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Journal of Renga & Renku | 1

JRR1 December 2010

Journal of

Renga & Renku Issue 1, December 2010

Publisher Darlington Richards South Africa and Ireland www.darlingtonrichards.com

Editors

Moira Richards Norman Darlington

Design and layout

Norman Darlington

Interior artwork John Parsons

Back cover

Diane Mayr

Online sales www.darlingtonrichards.com/jrr

Printed

on three continents using print-on-demand technology by Lulu.com

Address all enquiries to

[email protected] ISSN 2220–5691

—— Contents —— Editorial .......................................................................... 2

Shisan – four 12-verse poems ....................................... Flow of the Springtide, Billows of Pear Blossoms, Verlorene Zeit / Lost Time, Kinderland so fern / Childhood’s Land so Distant

5

Essay: Renku – A Baby Thrown Out with the Bath Water: A Start of Reappraising Shiki by Susumu Takiguchi ........

14

Nijūin – six 20-verse poems ............................................ A Mud Turtle Crawling to a Longbill, Paper Fan, Adrift with her Dreams, The Beat of Drakes Drum, Mending Nets, Pannonia

19

Essay: Gradus ad Mount Tsukuba: An Introduction to the Culture of Japanese Linked Verse by H. Mack Horton ......

34

Jūnichō – four 12-verse poems ....................................... Winter Fields, Sera d'Estate / Summer Evening, The Zen Master Trips, The Marsh Frog

51

Essay: The Mechanics of the White Space (or Basho Cranks-up the Action) by John E. Carley ...........................

57

Kasen – eight 36-verse poems ......................................... Impromptu at Fukagawa, The Lye Tub, February has come, Pine and Pond, Winter Clarity, Knee Deep in Dandelions, Dusk over Dry Grass, Windswept Walk

61

Essay: Longer Renku: The Hyakuin of 100 Stanzas by William J. Higginson ..........................................................

96

Half-kasen – an 18-verse poem ..................................... Umbrella Handles

103

Yotsumono – a four-verse poem .................................... в сердце пиона / in the heart of a peony

108

Essay: The Alchemy of Live Renku by Christopher Herold ..................................................................................

109

Live renku – one 12-verse, and one 18-verse poem .... Our New Nano, Darkening Skies

111

Book reviews ...................................................................... Birds on a Wire, book of days, Under the Roan Cliffs, Haikai Poetics

119

Triparshva – fourteen 22-verse poems .......................... including the winner of the 2010 JRR renku contest, The Tiniest Pebble, a triparshva by William Sorlien, John Merryfield, Sandra Simpson, Linda Papanicolaou and Shinjuku Rollingstone. Also, The First Warm Day, Dusty Skechers, Kettle Song, Summer Stars, After the campfire, Crop Circles, Weave of Dreams, Here’s Gratitude, Above the Treetops, Last Summer’s Bushfire, Shards of Coloured Glass, Dream of Birds, Last Interview

131

Bibliography of renga and renku .................................. 147

Report: Four Sign Language Renga by Donna West and Rachel Sutton-Spence ........................................................

