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John Carley’s recently-designed four-verse renku format is represented by 60 poems, wherein Carley collaborates with such well-known haikai poets as Hortensia Anderson, Lorin Ford, Carole MacRury, Sandra Simpson, William Sorlien and Sheila Windsor, together with an introduction to the form.

“I have always been impressed by John Carley’s knowledge of Japanese linked verse… It is my sincere hope that this new form of linked verse will take root.” —Nobuyuki Yuasa, Professor Emeritus, Hiroshima University, and translator of Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Penguin Classics, 1966).

“the Little Book of Yotsumonos opens up a world of poetic possibility, sourced by the old, both the Chinese and Japanese poetic traditions, yet fresh and original… I suspect few will be able to read this book without wanting to try and compose a yotsumono themselves.” —Sonja Arntzen, Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, and translator of The Kagero Diary and Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology.

To preview the Little Book of Yotsumonos click here.

To purchase this book click here.

Entry fee: None

Deadline: 1 October 2012

Prizes

1. The winning poem will be published, together with a detailed critique, in the 2013 issue of Journal of Renga & Renku. All entries will be considered as content for inclusion in the journal.

2. A small (and yet to be selected) prize will be sent by way of congratulation to the sabaki or one designated participant of the winning poem.

Details

1. Only renku in the kasen form are eligible for this contest

2. There is no limit on the number of entries you may send

3. Previously published kasen are also eligible for the contest

4. Kasen that include verses written by the contest judge or editors of JRR, or led by them, are NOT eligible for this contest

Entry procedure

The leader or sabaki of the poem is designated the contest entrant and should do the following:

The leader or sabaki of the poem is designated the contest entrant and should do the following:

1. Send a clean copy of the poem (stripped of initials, schema notes, renju’s names etc.) as a Word (or RTF) document attachment to RengaRenku@gmail.com (RengaRenku AT gmail DOT com)

2. Mark the subject line: Kasen contest/name of poem/name of sabaki, e.g. Kasen contest/October’s Moon/Moira Richards

3. In the body of the email, paste the following text:

I hereby confirm that I have obtained consent from all of the participating poets to enter this poem in the 2012 JRR Renku Contest, and to offer it for publication by JRR.

4. There is no need to list the names or number of poets who contributed to the poem. We’ll contact you later for this information if we decide to publish.

Judging criteria

Dr Drake will look for:

1. Evidence of serious literary intent and imaginative daring.

2. Evidence of familiarity with renku and with the kasen form. Sites such as renkureckoner.co.uk are good places for review or for gaining basic knowledge, and translations of traditional kasen as well as EL kasen are recommended.

3. Success in achieving multivalent linking. Above all, verses must work as 1) a single verse and also as a new, transformed verse in relation to 2) the previous verse and 3) the following verse. Readers need be able to concretely feel the way identical words have different nuances or mean different things in relation to different verses.

4. Success in using moon, blossom, seasonal, love, and other non-seasonal verses to create an overall sequence rhythm and tone. Variations for standard images will be accepted. The moon, for example, may be replaced by other celestial objects if the change is stated in a note.

5. Success in creating an introduction in verses 1-6, full-bodied, dynamic development in 7–30, and a smooth, quick return to the material world in 31-36.

6. A kasen is long enough to create its own world. If successful, it affects the way a reader returns to and experiences his or her own daily world.

7. Traditional monotheme kasen on a single topic (blossoms, love, Amida Buddha, etc.) will be accepted, though monotony must be avoided.

8. Both group and solo (dokugin) kasen will be accepted. Solo kasen should show evidence of the writer’s ability to hear otherness in her or his own voices.

Contest judge

Chris Drake will judge this contest and introduces himself here:

“I was born in Tennessee in the U.S. in 1947. I got a PhD in Japanese literature from Harvard and taught Japanese literature and comparative literature at Atomi University in Japan for nearly three decades before retiring. My classes included renku appreciation and writing for Japanese students. I’ve published annotated translations of both kasen and hundred-verse hyakuin by Japanese haikai poets of the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries, including a translation of a kasen by Bashō and his followers in JRR2. I’m now completing an annotated translation of Saikaku’s 1675 solo thousand-verse haikai requiem for his wife. I write renku both in English and in Japanese and have participated in several kasen sequences in Japanese judged by the late Higashi Meiga (Akimasa).”

Why a one-form renku contest?

Every JRR contest will feature a different form of the genre, in order to

a) promote appreciation of the distinctive features of the various forms of the genre and how they can be employed to different ends in the writing of poems, and

b) encourage poets to explore more fully the possibilities of one form, and to appreciate what others do with it.

The kasen

The name Kasen means ‘Poetic Immortals’ and refers to the Chinese and Japanese practice of creating ideal groups of thirty six artistic forbears. Prior to the establishment of the Basho school formalised linked verse was generally written as one hundred or fifty verse sequences. By the time of Basho’s death the majority of haikai sequences were Kasen.

Though he is known as the father of haiku the Kasen renku and haibun [mixed poetry and prose] were Matsuo Basho’s preferred vehicles for expression. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Kasen is rather good.

Seasons recur. [The major seasons of spring and autumn] may appear for up to five verses in a row. There are two spring blossom verses. There are three moon verses, two of which are generally autumn. Love appears as a fixed topic twice, potentially for an extended run. The structure of the Kasen clearly demonstrates that fine writing has more to do with periodicity and interlocking cycles, with tonal control, evolution and recontextualisation.

Without clear vision and leadership the twelve verses of a development side can rapidly become amorphous. The Kasen too takes time to complete. But the Kasen was and remains essential to the development of all aspects of excellence in renku. A person who limits themselves always to the shorter contemporary forms is unlikely to develop the highest level of artistry that the genre permits.

—John Carley, Renku Reckoner

Want to learn more about renku and kasen?

1. Lots of great reading matter, including information about the shisan form, from John Carley here:
http://www.renkureckoner.co.uk/

and excellent material from the late Bill Higginson here:
http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku

2. Lots of space to learn, write and meet other renku enthusiasts at The Renku Group here:
http://renkugroup.proboards.com/

Photo “The four trees” by Edwin van Geelen (some rights reserved)

Hortensia Anderson considers renku an instrument of transformation as well as intimacy. She lives in the East Village in NYC with her bengal leopard cat, Camellia.

Jeffrey Angles is an associate professor of Japanese and translation at Western Michigan University.  Much of his research on Japanese literature focuses on expressions of erotic desire of modern and contemporary literature.  He is also a prolific translator of a broad range of contemporary writers, from mystery novelists to contemporary poets.  His translations have won a PEN Club of America Translation Grant (2008), a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant (2008), the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2009), and the Landon Translation Prize from the American Academy of Poets (2010).

Sonja Arntzen taught classical Japanese poetry and literature at Canadian universities for many years.  She  enjoyed leading students in composing linked verse in English as a way of learning to appreciate the spontaneous side of poetry production in pre-modern Japan.  With delight, she recently discovered that a number of people around the world are drawn to composing linked forms of poetry for their own sake.  Last summer, she had the opportunity to lead community members in the composition of a shisan on Gabriola Island, British Columbia where she now lives.  She looks forward to more of this.

Francis Attard lives in Malta. He understands that the dynamics of ideas at play are at the basis of renku making. Dick Pettit says a renku is made up of voices. The picture will be of a Greek Chorus or Cats in recess. No longer one voice; reciting a script or singing a song, but each is an individual. Ideas in unison will reflect some form of a literary discipline integrating western traditions when it came to structure and syntax.

Erica Barbiani: If I could choose, I would spend most of my time watching plants while they grow. Luckily, I have a beautiful job that carries me away from my contemplative side. I produce documentaries, I just published my first novel, and I am trying to make writing my full time job. I thought that the intimacy of inspiration could never be shared. When I discovered renku, I realized I was wrong. A happy moment.

Rebecca Barker: Becca lives in the farthest northwest corner of the U.S.  She works in the library in Forks, Washington.  Her interest in writing started as a child. She has always been drawn to short poems and stories being short herself.  Mostly she writes haiku but has recently gotten caught up the challenge and community that is renku.  In her free time she plays the guitar and ukulele, juggles, hikes and sails.

Jackie Barr:

Micheline Beaudry: Born in Montreal, Micheline Beaudry lives in Boucherville, Quebec, Canada. She has participated in many haiku anthologies like the 55th Bashô anthology. She published Blanche Mémoire, Les couleurs du vent, at David Editions. She founded GHM – Groupe de haïku de Montréal in 2005.

Janick Belleau: poet and freelancer. To her credit, three personal collections (short poems and haiku) and four anthologies (three of haiku) which she directed. Her poetry and feature articlesare published in literary magazines in Canada, in France and in Japan.

Ann Bendixen moved to California in 2000 and joined the Yuki Teikei Haiku Group at Patricia Machmiller’s invitation.  She loves the spontaneity and collaborative nature of renku and plays renku with local groups as often as she can. In Matsuyama City, Japan, Ann was thrilled to see a renku party diorama.  In 2010 she self-published a book of haiga titled Reflections of an Old Pine Tree. Ann studies Chinese calligraphy under Marie Hu and Chinese brush painting under Master Teacher Pei-Jei Hau.  Her paintings are featured in the Yuki Teikei’s new anthology, Wild Violets.

Maxianne Berger lives in Montreal. Many of her choices of form in poetry play with changing meaning through new contexts: from the historied villanelle to the parodic paradelle, repeated words and phrases morph from stanza to stanza and from line to line. Even a well-placed line break can give a word or phrase two connotations. The renga, through the subtlety of its links, enables shifts that not only move the poem ahead “elsewise,” but also recast the meaning of what just preceded. This polyvalence of the shared lines fits right in with her personal aesthetics.

