
the war are not without self-interest, either.) We believe that a major failure of our governments
at this, the beginning of a new millennium, resides in taking unilateral
military action against a problem that was in fact already being faced more rationally,
not to mention peacefully, by the world's nations acting in concert. On the Road to Basra The four columns in the table that follows contain the verse numbers, the verses of the poem, the authors, and information on the seasons, person-place, and topics, verse-by-verse. The information in the column to the far right of each verse is organized thus: named season (season word); PERSON-PLACE; a list of topics other than season included in the verse. Contributors
*Includes hokku (#1), wakiku (#2), daisan (#3), moon (O) and blossom (*) verses, ageku (#36). Click a number in the table below to go to a numbered stanza. Hint: Click on the number before the verse you want, to see it in context with verses above and below.
Horizontal rows equate to the "preface (verses 1-6), development (7-30), and fast close (31-36)", called the jo-ha-kyû in Japanese. Click on this link for an explanation of the basic structure of a kasen renku.
Copyright Notice: This work is copyright ©
2003 by William J. Higginson for the authors.
All rights reserved by the authors individually and collectively, except as
stated herein. This entire page may be copied for personal use, or for use
in a renku workshop. To quote portions only, or for any other use, permission
is required: contact William J. Higginson, P. O. Box 1402, Summit, NJ 07902
USA. This Web page is
http://renku.home.att.net/kasen/Basra_Info.html. Last Updated 25 January 2004.
Webmaster contact: wordfield-at-att-dot-net, replacing "-at-" with "@" and
"-dot-" with a period.
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