153

Contributors and Acknowledgements ....................... 158

The JRR Crossword ..................................................... 168

2 | Journal of Renga & Renku

JRR1 December 2010

Editorial Welcome to the first issue of Journal of Renga & Renku and its more than 170 pages of poetry and articles about the genre. We’ve been a year in the making and you’ll surely be as thrilled with the finished product as we are. The publication of JRR1 coincides with the publication in Japan of Wind Arrow 2, the second collection of renku by the Association for International Renku (AIR). By way of throwing a book launch party for our Japanese friends, we open our journal with one of the shisan from their very beautiful book. More about WA2 in the bibliography section, and contact Eiko Yachimoto [email protected] for purchase details. Another three shisan, two in both German and English, and then Susumu Takiguchi’s essay on the influences of Western literature that informed Masaoka Shiki’s creation of a new, modern poetic form from the old hokku. The essay explores the effects that Shiki’s ignorance of haikai-no-renga had on both his new haiku form, and on the entire genre of renku poetry that preceded him. In the nijūin grouping you’ll find six examples of the form. The first, A Mud Turtle Crawling to a Longbill, was also composed by the members of AIR and is presented in Japanese and English. The second, Paper Fan, is subtitled: Three modern poets write a renku with Issa. It’s accompanied by a few pages of notes from, inter alia, David Lanoue – which will probably clue you in as to how the old man managed to breach the two-century gap with his fellow poets. Mack Horton, professor of Premodern Japanese Literature & Culture, completed An Introduction to the Culture of Japanese Linked Verse right at the time we opened our call for JRR content. His fourteen-page overview of the history and context of the genre is, as he suggested to us then, just the thing for an inaugural publication. Next, four jūnichō. One with a humourous close reading by the sabaki, one written in Italian and English and one devoted entirely to frogs. A themed renku, gasp!? – you decide. John Carley cranks up the action in an explication of Bashō’s scent or nioizuke technique for verse-linking. We’d planned to publish two of Carley’s nuts ‘n bolts renku pieces but opted, in the end, to save the second for JRR2. Until then, there’s plenty more from John on his Renku Reckoner website here www.renkureckoner.co.uk Eight kasen follow, two of which are translations of old Bashō poems and a third, the translation of an ‘imaginary’ kasen created with verses written by three famous Japanese haiku poets, all dead at the time of its composition. All three kasen have extensive notes and commentary as does the Miner-style solo kasen from Keith Abbott. Lots here to inform and enhance your readings of these and the other poems in the section which ends with a rather fun and very well-travelled kasen sent us by Michael Dylan Welch. Our journal wouldn’t have been complete without a contribution from the late Bill Higginson and we’re very happy to have helped ‘rediscover’ an essay that was lost in the transfer of his online archive of work to its new renku home here: www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku It’s essential to the understanding and appreciation of the genre, as we discover renku outside of Japan, to maintain close contact with poets who are creating the poetry in its country, language and culture of origin. The half-kasen, Umbrella Handles, was written by the members of AIR, published in Wind Arrow 1, and we’ve included a comprehensive reading and critique of the piece and its verse linkages by Mr Ichiyo Shimizu.


JRR1 December 2010

The yotsumono is a very short renku form proposed recently by John Carley. The jury is still out as to whether it can actually stand as poem-on-its-own or whether it is more effective as renku practice/exercise. There’s more on the form at John’s Renku Reckoner website and we present here, an example in both Russian and English for your deciding. Christopher Herold writes with enthusiasm about composing renku live, rather than via post or email and we follow his essay with two live renku that Norman led – one in India, one in England. Both include photographs and report-backs enough to make those of us who’ve not, wishful for the face-to-face experience. We’ve given space to full reviews of four renku books and also, further on, to an extensive annotated bibliography of books about the genre. Despite covering almost 70 publications, the two sections are still very much works in progress and we welcome your additions to both – they’ll be continued and expanded through future issues of Journal of Renga & Renku. Our first renku contest honoured the triparshva form since it was, after all, designed by Norman Darlington and who better to judge a favourite? We received a serendipitous 22 entries for the contest (triparshva have 22 verses) and publish here 14 examples, many of which were contest entries – but not all; one of the entry criteria was that the poem had not been contributed to or commented on by either of the judges during or after its composing. How to sequence 14 triparshva? We began at the season of the winning poem’s hokku and followed it into an intensification of summer’s heat, through autumn and icy winter, ending with a cheerful froth of plum blossom. Flip through the section, reading only the hokku, and see how happily these triparshva stand together. Donna West (research assistant: Metaphor in Creative Sign Language) and Rachel Sutton-Spence (senior lecturer with special interest in sign language poetry) report on the Bristol Sign Poetry Festival and refer you to the internet to watch four amazing YouTube videos. With Alan Summers’ guidance, deaf community members from Europe, Asia and Africa spent two days creating and recording these signed, live-performed renga poems. Quoting Alan, “None had ever worked with renga and many had never engaged with signed poetry before. Four renga poems were created, and performed to a packed audience at the Bristol Sign Poetry Festival, showcasing their skills and encouraging interest in renga in the wider Deaf community.” We close with introductions to the almost 150 contributors to the first issue of Journal of Renga & Renku. We sincerely appreciate every one of you and your help towards the realisation of our dream. By way of thanks to you and other readers, a renku crossword puzzle – the answers you’ll find on the Darlington Richards website. A chance conversation led very happily to John Parsons, fine artist, calligrapher and stone carver who seemed to us to evoke, perfectly, the sense of renku poetry with his “controlled accident” drawings which we’ve reproduced throughout the journal. And last, what would a back cover be without a bit of light-hearted fun? We couldn’t resist Diane Mayr’s haiga – enjoy!