Sally Biggar lives in Port Townsend, Washington, USA. In 2010 she enrolled in her first writing course, a poetry class offered at her local community college. A fellow student encouraged her to join the local haiku group, where she discovered renku and the local renku group. “On Ripples of Moonlight” was created at the very first renku gathering she attended. She enjoys the challenge of participating in a collaborative creative process, and finds the social aspect of it a lot of fun.

Fióna Bolger: Writing a renku felt like singing in a choir, careful listening and adjusting required to achieve harmony.

Christine Broe: Dublin, Ireland.

Sculpted clay and wood
Then blessed by births – of seven
Now carve time and words

Claudia Brefeld lives with her family in Bochum (Germany). She has written lyrics (and short stories) for many years and haiku and aphorisms since 2003. Moreover she writes tan-renga, renku and rengay and creates haiga. Nature photography is also on the list of her hobby priorities. Writing renku opens a special way of creative cooperation, which enriches: we get a different look on the world – with the eyes of others. She is the second chairwoman of the German Haiku Society (and works in the editorial staff of the haiku-journal SOMMERGRAS), and founding member and secretary to the board of the German Aphorism Archive. Her websites: http://www.artgerecht-und-ungebunden.de/ and http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Claudia.Brefeld/

Owen Bullock has been writing haiku since 1999, and longer poems since 1981. He enjoys various forms of collaborative writing and the way in which working with others takes him into new spaces. He has published a collection of haiku: wild camomile (Post Pressed, Australia, 2009); fiction: A Cornish Story (Palores, UK, 2010), and poetry, sometimes the sky isn’t big enough (Steele Roberts, NZ, 2010). He is one of the editors of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol. 4. Owen teaches creative writing online for the Waiariki Institute of Technology and the NZ Writers’ College. www.owenbullock.com

Jack Cain began writing haiku in the Canadian wilderness in 1962 and was amazed to see that the poems contained more than he had put there consciously. Bitten by the haiku bug he continued to write intermittently until now. He has been credited with publishing the first English language haibun “Paris” in 1964. He is now living in Montreal.

John Carley is a mostly decrepit Englishman from the Pennine hill country of Lancashire. He arrives at renku via a strong interest in short-form imagist verse, a fascination with linguistics, and a liking, as an erstwhile musician, for collaborative art forms.  It is his contention that renku is the new haiku. And that all aspects of the source literature can be realised in any language.

Andrea Cecon: I am a hearing aid technician. Born in Udine 38 years ago, I reside in Cividale del Friuli (not far from my native place) in Italy with my wife, Russian haijin Valeria Simonova-Cecon. I usually find the inspiration for my writings in memories, travels, and the everyday life. My wife involved me in the renku form and I unexpectedly found it to be a very rich and wonderful poetic genre.

Karen Cesar lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband, John and her Italian greyhound, Shadow. When she writes renku with others, she values the intimacy of relating to others on a deeper level than can be achieved in ordinary conversation. When Karen writes solo renku, it is for the same reason that, as an adult, she reads old children’s books – to enter the magical world of imagination.

Claire Chatelet (Sprite) lives in London UK at the crossroad of many cultures and languages and has a fascination for the influence of language on the psyche as well as for the translation process. She came to Renku in 2002 via online workshops when just discovering Haiku and got immediately hooked as she strongly believe in the importance of international communication and favours poetry as a means of expression. She’s glad that her co-poets have the intelligence and  diligence to submit finished collaborations as she so seldom bothers but then she’s mixing with cultures of oral traditions after all…

Anna Attard Cini lives in Malta. She plays the piano and feels renku in its composition can communicate an element of musicality. Partly why she has been drawn to try renku. The product in its flexible cadences of free verse or when use is made of a specific verse metre, such as the 5 – 7 – 5 / 7 – 7 rhythm based on syllabic count, is euphonic.

Mauro Clementi: I live and work in Cividale del Fiuli (Italy). I’m technical designer and manufacturer of loudspeakers and live constantly in the world of sounds and passions. I deeply love music in each of its single note, photography, and design in every aspect. I discovered renku rather acidentally but it seems to be a beautiful world of 1000 tones.

Susan Constable began writing haiku in 2006 and has since added haibun, tanka, and haiga to her forms of choice. Her introduction to linked verse was at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway in 2010, where a renku workshop was led by Christopher Herold and Michael Dylan Welch. Since then, Susan’s enjoyed working with other poets in this way, but still considers herself very much an amateur. Currently, she is the tanka editor for A Hundred Gourds, a position she thoroughly enjoys. She lives with her husband in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island.

Pam Cooper has been writing haiku for a decade, but is fairly new to linked verse. She has participated in several online renga sessions, which have spanned many nations, with contributing poets from India, Ireland, and North America. One of her haiku was selected as the hokku for one such renga, which was inspired during an international haiku conference. Pamela enjoys the social aspect of renga, which is engaging and amusing, with each verse contingent on those preceding it, as connected by very subtle links. She lives in Montreal, Canada.

Aubrie Cox: Born and raised in the United States Midwest, Aubrie Cox is currently working toward her M.A. in Creative Writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She first began writing haiku and related forms in 2008 while studying at Millikin University. Since then her work has appeared in many of the major English-Language haiku publications and several anthologies. She appreciates the stream-of-consciousness and creative energies that come to the surface while participating in linking verse.

Magdalena Dale was born and lives in Bucharest, Romania. She is a member of the Romanian Society of Haiku and World Haiku Association. Her work has been published in several reviews and anthologies in her country and abroad. She received several awards for her work. She is one of the editors for Take 5 (Best Contemporary Tanka), years 2010 and 2011. She has written a number of books of haiku, tanka and renga. She loves to write renga poems because it means communication with other poets and she think she can learn a lot about Japanese poetry which has a special place in her heart.

Norman Darlington lives on a hill in rural Ireland, raising vegetables, chickens and children. He’s been enchanted with renku since first reading Hiroaki Satō’s 100 Frogs more than 20 years ago. Having been involved in numerous intercultural renku exchanges, he is now convinced more than ever of the overarching good which collaborative linked verse can bring. More at xaiku.com.

Tracy Davidson: lives in Warwickshire, England and enjoys writing poetry and flash fiction.  This was her first attempt at putting together a renku, a solo effort, and she was therefore surprised and delighted to be chosen for inclusion alongside more experienced writers. She hopes to write more renku in the future and looks forward to having the opportunity to collaborate with other writers.

Donna Davis is a visual artist, educational consultant (MA, McGill University, 2000), and emerging writer living in Montreal, where she currently works as a creative free-lancer in the fashion industry. While drawing from life remains her first love, Donna’s deep interest in the Surrealist word-image and the visual poetry of collage has led her to explore alternative narratives and disciplines across many media, included illustration, digital graphics, performance art, and poetry.

Billie Dee: I live in San Diego, California, USA, where I work as a writer and multi-media artist. I’m attracted to linked poetry by the warm sense of community, and by the fresh, often startling, ideas and images that come to me by way of our collective muse. As a Pacificist, I find in renku another path to peace through shared creativity. Can there be a finer art? [Now, for the boilerplate: Billie Dee received her doctoral degree from the University of California at Irvine and is the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. National Library Service. http://billiedee.net]

Christopher Drake lives in Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo. After teaching at a university, he’s concentrating on translating and interpreting haikai (renku, hokku, haibun) of the 17th and 18th c. in context, trying to understand, at least to a certain extent, how Japanese writers themselves understood their works and why linking verses (in groups and solo) was such a heady, empowering, and often socially prestigious activity during that period. Drake writes renku in English and Japanese and considers life a sequence of exchanges of points of view, roles, and values.

Kathy Earsman is a grandmother who lives in a country town of sub-tropical Australia where wild creatures come and go. Some are free, choosing to be fed from her verandah, others are patients to be healed or raised and released. Kathy’s been fascinated by renku for several years, enjoying its ever-changing linkedness and variety; the unexpected is expressed in unique ways, stories are told within and between each verse.

Life is reflected in renku’s ever changing linkedness. It’s endlessly creative, satisfyingly challenging, and FUN. Those who regularly write together become quite bonded. Come on down and see.

Laura Farrell: 12 years of age. Laura is a true Dub who is new(ish) to poetry and writing. Likes Shakespeare, Thomas Hood and Edgar Allan Poe. Laura writes different poetic formats but enjoys the haiku format the best.

Martin Farrell: Lives in Dublin. Martin has been writing poetry in various forms for many years. He is a member of several Dublin reading & writing groups.  He is a renku novice that has been bitten by the bug.

Amelia Fielden is an Australian professional translator of Japanese, and enthusiastic writer of Japanese short form poetry. She divides her time between homes in Canberra and the coast north of Sydney, family in Seattle, and  the  ‘country of her passion’, Japan. Amelia has had 17 books of her translations published, plus 6 collections of her own poetry, and 4 books of responsive tanka written with other Australian poets. She relishes the challenge of renga, and finds composing with like-minded writers extremely stimulating.

