The Click of Mahjong Tiles
A KASEN RENKU

The Information Page
and Annotated Version

Click here for a page with just the renku and contributors' names.

Goto the Renku (bypasses the general introduction).

Goto Table of Contributors (shows distribution of verses, other info).

Note that a "Process Page" including proposed verses and discussion about them is in preparation, hopefully for posting this summer.

Welcome to "The Click of Mahjong Tiles" information page!

Introduction by William J. Higginson

This page contains some general background information on the composition of "The Click of Mahjong Tiles" kasen renku, with links to other pages with information on renku in general, as well as annotations on the verses, stanza by stanza.

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: 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. (Click on this link for a comprehensive guide to writing renku.)

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. Here, we will recognize the word "blossoms" 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.)

Seasons: The seasons of traditional renku differ from those we commonly acknowledge today. If you study the table called "The Traditional Seasons of Japanese Poetry" available on this web site, you will notice that they actually correspond to an older view common in Western Europe as well, with the respective equinoxes and solstices occurring at the midpoints of their seasons, rather than at the beginnings. For example, note the original meanings of the English words "midwinter" and "midsummer"—they each refer to the solstice and immediately adjacent days. (Similar words in other European languages do the same thing, such as coeur de l'été ["heart of summer"; French], der Hochsommer ["high summer"; German], and so on, all of which do now or used to refer to the summer solstice or festivals at that time.)

The seasons in a renku follow a traditional order (not simply through the year season-by-season), and observe some traditional restrictions: 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.)

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. For more detail on the seasons in haikai (haiku, renku, haibun, and so on), you can explore my books The Haiku Seaons and Haiku World. The latter includes some 1000 verses arranged in a saijiki (traditional haiku almanac), but the verses are from 50 countries and include many seasonal topics not found in Japanese saijiki. (I suggest getting them from libraries, if possible. They are currently out of print, though some booksellers may have copies.) Another Japanese season-word list may be found online at the University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative "Japanese Haiku Topical Dictionary ". All of these resources include information as to "the part of the season"—essential in renku composition. (See the "parts of the season" mentioned in the season-word list linked at the beginning of this paragraph for an explanation.)

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, though such topics as a particular season and love may persist for a few verses in succession. There are a number of ways to shift, one involving guidelines about how many verses in a row may be in the same season, as above; one involving the notions of person and place, discussed below; and another about how closely the same or a related topic may appear to a verse that already includes that topic. (For a full discussion, follow this link for a guide to linking and shifting in renku.)

With respect to person and place, we generally follow the usual practice, summarized here:

"Person-Place" (ji-ta-ba in Japanese) includes the following:

• self (ji, first-person experience),
• other (ta, experience of another person),
• self & other (ji-ta han, experience of self with another),
• public (ashirai, a sub-category of "other" also sometimes translated as "mixed"; experience of a group of people—can be very vague, so long as people are there),
• place (ba, 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" (uchikoshi). According to person-place guidelines, one wants to avoid having the first and third of any three consecutive verses in the same category. For example, avoid sequences like self-place-self, other-self-other, and so on. As with many renku "rules", these are actually guidelines, and can be set aside occasionally if something else that's good is going on in the poem.

Other Special Verses: Our renku includes all of the topics which traditionally receive special attention in renku, such as the seasons, the moon and blossoms, and love. In traditional renku "love" is also a special topic with reserved locations in the interior of the renku. Love verses usually occur in pairs, or sometimes three in a row. In a kasen, there are usually two such groups of love verses.

Overall Rhythm: A completed renku, while covering a wide range of people, places, times, and events, and not telling any one story, does have an overall unity. This unity is more like the unity of a piece of classical music, that may have an introductory section, where some of the themes appear, followed by a section in which these and other themes develop, and ending with a quick movement that drives to the finish. In fact, renku poets speak of the "preface" (jo in Japanese), "development" (ha), and "fast close" or "presto" (kyû). In a kasen, these three sections usually occupy the first six stanzas (preface), the next 24 stanzas (development), and the last six stanzas (fast close).

The Click of Mahjong Tiles
A Kasen Renku
The Annotated Version
(Click here just the poem and its authors.)

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 last column, after the first stanza, also includes the type of link between the present and preceding stanzas. (Note that stanzas often link in several ways, and these are not meant to exclude other types of linking from consideration. These notes are only my (wjh's) attempts to clarify what may not be immediately apparent to readers. The poets may have had other links in mind, and another commentator might see other types of links between any given pair of verses. I have indicated those types that seem most prominent to me, which are summarized here.)

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. Type of linking with previous stanza.

*Includes hokku (#1), wakiku (#2), daisan (#3), moon (O), blossom (*), and love (L) verses, ageku (#36).