Moira Richards Norman Darlington


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JRR1 December 2010

Shisan Twelve stanzas on four sides

3 : 3 : 3 : 3 Design by Kaoru Kubota

Flow of the Springtide ............................................................................................................................................ by Sosui (Nobuyuki Yuasa), Kris Kondo, Tateshi Tsukamoto, Kikuyo Sugiura, Eiko Yachimoto, and Yoshiko Uchiyama, with a hokku by Yosa Buson (1716-1783)

7

Billows of Pear Blossoms ........................................................................................................................................ by Eiko Yachimoto and Hortensia Anderson

Tomegaki by Eiko Yachimoto

8

Verlorene Zeit / Time Lost .................................................................................................................................. by Ramona Linke and Gabriele Reinhard. English translation by Norman Darlington

10

Kinderland so fern / Childhood’s Land so Distant ............................................................................................. by Ramona Linke and Gabriele Reinhard. English translation by Norman Darlington

12


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JRR1 December 2010

Flow of the Springtide A shisan by the Association for International Renku

Side 1 waves of the springtide flowing along the pillow — strings of tangled hair white blossoms faintly glow in a tiny walled garden

the door open to a waiting carriage the horses’ whinnying Side 2 from the jack-in-the-box out pops Pikachu the smell of acetylene at my nose and on my feet the coolness of geta obi pattern for happy occasions 7 treasures in 7 circles

Side 3 jizobon festival an ancient stone cave survived the earthquake on the all-night jazz players the morning rises my broken heart after a long sigh and deep grief drowned in liquor Side 4 complaining and murmuring yet my computer goes on at the distant end of the withered grassland a house on the hill through a latticework window a will-o’-the wisp wavering

I proposed to use a hokku by Buson to start our shisan. I am fond of using a classical hokku to start a modern renku because it gives us a wonderful sense of the presence of a classical poet sitting with us. The hokku which I had chosen was my favorite poem. It describes the strings of tangled hair that run along the pillow like a stream. Buson compares this to the flow of springtime, thus giving a concrete image to an abstract idea, and at the same time, giving a depth to a concrete image. The poem has some sexual suggestiveness, which is appropriate to the spring season. I think my proposal was welcomed by my fellow poets. —Sosui Yuasa (Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Participating poets and verse allocation: Yosa Buson 1716-1783: 1 Sosui Yuasa, sabaki: 2 Kris Kondo: 3, 8 Tateshi Tsukamoto: 4, 9 Kikuyo Sugiura: 5, 10 Eiko Yachimoto: 6, 11 Yoshiko Uchiyama: 7, 12 Started at Uchiyama’s on March 29 and completed on April 25, 2007


JRR1 December 2010

Billows of Pear Blossoms A spring shisan

Side 1 morning breeze– billows of pear blossoms float through the sky on a fallen antler last night's warm rain one by one rusty nails gathered from the bicycle path Side 2 mosaic pieces dissolve into a Turner scene he photographs her naked body out of focus a star is born ...a billion star years away

Side 3 on the dewy field crickets stopped in unison moonstruck Obon dancers the temple bell sounds a purple mountain emerges from clouds for a journeying monk Side 4 we cast shadows on pure white snow no single drop of the deepest ocean exempt from tides drowsy children smile at fairy tale time

Participating poets and verse allocation: Hortensia Anderson: 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 Eiko Yachimoto, sabaki: 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 Verse 11 after Rachel Carson Verse 12: Hortensia Anderson and Eiko Yachimoto Started 21 March, 2010 Completed 28 April, 2010