Kim Goldberg lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where she is a poet, author and practitioner of the ancient Chinese martial art of Liuhebafa. Her 2007 collection, Ride Backwards on Dragon, was a finalist for Canada’s Gerald Lampert Award for poetry. She teaches Kung Fu For Writers to help others awaken their mind-body connection and develop body-centered
writing. The shisan she contributed to in this journal was her first opportunity to work with this stimulating form. She looks forward to future opportunities. Visit her online at http://liuhebafagirl.wordpress.com/

Penny Greenwell:

Rohini Gupta writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction books. She lives in Mumbai, India, by the sea. Having spent years with poetry, renku was a surprise, not just for the twists and turns of linking but also for the open and co-operative spirit between the poets. It continues to charm and amaze.

Jay Haskins is an artist and poet currently living in Port Townsend, Wa. He has been writing poetry for many years and was captivated by haiku about 5 years ago when he joined the local haiku writers group. When some of the members decided to explore the renku form he got involved with that as well. He enjoys the social and playful aspects, the free flow of ideas that happen when writing a group poem.

Peggy Heinrich must have been Japanese in a former life because she is drawn to all things Japanese: its food, architecture, haiku, tanka and most recently renku. Strange that the attraction of these last three is in reverse order of their actual development. A fairly new participant in renku sessions, she finds their twists and turns baffling to her Western-shaped mind but that is the challenge. A native New Yorker, Peggy happily relocated several years ago to the warmth of Santa Cruz.

Christopher Herold lives in Port Townsend, Washington with his wife, Carol O’Dell (also a renku poet). After a richly rewarding career as a rock ‘n’ roll drummer, Christopher settled down to help raise their daughter. He wrote his first haiku in 1968 while going through monk’s training at a Soto Zen Buddhist monastery. He began to write live, in-person renku in 1991. In 2008, he co-founded the Port Townsend Renku Club with Karma Tenzing Wangchuk. Creative collaboration is what most attracts him to the genre—that and the conviviality it promotes. He describes renku by quoting Groucho Marx: “Let’s put our minds together and forge a head.”

H. Mack Horton I teach premodern Japanese literature and culture at the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on classical poetry.  I worked for a decade or so on medieval renga, publishing a translation of The Journal of Sôchô (Sôchô shuki) and a companion volume, Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sôchô and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan (both from Stanford, 2002).  I then moved far back in time and began to work on Man’yôshû, the poets and anthologizers of which were also profoundly exercised by questions of poetic linkage.  My study of the longest poetic sequence therein is entitled Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yôshû Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736-737 (forthcoming, Harvard).  But I’m not a poet and wish I were!

Siobhán “Von” Houston: Von lives in Ireland. She has been writing poetry on and off for many years. She draws her inspiration from Poe, Yeats and Pearse. Her writing style is varied but has recently been writing haiku and renku. This is her first published poem.

Leticia Huber linguist, is native from Mexico City. From her beloved Spanish, French, Italian and English, she has savored the delight of language in many expressions: Professional Acting, Professional Writing, 2nd Mex. National Prize Lyricist for 1 year, Teacher, Professor, Language-learning Investigator, Published Poetess.Her re-occurring art seems to be Poetry -since she finds it everywhere! Renku, for Leticia, has been a discovered Port Townsend treasure beyond its intimidating, wise structure, facilitated by harmonious friendship; factual work, productive freedom in creativity; and beyond all: LOVE (as a cohesive energy. Not only a feeling), and as a beautiful, very efficient form of meditation.

Veronika Ikonnikova: Hi! I’m from Russia. Vivid, ‘living’ images and such a laconic way to express them – that’s what I like about renku. In the sequence of very short verses you can see many different stories, whimsically changing and at the same time coherent and harmonious. This is a unique and breathtaking view of the world. Every author has his/her own view to share with the others – that’s why writing renku is so interesting.

Marjo de Jeu: retired lecturer in Plant breeding (specialism in flowers) at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Hobbies: sculpturing in stone and wood, playing the violin, gardening and making my own jam. I also like sailing, travelling and reading literature and poetry.

Betty Kaplan: (1919-2011) started writing haiku and related forms after she had become a widow. Living in Florida (USA) after retiring from the fashion industry, she wrote and published haiku, tanka, haibun, renga/renku and rengay. She loved writing the latter linked forms especially. Even more important than linking poetry to her was that these forms linked people, even worldwide. And the process of collaborating probably meant more to her than the product of that collaboration – though she did enjoy the pleasure readers had of her work.

Kirsty Karkow:

Marianne Kiauta: Born 3 m below sea level in the city of Gouda (The Netherlands), I had the opportunity to participate in several scientific expeditions in the Himalaya, climbing up to 5800 m a.s.l. Now, 40 years later and after employment in entomology and as editors, my husband and I, in our second youth, take care of abandoned animals (chickens, goats, horses, rabbits, goose). Our menagerie is a rich source of haiku moments.

Svetlana Kiolo: I’m from Russia and I work for a newspaper in the city of Voronezh. My friend Valeria Simonova-Cecon introduced me to renku and Japanese poetry in general. In the genre of renku I’m particularly attracted by its diversity and richness – constant change of imagery and mood. Renku is also a great opportunity to look at the world from different perspectives and to know better those with whom we are writing poetry.

Kris (Moon) Kondo: co-founder & past president of AIR, is an artist, poet, journal keeper, teacher & mom with a myriad of interests who was fascinated by the multi talents of the early haijin. Her renku activities, which started in 1979, were extremely intense in the 1990′s when she was at the center of major happenings of the renku world in Japan & activities with HSA, HIA, & HNA as renku seeds were taking root on all fronts. While she has made some forays into writing renku on line, she has found it frustrating, preferring to write face to face.

David G. Lanoue teaches English at Xavier University in New Orleans. His Kobayashi Issa website features an archive of 10,000 haiku. Haiku led him to renku. He was lucky to learn from Japanese master Tadashi Kondo at a meeting of the Haiku Society of America in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He loves the vigor of linked verse, its power of dynamic connections and imaginative shifts. He is a novice in renku, though he has served as sabaki for two kasen written with fellow members of the New Orleans Haiku Society.

Angela Leuck has been published in journals and anthologies around the world. Her passion for flowers and gardens has inspired numerous poetry collections. She is also committed to making haiku and tanka better known in North America and is presently working on a haiku anthology for teens to be published in Fall 2012 by Wintergreen Studios.

Ramona Linke was born in 1960 in the Mansfield area. She resides in Salzatal/Beesenstedt, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 2003 she has been writing haiku and she takes part in linked poetry (renku). She is especially interested in haiga, photography, watercolors, sumi-e-painting, and she takes part in poetry readings and collective art exhibitions. She’s a member of the German Haiku Society (DHG) and the World Haiku Association (WHA) and is present on the internet with her homepage and her blog „haiku-art“. www.haiku-art.de & haiku-art-rl.blogspot.com

Patricia Ludwick is a professional playwright and published poet, who keeps body and soul together by  working as an editor on manuscripts and story editor on feature films. She has lived on Gabriola Island for over twenty years, where she has enjoyed a number of workshops on haiku, tanka, and linked verse conducted by Sonja Arntzen and Naomi Wakan. Two of her haiku were included in the 2011 anthology Tidepools.

Deborah Barbour Lundy lives among the badlands and wildlife of western Wyoming in the small town of Dubois. Upon discovering renga during the fall of 2011, she began exploring this expressive linked style.  Although her nijuin is a solo effort, she is attracted to the collaborative writing process and its promise of blending singular voices and visions into humanity’s colorful and unique mosaic.

Carole MacRury: Carole, a Canadian, pursues her writing and photography interests from a small border town on the 49th parallel in Washington State.  Encouraged by friends and mentors, she began to explore various forms of renku, despite her misgivings it wasn’t poetry.  She was particularly influenced by the concept of ‘scent linking’ on the late William J. Higginson’s website and “Aspects of Prosody”, an article on John Carley’s website www.renkureckoner.co.uk.  She is currently drawn to shorter forms of renku: the nijuin, shisan, and yotsumono, and views renku as a dance of the minds through associative thinking.  Carole highly recommends collaborative writing as therapy for any dry spell in one’s poetic life.

Catherine Mair lives in Katikati, New Zealand and was the motivator for the Katikati Haiku Pathway. Catherine has been writing poetry, short short stories and the Japanese forms for two decades. She has published a series of health books for children. Catherine finds the ‘conversation’ of renku stimulating and challenging.

Tomislav Maretić (Zagreb, Croatia) thinks that renku is a creative collaborative poetry resembling a jazz band or an orchestra where everybody has her/his role in improvisation.  In this way a collective poem arises belonging to all participants together with the joy of creation.

Vicki McCullough has been digesting, assimilating and producing haiku and related forms for the past 10 years. Her first encounters with renku were the late-night renku parties led by Marshall Hryciuk at Haiku Canada gatherings. Her first encounter with the shisan was in a renku workshop led by Bill Higginson at Haiku North America in 2005. Vicki is attracted to the collaborative and problem-solving aspects of the linked-verse form, and particularly to the spontaneous—and fun!—creation in live renku. The west-coast regional coordinator for Haiku Canada, she lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Fokkina McDonnell was born and raised in the Netherlands.  For almost 40 years she has lived in the UK.  She works as a psychotherapist in private practice in Manchester which has a thriving poetry and performance scene.  Co-creating linked verse with its unexpected turns and shifts is for her a stimulating and joyous experience.

Dylan McGee: I teach early modern Japanese literature and culture at Nagoya University, Japan. I have always had an abiding interest in Japanese poetry, especially haikai, and lately I have done some work on poetic networks in the Osaka region during the 18th Century. I am also very interested in connections between image and text in Japanese literature, and that is probably one of the qualities that inspired me to try my hand at translating an illustrated poetry sequence.

Paul Mercken: Born in 1934, he discovered the attraction of African and Asian cultures after an academic career (history of western philosophy) in his home country Belgium, the UK, Italy, the USA, and the Netherlands, where he lives since 1978. Logic, language(s), linguistics, semantics, poetry, literature and art fascinate him. Haiku taught him the transitory value of the here and now. He’s secretary of the Dutch haiku society. He enjoys meeting people all over the world, citizens of a republic of letters, who adhere to the motto: haiku builds bridges. He particularly likes the playfulness and liveliness of linked verse.

Sue Mill:

Vasile Moldovan:

Angela Naccarato lives in Port Coquitlam, BC. She is the founder of and the facilitator for Intuitive Vancouver, a company that empowers individuals by guiding them to develop their intuition. Angela is also the founder of the Vancouver Haiku Group where members enjoy lively discussions, create haiku, and develop their intuition as a source of inspiration. In July of 2011 along with other poets she attended a gathering on Gabriola Island in British Columbia where she was introduced to renku. Although she found the genre challenging, the support of some very talented and prolific writers made the renku experience a lasting memory.

Carol O’Dell: An ‘Army Brat’, Carol O’Dell spent her childhood in a number of countries.  She enjoys Renku and received the HSA’s Einbond Grand Prize in 2009 for two renku & a First Honorable Mention in 2010 (all three renku were written with her husband, Christopher Herold). Carol & Christopher enjoy living in Port Townsend, Washington, USA, and are very happy that their daughter, Vanessa Herold has made her home there also. Carol finds working is getting in the way of writing haiku & renku these days, but hopes to have more time in the future.

Martin O’Keeffe: Born in 1961, Martin O’Keeffe, a native of Dublin Ireland is married with four children. He left school at sixteen but maintained a love of the written word; both poetry and prose. A parallel love of music drew him to songwriting and consequently to writing poetry. His recent involvement in this collaborative Japanese form he found “both challenging and hugely enjoyable”.

Joy Olsen: A prairie born Boomer .. sought a west coast adventure and found it. I worked in the airline industry, raised a family, and travelled a bit.  My life long passion is observing and discovering the intricacies of nature. My expression of this passion is through creating ceramic sculptures and paintings. Currently I live with my partner on a small Gulf Island in the Salish Sea, occasionally writing poetry and playing with words.

Origa:is a Siberian girl once discovered on an internet site by an American gentleman… thus, she now lives in Michigan. Haiku and renku came rather late into her life, yet these poetic forms from ancient Japan have become her inner self. While haiku requires solitary immersion in nature, renku brings amusement of intercultural relations – together, they balance poetic life. Origa is also a sumi-e artist, and host, judge, and translator of the international bilingual haiku contest Calico Cat with her original sumi-e as prizes, and husband Dennis as the contest sponsor. She is a founder/editor of Kankodori Press.

Linda Papanicolaou lives in the Bay Area of California.  An art teacher and the editor of Haigaonline (www.haigaonline.com) initially became interested in renku to gain a better understanding the concept of linking as applied to haiku and images. Since then it has become a major passion.  She is an active participant online at The Renku Group and in live renku sessions with friends at the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society.

Dick Pettit:I’m a retired English Language teacher, 76. I came back to, & started writing Haiku in 1990, and was attracted to renga soon after: by Nobuyuki Yuasa’s translation of the first 8 verses of ‘Minase’ and Hiroaki Sato’s 100 Frogs. The form has opportunities for combination, suggestion, and drama, with endless sequences. It can clearly be developed into new things, but first we must learn to do what the ancients did, that is to master linking, so that it becomes second nature. This is essential, but also it doesn’t matter, as the interest of renga is its changing topics—

Mary Emma Dutreix Pierson joined the New Orleans Haiku Society at its initial meeting.A speech-language pathologist in the New Orleans Public Schools for twenty-eight years, she retired after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Elementary School where she was employed.She began writing traditional haiku and now writes modern haiku. Moon haiku and firefly haiku are of special interest to her.Currently,
she is exploring renga and renku forms with the other members of the New Orleans Haiku Society.

Patricia Prime lives in Auckland, New Zealand. She is the co-editor of Kokako. She has been writing Japanese forms for twenty years and finds the stimulation of working with other poets rewarding.

Vanessa Proctor is an English, New Zealand, Australian writer who first discovered haiku while she was living in Japan in the ’90s. She writes poetry and teaches in Sydney where she lives with her young family. She enjoys creating renku online with poets from around the world and experiencing the renku journey which often leads to unexpected places.

Collette Quinn-Hall is a published poet and educator living in Calgary, Alberta.  She keeps sane teaching Humanities to a group of brilliant students at an arts-centered school and continues to tug at the threads of the wild world spinning webs of poetics.  She recently attained her MA sharing stories of how children and one adult came to know the world a little better through poetry.

Sheila M Ross: A contemporary lyric poet from Montreal, currently living in Gatineau, Quebec, Sheila has been exploring Japanese writing forms since 2007… mostly haiku, haibun and renku. Sheila is a member of KaDo Ottawa and Haiku Canada.

Moira Richards: I live with my husband in a small town between mountains and the sea on the southernmost edge of Africa. I love to read, to be cooked for, and to get down and dirty with the rampant vegetation in my garden. I’m especially interested in renku as poetry. http://www.redroom.com/author/moira-richards

Jeremy Robinson is an assistant professor of Japanese language and literature at Grand Valley State University in western Michigan, USA.  He has a PhD from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in Japanese literature with a focus on classical poetry, and his dissertation centered on the earliest collection of Japanese poetry, the 8th century Man’yôshû.  His interest in renga stems both from his interest in Japanese poetry as an inherently participatory and communal art form, and his belief that the importance of humor and play is under-appreciated in studies of classical poetry.

Denise Ryan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. She uses poetry as means of self-exploration and views the whole creative process at therapeutic.

Yulia Shoda lives in the capital city of Ukraine, Kiev. Being for a rather long time interested in Japanese culture and having chosen oriental studies for her future profession, she had a nice chance to visit Japan and to feel its spirit. She thinks of haiku as of a unique form of expressing one’s way of feeling and thinking, and likes it for its minimalism and true magic. As for  renku as the other form of Japanese poetry – it’s like a pearl necklace where each pearl, when in its place, contributes to the real beauty of the whole, which is always greater than its parts.

Valeria Simonova-Cecon lives in Cividale del Friuli (a small and very picturesque town founded by Julius Caesar in Northeast Italy) with her haijin husband Andrea Cecon and their mongrel dog Renga. She enjoys writing haiku and renku, walking the pre-alpine hills and studying languages.

John R Snyder:

Carmi Soifer lives in Suquamish, Washington, USA, where she can see Mt. Rainier from her mailbox. She is a writing teacher, and is pleased to be a part of the Port Townsend Haiku and Renku Groups. She loves the comradery and communal spirit of renku.

Nicholas M. Sola resides in New Orleans, USA.

William Sorlien is a haiku and renku gadfly with origins in the central United States from a state whose motto is “Show Me”. He was introduced to Japanese poetic forms through the auspices of a practicing Buddhist martial arts sensei who kept a small lending library in his dojo. While searching for the true essence of the haikai form he discovered renku and has been collaborating with international poets ever since.

Carole Steele:

Alan Summers lives in Bradford-on-Avon, where a well-deserved lunch at the Castle Inn affords a splendid view of Wiltshire’s Westbury White Horse. Alan has a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and is a Japan Times award-winning writer for haiku and renga.  His passion is for live renga with the public in particular, but not exclusively. He founded With Words, a UK-based provider of literature, education and literacy projects, and was the Literature Director of the 2010 Bath Japanese Festival. Alan is also the Linked Forms editor for Notes from the Gean. With Words: www.withwords.org.uk Blog: area17.blogspot.com

André Surridge: Born in Hull, England, André lives in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand. He is the winner of several writing awards for poetry and playwriting and his work has been widely published. André enjoys the collaborative approach to writing as it highlights the mystery of the creative process. The interaction & blossoming synergy is truly awe-inspiring, … how one poem sets off another & the different pathways of interpretation are intriguing. My personal thanks to collaborators who have enriched my creative life through their guidance, brilliance, encouragement & their generosity of spirit.

Marg Sutton: “Why not” quoth the ghostwolf, “give it a try, and see what this renku is like. Add it to your shakuhachi/sumi-e/haiku triad.” What else does one do on a sunny Sunday on Gabriola Island? But enjoy the afternoon with fellow writers in a game of renku – really! Simply amazing!!

Jim Swift is retired in Port Alberni, on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. He came to Renku to learn more about linking, and apply what he learned to his photographic haiga. He is now exploring the idea of linked haiga, enjoying the abundance of links between the verbal and visual imagery.

Barbara A Taylor: “Each day demands that I write and that my fingers touch and feel the earth.” Barbara’s haiku, haibun, haiga, tanka and short form poems appear in international journals and anthologies on line and in print. Renga/renku writing challenges my creativity, spontaneity and patience. The collaborative pathway to a whole poem is always illuminating, enriching, and mostly satisfying. I really love it when they move fast. I live on a mountain ridge in the Rainbow Region, Northern NSW, Australia. My diverse poems with audio are at http://batsword.tripod.com

Manuela Thomi:

Charles Tomlinson:

Molly Vallor is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. Her research focuses on medieval Japanese Buddhism, literature, and culture. She is currently researching her dissertation on Rinzai Zen master Musō Soseki (1275 -1351) at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyōto as a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellow. Her dissertation will feature the first fully annotated edition and first complete English translation of Musō’s personal waka anthology.

Vladislav Vassiliev: Born and raised in Russia, Vladislav currently lives in a quiet London suburb with his wife and two children. His job is commonly described as “working with computers”. Vladislav’s fairly recent interest in renku has been fuelled by his desire to learn more about the history and aesthetics of the haikai genre.

Max Verhart: Dutchman Max Verhart emerged nationally as a haiku poet in the early nineteen eighties and internationally in the late nineteen nineties. He runs his own small publishing house ‘t schrijverke and edits and publishes the multilingual haiku journal Whirligig. He writes collaborative poetry because he likes the process regardless of the result, for he values comradeship higher than success. But of course the result can be a bonus…

Janet Vickers’ poems have appeared in various Canadian and UK anthologies and literary journals. She has published two chapbooks, You Were There (2006) and Arcana (2008).  Moving to Gabriola in 2010 opened the opportunity to learn more about Japanese poetry through the teachings and work of Sonja Arntzen and Naomi Beth Wakan.

Lieh Virtuoso:

Naomi Beth Wakan is a poet and essayist living on Gabriola island, BC.  She has published more than forty books. In the last while she has been working cooperatively with other writers and artists.  This led to her working on a couple of response tanka books with the scholar of mediaeval Japanese literature, Sonja Arntzen.  Writing poetry with another led inevitably to writing poetry with a group… renku. www.naomiwakan.com

Karma Tenzing Wangchuk started writing haiku in 1964 and experimented with linked forms in the 1980s. But it wasn’t until 1998 that he began to write renku, first partnering with Marlene Mountain in “linked haiku,” then collaborating with poets including Jane Reichhold, Tom Clausen, Jan Bostok, Charles Trumbull, and William Higginson. In more recent years, Tenzing has composed renku with members of the Port Townsend Renku Club, which he cofounded with Christopher Herold. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, where he works in the Free Store and the Food Bank, and performs as a member of the Poetic Justice Theatre Ensemble.

Bette Norcross Wappner enjoys haiku, photography, and woodblock printmaking.  She likes participating in renku linked poetry for the collaborative energy between friends.  Bette llives in Kentucky, USA with her husband and two children.  bettenorcrosswappner.blogspot.com

Michael Dylan Welch:is a widely published poet and first vice president of the Haiku Society of America. He first wrote renku around 1990, and attended the 1992 Renku North America tour in San Francisco. In 1992, he cowrote the first rengay, invented by Garry Gay, and his essays on rengay popularized this renku spin-off. Michael has an extensive rengay page at http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/rengay and other linked verse at http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/collaborations. In 1997, his article in Frogpond first began to popularize tan-renga. Michael believes that the responsive and spontaneous writing skills necessary for linked verse are essential to learning haiku.

Mary White lives between the mountains and the sea in Dublin, Ireland. She has been writing Renku for three years since meeting Norman Darlington at a reading by Bruce Ross. She loves the sense of tradition along with the immediacy and fun in interacting with other Renku poets. Exploring the different Renku forms experimenting with gendai is engrossing.  It really sharpens the nib for Haiku composition. Her acapella group has put one of her  Haiku sequences to music!

Josh Wikoff spent his childhood and young adulthood on a commune, an Indian reservation, a sailboat, in Central America and on more than one couch.  Now married with 2 daughters and 2 dogs, he lives in Northern California where he’s slightly more settled. Josh especially enjoys linked forms for the social aspect of their composition and, often, a fresh, multicultural diversity of imagery.

Alison Williams works in Southampton, England and plays in the borderless online world. She finds the writing of linked forms to be both a challenge and a delight, and appreciates the opportunity to work with people she is never likely to meet in person. She is often surprised by the marvellously unexpected results of collaborative creativity.

Elizabeth Wood:

Eiko Yachimoto: Ever since she was seized by the beauty of communion through linking verses, she has called herself a renkujin and keeps writing renku with poets in and out of Japan. She is also keen on translating Basho’s renku into English and feels very fortunate that, over the years, she has established a strong fellowship with her co-translator, John E. Carley. When she is not working on renku, she studies, struggles, and writes on Sugita Hisajo, believing that Hisajo’s life and poetry should be a secret link between modern Japanese haiku and the global haiku community that includes lovers of renku and renga.

Zulis Yalte as a teen, found herself captivated by the gentle piercing imagery of Haiku, especially that of Basho and the poetic reflections in Vancouver Island’s coastal landscape. That captivation continues to weave itself through her writing, sculpture, painting and multi-media imagery. Last summer a gathering on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, introduced a newfound and compelling delight in the word/image linking and group sharing practice of renku.

Susan Yeend was introduced to Japanese Poetry through Haiku weekends on Gabriola Island B.C. Canada where she was inspired by the outstanding  poets that  participate there. She finds poetry a way of experiecing life more deeply. Last year Sabaki Vicki McCullough led her group through the the intricacies of  Renku.  She also enjoys organic growing, folk dancing, singing, painting, photography, bell ringing, & sharing her love of her Gulf Island environment with her young grandaughter.

Sarah Zale:

Fabrizio Zamero: I’m a teacher of literature in an Italian secondary school. I’ve had twenty year’s experience in contemporary dance, both as an interpreter and a choreographer. Right now I’m engaged in contemporary art projects. Of renga/renku I love the sharp precision of the form that paradoxically, leads to an always unpredictable beauty.

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Journal of Renga & Renku

Keith Kumasen Abbott: My Zen Teacher loved a big triangular rock I found lying on its side buried in a dry creek in New Mexico, just its speckled salt and pepper ridge showing. He was very excited and said that in Japanese this type was called a “lying-down upright rock.”  So this stone stands straight up in my garden. It changes every second in the daylight or dark. Morphs incessantly with every glance. Grows eyes. Loses eyes. Grows snout. An insect, a Shinto priest. Pregnant. Not pregnant. Demure. Fierce. So it’s called The Dragon Rock. It’s my stone renku.

Ale

Alessandra

Finn Andersen: Born 1954, died 2007. Danish poet.

Hortensia Anderson considers renku an instrument of transformation as well as intimacy. She lives in the East Village in NYC with her bengal leopard cat, Camellia.

Lynette Arden: I live in Adelaide South Australia and convene the Bindii group, which focuses on Japanese form poetry. I first started writing haiku after taking an on line course with the World Haiku Club. I am attracted to renku because working with others opens up new possibilities, not only in subject matter, but in imagery and emotional perspectives. It is also both fun and hard work. The reward seems to be in creating a poem that none of us would have achieved singly.  

Toshiyo Asaka

Alex Ask: I am a psychologist by profession and I run a private practice in Adelaide.  I continue to help people achieve goals in their life and stay in the moment.  Hence my interest in the Japanese poetry forms, that permit the writer to observe and revere nature in ways previously unseen or heard.  I find learning and mastering the Japanese poetry forms highly rewarding.

Francis Attard: I am a retired teacher and live in Malta. Renga/renku writing was the outcome of an open invitation in Blithe Spirit by Dick Pettit in 2001. In an article about the genre, he proposed Bashō’s famous frog haiku for the hokku. The interested parties were to provide the wakiku. I wouldn’t lose the opportunity. In four years, we had come to finish sixteen works. Most would appear in Blithe Spirit, Kokako and Lynx.  In 2007, Original Numbers was privately published.

Erica Barbiani: If I could choose, I would spend most of my time watching plants while they grow. Luckily, I have a beautiful job that carries me away from my contemplative side. I produce documentaries, I just published my first novel, and I am trying to make writing my full time job. I thought that the intimacy of inspiration could never be shared. When I discovered renku, I realized I was wrong. A happy moment.

Laura Blasutigh

Mahrukh Bulsara

Ole Bundgaard: Born 1947. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors’ Society and its haiku-group.

Andrew Caldicott

Ashley Capes: I’m a teacher and writer currently living in Australia. I love the haiku of Issa and have recently started reading gendai haiku poets. A few years ago I discovered renku (can’t remember how) and found myself addicted, both to the challenges and the collaboration. Renku seems to make poetry better and I’m pretty sure that the internet has a lot to do with that, as my relative isolation and access to the world of great writers would be sorely limited without it.

John Carley: I am a middle aged Englishman living in the rough uplands of the Lancashire Pennines.  A former musician I have always been comfortable with collaborative art and with the idea that evocation can be more powerful than explication. I am particularly drawn to the work of Matsuo Basho whose world view I find to be startlingly familiar.

Andrea Cecon: I am a hearing aid technician. Born in Udine 37 years ago, I reside in Cividale del Friuli (not far from my native place) in Italy with my wife, Russian haijin Valeria Simonova-Cecon. I usually find the inspiration for my writings in memories, travels, and the everyday life. My wife involved me in the renku form and I unexpectedly found it to be a very rich and wonderful poetic genre.

Karen Cesar: My husband and I live in Tucson, Arizona where I have been writing haiku and tanka for about 4½ years. I started writing renku with the maekuzuke on Jane Reichhold’s AHA forum. Renku puts haiku and tanka into historical perspective and provides a context for the reasoning behind certain ‘rules’ and conventions. A bond forms between poets as they write renku together. Each renku creates its own special world, so much so that there is always a little sadness when a renku ends.

Yu Chang

Claire Chatelet aka Sprite, is 50-something and lives  in East London, UK. Her interest in poetry stems from a compulsion with the written word, she once (and still) considered a disease. Tossed between French and English, with a limited knowledge of German, she has a keen interest in the influence of language on the psyche and is fascinated by the process of translation. She views cross-cultural collaborative Renku/Renga as a most excellent tool for furthering understandings of all kinds, including that of the poetic process itself.

Penny Crosby

Norman Darlington lives on a hill in rural Ireland, raising vegetables, chickens and children. He’s been enchanted with renku since first reading Hiroaki Satō’s 100 Frogs more than 30 years ago. Having been involved in numerous intercultural renku exchanges, he is convinced of the overarching good which collaborative linked verse can bring. More at xaiku.com.

L. A. Davidson

Billie Dee: I live in San Diego, California, USA, where I work as a writer and multi-media artist. I’m attracted to linked poetry by the warm sense of community, and by the fresh, often startling, ideas and images that come to me by way of our collective muse. As a Pacificist, I find in renku another path to peace through shared creativity. Can there be a finer art? [Now, for the boilerplate: Billie Dee received her doctoral degree from the University of California at Irvine and is the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. National Library Service.  http://billiedee.net]

Charles B. Dickson

Sylvia Forges-Ryan

Frederick Gasser

Ferris Gilli: An Associate Editor of The Heron’s Nest, Ferris Gilli lives near Atlanta, Georgia.  Ferris’s years in South America and Europe and her childhood in the rural South inform much of her haiku-related work.  Ferris loves the challenge of renku and the camaraderie that develops during a partnership with people in other lands.  She appreciates that writing renku hones creativity and discipline, yet allows a certain freedom of expression, which can lead a renku in unexpected directions.  The award-winning renku that she has written with fellow poets are the results of completely democratic partnerships with no involvement of a sabaki.

Aldo Ghirardello: I live in Udine and work there as history of art teacher. I also paint – from the moment I remember myself. I belong to a group that deals with performance called Labadini. Based on images, renga/renku poetry opens me to new ways of knowledge.

Rohini Gupta lives by the sea in Mumbai, India. She writes poetry, fiction and non fiction. Haiku and Renku seemed very strange when coming to them from free verse poetry but there was a great attraction to both. Haiku with its vivid imagery, and renku with the discovery that collaborative poetry with dedicated poets can be so delightful.

Lee Gurga

Ida Hamre: Born 1941. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors’ Society and its haiku-group.

Hanne Hansen: Born 1944. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors’ Society and its haiku-group.

Doris Heitmeyer

Christopher Herold lives in Port Townsend, Washington, USA. His first brush with renku was in 1991 at the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society’s annual retreat at Asilomar, near Carmel, California. Soon afterward, he became a regular member of the Marin Renku Group which met to write in person every month or two throughout the 90s. Christopher co-founded the Port Townsend Renku Club in 2008. It meets monthly. He has also judged the HSA’s Lionel Einbond Renku Competition several times. His favorite way to describe renku is to quote Groucho Marx: “Let’s put our minds together and forge a head.”

William J Higginson: (bio by Penny Harter) Bill was very committed to linked poetry. I remember our first get-togethers to write group ‘renga’ – in which we linked verses with Elizabeth Lamb and others in Santa Fe. And, of course, as Bill got deeper into the Japanese traditions of ‘renku’, we began to follow the more traditional rules re placement of verses, throw-backs, variety of topics, etc. He and I worked together in classrooms, encouraging students from elementary to secondary to write linked poems. And we ran renku workshops at various haiku conferences, as well as participated in writing renku with a master in Japan. Then there was Bill’s worldwide internet renku life, his web sites (http://www.2hweb.net/wjhigginson), and his creating variations like the net-renga. His passion for linked verse led him to write and edit Haiku Seasons and Haiku World, an international saijiki, both of which were significant contributions to worldwide devotees of the genre.

Sonia Hjertebjerg: Born 1938. Danish poet.

Marco Hlievis

Lisa Hogue

H Mack Horton: I teach premodern Japanese literature and culture at the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on classical poetry.  I worked for a decade or so on medieval renga, publishing a translation of The Journal of Sôchô (Sôchô shuki) and a companion volume, Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sôchô and Poetic Life in Late Medieval Japan (both from Stanford, 2002).  I then moved far back in time and began to work on Man’yôshû, the poets and anthologizers of which were also profoundly exercised by questions of poetic linkage.  My study of the longest poetic sequence therein is entitled Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yôshû Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736-737 (forthcoming, Harvard).  But I’m not a poet and wish I were!

Veronica Ikonnikova: Hi! I’m from Russia. Vivid, ‘living’ images and so laconic a way to express them – that’s what I like about renku. In the sequence of very short verses you can see many different stories, whimsically changing and at the same time coherent and harmonious. This is a unique and breathtaking view of the world. Every author has his/her own view to share with the others – that’s why writing renku is so interesting.

Emma Jolivet

Elizabeth St Jacques

Eric Jensen

Colin Stewart Jones resides in Aberdeen, Scotland. Though he originally came to Aberdeen to study Gaelic his crimes as an undergraduate have forced him into exile in a city known for oil, granite, dour weather and gulls. It is not surprising then most of his writing tends lean to the grimier aspects of life.

Herbert Jonsson works as a senior lecturer in Japanese at Dalarna University in the city of Falun in central Sweden. He received his PhD in Japanology from Stockholm University in 2006. His main field of research is Japanese haikai poetry and theories of verse linking from the 17th and 18th centuries, but he has also studied Japanese painting and music in the past. For the most part he has worked with haiku and renku from the point of view of the critic and translator, but he finds the creative writing of haikai poetry to be an important complement to enjoying and understanding this art.

Hirohide Kajiwara

Adele Kenny

Mike Keville

Svetlana Kiolo: I’m from Russia and I work for a newspaper in the city of Voronezh. My friend Valeria Simonova-Cecon introduced me to renku and Japanese poetry in general. In the genre of renku I’m particularly attracted by its diversity and richness – constant change of imagery and mood. Renku is also a great opportunity to look at the world from different perspectives and to know better, those with whom we are writing poetry.

Niels Kjær: Born 1949. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors’ Society and its haiku-group.

Karina Klesko

Kobayashi Issa: (1763 – 1828, bio by David Lanoue) I lived in the snowy, mountainous province of Shinano in Japan two centuries ago. After losing my mother and granny as a child, I traveled on foot to Edo, the city that you know as Tokyo. Eventually, I joined a haiku group led by master Chikua. As time went on, I became a haiku master in my own right, crisscrossing Japan on poetic journeys and participating in plenty of poem parties. When I departed this life (sailing west to Buddha’s Pure Land), I left behind me over 20,000 haiku that I hope you will enjoy.

Kris (Moon) Kondo: co-founder & past president of AIR, is an artist, poet, journal keeper, teacher & mom with a myriad of interests who was fascinated by the multi talents of the early haijin. Her renku activities, which started in 1979, were extremely intense in the 1990′s when she was at the center of major happenings of the renku world in Japan & activities with HSA, HIA, & HNA as renku seeds were taking root on all fronts. RNA, Renku North America in 1992 was a pivotal undertaking. While she has made some forays into writing renku on line, she has found it frustrating preferring to write face to face. She did greatly enjoy her daily renga collaboration of ‘other rens’ for about 3 years with Francine Porad & marlene mountain. She is grateful to the other members of AIR who have kept it alive.

Elizabeth Searle Lamb

David Lanoue: I live in New Orleans, where I teach English at Xavier University. I came to the world of haiku as a translator, twenty-five years ago. I studied Japanese because I wanted to read and translate the works of Issa. Translating Issa inspired me to write my own haiku. At one memorable HSA meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas, I participated in a renku under the expert guidance of Tadashi Kondo. That renku (lasting late into the night), set me on the path to learn more about the form: collaborative, ever-changing, and always moving forward–like life!

David E. LeCount

Minna Lerman

Ole Lillelund: Born 1942. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors’ Society and its haiku-group.

Ramona Linke was born in 1960 and lives with her family in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. She has written lyrics for many years and haiku since 2003. Also, she writes renku and haibun, takes photos and paints (primarily sumi-e & aquarelle). Her haiku and haiga have been published in anthologies and magazines. She is a member of the German Haiku Society, the WHCgerman and the World Haiku Association.

Marilyn Linn: I have lived in Adelaide, South Australia all my life. I am married with two married children and four grandchildren. I am a member of South Australian Writers’ Centre, the South Australian Women Writers Society, Seaside Writers’ Group, Marion Cultural Centre Writers’ Group and Bindii, the Japanese poetry form group. I enjoy writing short stories and poetry. The challenge of haiku is a growing interest to me. I have had poetry, short stories and short articles published in several anthologies and magazines and have won First Prize, High Commendations and Commendations in several Australian Competitions.

Geraldine C Little

Dylan McGee: I am an assistant professor of Japanese language and literature who specializes in literature of the Edo period. While I have always enjoyed reading comic poetry from this period, especially senryu and kyoka, this is my first experience translating a whole collection of kyoka into English. I hope that this small effort can give readers a sense of appreciation for Ueda Akinari’s (1734-1809) poetry.

anne mckay

Heather Madrone

Paul MacNeil from Ocala, Florida, USA describes himself as an Amateur Naturalist who started the study of haiku and renku in his mid-forties, and is a long-time Associate Editor of the print and on-line haikai journal: The Heron’s Nest.  Paul is a member of writing teams winning five Grand Prizes (2000, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010 and nine other awards, 1999-2010) in the Haiku Society of America’s Einbond Renku Competition. Paul feels it a very special honor to have had one of his haiku engraved on a river boulder as part of The Haiku Pathway, Katikati, New Zealand, dedicated June, 2010.

Carole MacRury reads, writes and publishes free verse, haiku and tanka from a tiny town on the 49th parallel on the Canada/US border in the State of Washington. Camera always in hand, she photographs images in nature that offer unspoken poems. She finds the connections made with other minds through linking and shifting pure magic and the global participation enriching. Her best experiences with renku have been with decisive sabaki’s with final say on verses and who tend to the music and poetics of the renku as a whole.

Tomislav Maretić is a medical doctor in Zagreb (Croatia). He first met renga in the books of Vladimir Devidé. He was attracted by this form of poetry because of the verse communication and poetical interaction among the participants. Renku/renga could be a kind of very vivid play of inspiration with unexpectable results, being a sort of a real poetical adventure.

Diane Mayr lives in New Hampshire where she is owned by two cats.  She is also a public librarian and a writer.  Until a few years ago, her first love was writing for children (Run, Turkey, Run! is her most popular picture book), but she has found herself increasingly attracted by short form poetry and is currently enamored of the creative possibilities of haiga.  Diane is involved with several blogs and spends altogether too much time online.  Visit her at www.randomnoodling.com .

Paul Mercken: After an academic career (history of western philosophy) in my home country Belgium, the UK, Italy, the USA, and the Netherlands, where I’ve lived now for 32 years, I discovered the attraction of African and Asian cultures. Logic, language(s), linguistics, semantics, poetry, literature and art fascinate me. Haiku taught me the transitory value of the here and now. I’m secretary of the Dutch haiku society. I enjoy meeting people all over the world, citizens of a republic of letters, who adhere to the motto: haiku builds bridges. I particularly like the playfulness and the liveliness of linked verse. I’m 76.

John Merryfield: I am a painting contractor operating out of Tahoe City, California.  I divide my time between Lake Tahoe, California and Los Barriles, Baja, Mexico where I surf, eat mangos and smile at my wife.  I am a student of haiku and was coerced into writing renga by William Sorlien several years ago.

Ron Moss: I live in Tasmania a small island state of Australia, and I work as a Digital Technician in the Tasmania Archive and Heritage Office. I have also been a volunteer fire fighter for the past 12 years in a busy brigade that responds to all types of emergencies. I have been writing haiku for the past ten years and I enjoy the collaborative process of writing with friends very much. Achievements with my partners include placements in the Yellow Moon and HSA Einbond renku contests. I’m also a visual artist and I like to combine words and art in new and exciting ways. My website:  www.ronmoss.com

Marlene Mountain

M. M. Nichols

Joe Nutt

Origa is a Siberian girl once discovered on an internet site by an American gentleman… thus, she now lives in Michigan. Haiku and renku came rather late into her life, yet these poetic forms from ancient Japan have become her inner self. While haiku requires solitary immersion in nature, renku brings amusement of intercultural relations – together, they balance poetic life. Origa is also a sumi-e artist, and host, judge, and translator of the international bilingual haiku contest Calico Cat with her original sumi-e as prizes, and husband Dennis as the contest sponsor. She is a founder/editor of Kankodori Press.

Mami Orihara

Genevieve Osborne

Linda Papanicolaou

John Parsons has been an artist all his life and has been writing short poems for most of it. Discovered haiku in mid sixties after buying R.H. Blyth’s History of Haiku, tried writing it at the time, and has done so, on and off, since then. Worked in small presses with Asa Benveniste and Brian Coffey in the seventies. Has always been interested in the graphic mark, expressionism, zen, and the natural world. Lives, works and gardens in Norfolk UK.

Matthew Paul: I was born in New Malden, Surrey, England, in 1966. I have been writing haiku since 1989 and have had them published regularly for much of the time since then. I am the Associate Editor of Presence, the UK’s leading haiku journal, and co-writer/co-editor (with John Barlow) of Wing Beats. I also write longer poetry, have a blog at http://matthewpaulpoems.blogspot.com and live in sunny Twickenham.

Benny Pedersen: Born 1954. Danish poet, member of Danish Authors Society and its haiku-group.

Dick Pettit: I’m a retired English Language teacher, 75. I came back to, & started writing Haiku in 1990, and was attracted to renga soon after:  by Nobuyuki Yuasa’s translation of the first 8 verses of ‘Minase’ and Hiroaki Sato’s 100 Frogs. The form has opportunities for combination, suggestion, and drama, with endless sequences. It can clearly be developed into new things, but first we must learn to do what the ancients did, that is to master linking, so that it becomes second nature. This is essential, but also it doesn’t matter, as the interest of renga is its changing topics—

Francine Porad

Sean Price: I live in a small brick house in Saint Louis, Missouri with my wife and cat.  My interest in haikai began with my readings of Matsuo Basho’s travel journals in college.  This translation of “Impromptu at Fukagawa” was completed while on vacation in Seattle when I wasn’t record shopping or checking out the local doughnut shops.

Gloria H. Procsal

Vanessa Proctor

K. Ramesh

Bhavani Ramesh

Kala Ramesh writes that ‘searching’ is the one word that seems to say everything about her. She progressed along the path of Indian Classical Music, first instrumental then vocal, and from the South Indian Classical tradition crossed over into North Indian Classical music, performing in various cities throughout India. Then she plunged into yoga, Hindu philosophy and vipassana — which accidentally led her to haiku in 2005, and since that time it has been haiku, senryû, tanka, haibun and renku that she breathes

Kameshwar Rao

Jane Reichhold has been writing renga since learning the form by working with Hiroaki Sato in 1982. Her study and delight in the work with the form by Basho resulted in the book, by Kodansha International, Basho The Complete Haiku. As founder and editor of AHA Books, Jane has also published Mirrors: International Haiku Forum, Geppo, for the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, and she has co-edited with Werner Reichhold, Lynx for Linking Poets for 17 years. Lynx went online in 2000 in AHApoetry.com the web site Jane started in 1995. The work with renga continues on the AHAforum – an online community of writers. She lives near Gualala, California with Werner, her husband, and a Bengal cat named Buddha.

Werner Reichhold

Gabriele Reinhard writes, paints, works and lives in Germany. She is a member of the German Haiku Society. You are curious? Then have a look to www.gabriele-reinhard.de

Moira Richards: I live with my husband in a small town between mountains and the sea on the southernmost edge of Africa. I love to read, to be cooked for, and to get down and dirty with the rampant vegetation in my garden. I’m especially interested in the translating, from Japanese, of renku as poetry. http://www.redroom.com/author/moira-richards

Yoshiko Robbie

Shinjuku Rollingstone

Emily Romano

Sydell Rosenberg

Alexis Rotella

Hal Roth

Joseph Samson

Hiroaki Sato

Annamaria Schiavi: I am not really a poet. I simply love Nature and I love classical haiku because this genre draws inspiration from it. In just a few words you can feel the deep union between your life and the spirit of Nature.

Adelaide B Shaw: I live with my husband in the small rural community of Millbrook, NY. My interest in writing haiku and other short form Japanese poetry began several years ago.  My collection of haiku, An Unknown Road, won a Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Award, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America, for 2009.  Renku/renga gives me the opportunity to work with other poets and challenges my creativity to work within the controlled rules of this form. My haiku blog is www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com.  

Elaine Sherlund

Andrew Shimield: I live in west london and have been writing renku on and off for the last 6 years. I’m attracted by what I think of as the alchemy of the process. Out of nothing come all the links, twists and turns of the poem, which seems to take on a life of its own. I find ‘live’, face to face renku especially fulfilling, where a palpable poetic energy is created.

Ichiyo Shimizu

Olga Shovman

Valeria Simonova-Cecon: I am Russian and some 6-7 years ago I started writing haiku and this passion has changed my life. I met an Italian haijin, Andrea Cecon, on the World Haiku Club’s forum (Italian branch). We got married and now we live in Cividale del Friuli, a very small but incredibly beautiful village in North Eastern Italy. Renku is a relatively new genre for me, but it has already won my heart and helped me to understand much better, the origins of haikai. In writing renku, I try to involve my husband and my friends because for me this is one of the most wonderful ways to communicate poetically.

Sandra Simpson: I live, work and write in Tauranga in the aptly named Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. I made my first contributions to a renku in 2009 – enjoying the challenge of learning such a complex form, the online camaraderie and the creativity it sparked within me. I count myself fortunate to have been led by the great (and patient) John Carley in several poems and although I am a slow pupil, his education is beginning to have an effect. I am also the editor of Haiku NewZ, www.poetrysociety.org.nz/haikunews

Karen Sohne

William Sorlien: I’m a haiku and renku gadfly residing in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, though my origins are closer to the heart of the country from a place whose motto is, ‘Show Me’. A short while ago, I was introduced to haiku by a practicing Buddhist mixed martial arts sensei via a small lending library ensconced in his dojo. Later, while seeking the true origins of the form, I became enamored of renku collaboration. In the interim I’ve produced nigh onto 3,000 such verses, the majority of which have had to be thrown out in the trash.

John Stevenson: I learned renku from Ion Codrescu, Christopher Herold, Fay Aoyagi, Bill Higginson, Penny Harter, and Shinku Fukuda. Live composition (including improvised performance/composition for an audience) is my favorite kind of renku experience. A highlight of each year since 2000 has been an annual renku retreat in Onawa, Maine with Yu Chang, Paul MacNeil, and Hilary Tann.

Johnye Strickland

Toru Sudoh

Kikuyo Sugiura: I am a house-wife living in Tokyo. I am a keen gardener, but in this cold winter weather, I have few flowers in my garden. However, I love winter scenes too. I enjoy making renku verses in English and Japanese with my friends. I published a book of Japanese free-verse poems a few years ago, which is a poetic record of my long life.

Alan Summers was renga workshop leader at the Bristol Sign Poetry Festival 2010. He was also Japan-UK 150 renga poet-in-residence.  Alan is the renga & renku editor for Notes from the Gean, and the founder of With Words (www.withwords.org.uk).

Harish Suryanarayana is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in electrical engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA. He is also an amateur poet and a badminton enthusiast. He enjoys renga and renku because the collaborative pursuit of poetry creates a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. It provides an opportunity to learn from others’ experience while creating something beautiful. 

Caroline Sutherland

Dave Sutter

Rachel Sutton-Spence wrote an essay on the question “Are sign languages real languages?” as an undergraduate in 1986. She concluded that, as one could compose haiku in sign languages they must be real languages.  And now she documents and analyses signed haiku and renga. That feels right.

Susumu Takiguchi believes that people would benefit enormously if they begin by studying renku first and only then move on to learn haiku. This is how haiku literature has developed and therefore would put them on the right track from the start, and vice versa. He founded in 1998 the World Haiku Club, a global haiku movement (rather than a rigid organisation) which has helped the dissemination, study and development of world haiku across the globe. He was born in Japan and educated at Waseda University, Tokyo, and later the University of Oxford. His haiku lineage dates back to his great uncle Kataoka Noo, a close student of Takahama Kyoshi. He is an accomplished artist, poet and essayist. He lives in England but operates internationally and in Japan particularly.

Hilary Tann comes to renku via two other members of the Route 9 Haiku Group (publishers of the biannual anthology of haiku and senryu, Upstate Dim Sum). Each September, John Stevenson, Yu Chang and Hilary Tann travel to Paul MacNeil’s boathouse retreat on Onawa Lake expressly to “live renku” for a long weekend.  These are in-the-moment times, treasured times, and welcome breaks from her other lives as college music professor and composer (www.hilarytann.com).

Barbara A Taylor: Each day demands that I write and that my fingers touch and feel the earth. My haiku and short form poems have appeared in many international journals and anthologies online and in print. Renga/renku writing challenges my creativity, spontaneity and patience. The collaborative pathway to a whole poem is always illuminating, enriching, and mostly satisfying. I live on a mountain ridge in the Rainbow Region of northern NSW, Australia. My diverse poems with audio are at http://batsword.tripod.com

vincent tripi

Mitzi Hughes Trout

Charles Trumbull

Tateshi Tsukamoto: I have been writing renku and haiku for 30 years in Japanese and nearly 20 years in English. I am a representative of AIR now. It is my sincere desire to communicate with people in many parts of the world through English renku.

Yoshiko Uchiyama started renku through meeting  Kris Kondo in the mid 90s. She also participated in the Isehara Renku Group, and went on to be an active member in Shinku Fukuda’s Milky Way Renku group. She opened her house for AIR Renku meetings for over a decade.

Lequita Vance

Bette Norcross Wappner enjoys writing haiku poetry and incorporating it into her water-based woodblock prints, creating simple, English language contemporary surimono (a Japanese term used in the ukiyo-e era for unique woodblock haiku prints).  She also enjoys writing collaborative linked verse renku poetry.  Bette lives in Kentucky, USA.  http://surimono-garden.blogspot.com/

Michael Dylan Welch is a widely published poet and first vice president of the Haiku Society of America. He first wrote renku around 1990, and attended the 1992 Renku North America tour in San Francisco. In 1992, he cowrote the first rengay, invented by Garry Gay, and his essays on rengay popularized this renku spin-off. Michael has an extensive rengay page at http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/rengay and other linked verse at http://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/collaborations. In 1997, his article in Frogpond first began to popularize tan-renga. Michael believes that the responsive and spontaneous writing skills necessary for linked verse are essential to learning haiku.

Donna West works with Rachel Sutton-Spence and Michiko Kaneko at the University of Bristol on a research project exploring metaphor in creative sign language and sign language poetry (see www.bristol.ac.uk/bslpoetryanthology).  She learned about haiku, and sign language haiku through Dr Kaneko’s doctoral work and the first BSL haiku festival (www.bslhaiku.co.uk).  She fell in love with sign language renga through working with Deaf poets at the Bristol Sign Poetry Festival 2010.

Mary White: I live in Dublin, Ireland.  Two years ago I met Norman Darlington at a reading by Bruce Ross in Dublin and shortly afterwards he invited me to join in a Renku on Facebook and then The Renku Group. It has been a wonderful learning experience and it really sharpens the nib for writing. I love the immediacy and fun in interacting with other Renku poets. My Haiku composition has improved and last night my acapella group put one of my Haiku to music!

Josh Wikoff spent his childhood and young adulthood on a commune, an Indian reservation, a sailboat, in Central America and on more than one couch.  Now married with 2 daughters and 2 dogs, he lives in Northern California where he’s slightly more settled. Josh especially enjoys linked forms for the social aspect of their composition and, often, a fresh, multicultural diversity of imagery.

Alison Williams lives on the south coast of England and works as a librarian in a university. She enjoys the elements of surprise and synergy in collaborative writing of various kinds including renga/renku. She is delighted with all the opportunities for international communication, collaboration and creativity that the internet offers.

Paul O Williams

Jim Wilson

Sheila Windsor: Having taken part in the first renku to be published in Ireland and the first published in Sweden was gratifying yet, for me, the abiding gift, with all collaborative creations whether in my contemporary visual art practice or in any form of writing, is the relationships forged and developed, sometimes over years. Solo practice and collaboration inform, expand and enrich each other and all of life. I am deeply grateful.

Nate Wright is a quiet young man contented with his life, and the people he shares it with. He turned to haiku and renku at a young age, as a way to share memories and lifetimes with people from across the world. Drawn to renku first by a love for its simplicity and clarity with which it tells its many tales of life, and then to the many people and cultures that make it truly one of the greatest poetic movements of this century. He currently resides in southern California, with his family, and their lazy but lovable mutt, fang.

Eiko Yachimoto: I always liked language study. My major in young college days in Tokyo was Russian. I also love literature, especially poetry. I find bilingual renku to be a field in which language and literature are closely knit together. In my late thirties I became a student again, this time, of the English Department, University of Minnesota and fell in love with writing poems and essays in the English language. I am entering my old age with a dream: ‘May we, through our poetic collaboration all over the world, regain that renowned communal power of language.’ I have been a member of AIR for 15 years now, and recently edited the second anthology of the group: Wind Arrow 2, a shisan anthology.

Virginia Brady Young

Nobuyuki Yuasa: By profession, I am a John Donne scholar and have translated his complete poetic works into Japanese. I also translated Basho, Issa, and Ryokan into English. I began writing renku only five years ago, so regard myself a novice in this mysterious art. Renku, for me, is a way of bringing human hearts together, for: each member must hearken to other hearts while making a unique contribution towards a harmonious whole. I belong to a group called AIR, which meets bimonthly and writes renku simultaneously in Japanese and English. This is an arduous task, but we enjoy it.

Fabrizio Zamero: I’m a teacher of literature in an Italian secondary school. I’ve had twenty year’s experience in contemporary dance, both as an interpreter and a choreographer. Right now I’m engaged in contemporary art projects. Of renga/renku I love the sharp precision of the form that paradoxically, leads to an always unpredictable beauty.

Journal of Renga & Renku

This exciting new journal is devoted to all aspects of renga and renku. It is published and edited by Norman Darlington and Moira Richards, and launched at the end of  2010. It includes scholarly articles, poems, discussions, contests, critiques and more.

Journal of Renga & Renku includes a variety of content that will interest Asian Studies scholars as well as teachers and students of English literature/poetry; we believe it will also be of interest to poets experimenting with the writing of renku in a number of languages around the world today, and to practitioners exploring aspects of renku and its za as an educational/social/therapeutic tool.

Send an email rengarenku@gmail.com to sign up for notices of our progress reports, calls for content, and other news about Journal of Renga & Renku.

Haikai Talk is a place for active engagement – for debate, drafting, and critique. It is not intended principally as a notice board for links to external projects.

Haikai Talk is dedicated to literature – to creative writing and academic excellence.

To join us, go to groups.yahoo.com/group/haikaitalk and follow the simple joining instructions.

The Plenitude of Emptiness
hortensia anderson : collected haibun
with an introduction by Jim Kacian

Darlington Richards are proud to announce the launch of their first title, containing 115 haibun from this master of the poetic form which combines distilled, essentialised prose with haiku:

“If haibun didn’t exist, it’s possible that Hortensia Anderson would have had to invent it” —Jim Kacian

“[Hortensia's] haibun are executed in brief, delicate brushstrokes that skilfully weave the ethereal and wistful through the harsh realities of life” —Maria Steyn

This title is available for preview and purchase here from Lulu.com.

Selected reviews:

“I have my copy already dog-eared and it is brand new! The haibun are potent and profoundly moving. This is a must-read. Get this book!” —Denis M. Garrison, poet, writer, editor, publisher: The MET Press

“I have tried to read Hortensia’s haibun with a critical discerning eye but I cannot. Again and always, the flow of her words and the intense images they allow me to create pull me under and away into a riptide of emotions.” —Jane Reichhold, poet, writer, editor, publisher: AHA Books

“The term ‘essential reading’ is horribly overused, but this book really is essential reading for anyone interested in writing the best, direct, real haibun being written today.” —Alan Summers, renga poet-in-residence for the City of Hull