JRR1 December 2010

Billows of Pear Blossoms – Tomegaki

I have written, or been involved in the creation of more than 150 shisan during the past ten years. It is only this summer, though, that I came to realize what we do resembles building a house. We build houses to live there with people dear to us. We write a renku observing old teachings so that the renku world we create will be our special place which we happily share. I would like to emphasize that most of the old teachings, both in architecture and in renku writing, have stood the test of time. I know I will be coming back to Billows of Pear Blossoms again and again as if to appreciate a nook in the mottled light, a touch of specific design or to breathe in a peculiar scent of the air filling a childhood house. Just like in architecture, we start with a conceptual design. In case of a shisan, there are four rooms, each representing one season. Unlike in a kasen, the last room of a shisan is not necessarily one of the spring season. The season flows in accordance with nature starting from the season clearly expressed in a hokku. Thus a hokku always determines the seasons of all rooms. Hortensia wrote a spring blossom hokku determining our last to be a winter folio. The moon in Billows of Pear Blossom shines almost in the middle at a peak of a wave that rose in the previous folio and the rest of the autumn folio was written flowingly adding details. The challenge came after Hortensia’s pure winter scene. Old teachings have been teaching us that it must be a position for the glorious blossom. In a shisan a sabaki can determine whether the position be filled with the blossom of the allotted season, in our case, with a winter blossom or it be dedicated to a verse as dignified as the blossom in this position. Having chosen the pear blossom for our spring hokku, I strived to contend the position with the latter. I have a great respect for Rachel Carson. She has the magic of conveying to us her sense of wonder and her scientific knowledge in the most swaying prose writing. Some of her teachings and words have been naturalized in me over the years. Having noticed we have not had any verse on the ocean, I have written v11 based on my fuzzy memory. The renku being the poem of celebrating the life force, the tide in this position is righteously glorious in my eyes. Last but not least I am so grateful to Hortensia who loves renku as much as I do. I am glad we crafted ageku together and it is a verse on a nursery! Eiko Yachimoto Yokosuka City, Japan


JRR1 December 2010

Renku – A Baby Thrown Out with the Bath Water A Start of Reappraising Shiki

Susumu Takiguchi Chairman, The World Haiku Club

When the absolute majority think in one particular way it is always difficult for the minority to voice their views against it. If the majority “worship” that particular way, be it polity, war effort or an individual person, it is practically impossible to do so. Whistle blowers, conscientious objectors, Juror number 8 of the 12 Angry Men, Sir Winston Churchill before the British nation was convinced of the Nazi threat, Galileo Galilei and, of course, Jesus Christ all had tough time, often having a grizzly end. Human history is inundated with examples of this. Once such crazy icon-worship happens the icon itself is made a semi-god and therefore deemed infallible, with the result that their followers, who are most people, become fanatical and intolerant of anybody who deviates an inch from them. However, it becomes necessary sometimes for someone to stand up and become an “iconoclast” for the good not only of that minority but of everyone else, and even of the worshipped icon itself. This permeates all areas of human activity and haiku is no exception. Many haiku masters and famous commentators are revered like religious figures, ranging from Basho, of course, Santoka, and R. H. Blyth to the still living masters and distinguished commentators who will remain nameless in this essay. (Haiku itself has been made an object of worship but this particular topic shall not detain us here.)

One such figure revered and worshipped by all is Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902). The main reason for this reverence and icon-worship for him is that he was a moderniser and reformer of Japanese poetry, tanka and haiku, quite apart from the genius that he was or the brilliant life he lived and the tragic death he died. I will admit that I am one of his more-objectively-orientated ‘worshippers’. However, I also believe that we should give a critical reappraisal of what he did or did not, and its effects on haiku and other literary genres just like any other great figures needing and more importantly deserving such reappraisal. A hundred and forty-three years have passed since his birth, a hundred and eight since his death. It is time for the first reassessment of him.

One of the most obvious and least debated issues needing reappraisal is of course Shiki’s condemnation of Renku. It all but practically killed Renku until recently when this valuable genre was revived and has begun to make a steady recovery and development. This issue has been put under the carpet, or at least camouflaged under the guise of his famous haiku kakushin (haiku reform) for so long that no one dares to challenge the incredible authority and reputation which have decorated this great man even if it is blatantly obvious that he did something seriously wrong regarding Renku, except perhaps for understandable grumbling from the Renku poets. What little criticism there has been against Shiki’s mistake seems to be less than even cursory and hesitant and implicitly or explicitly tends to make apologies for Shiki rather than presenting any meaningful debate.

It was in 1893 that Shiki wrote the famous (this adjective should have by now been ‘notorious’ instead!) article in the Nippon newspaper dated 22 February Meiji 26 (1893). The article was an instalment of a serial entitled Basho Zatsudan (Casual Talks on Basho) and took the shape of questions and answers, whereby an anonymous (i.e. imaginary) person poses critical questions and Shiki presents his thoughts and observations in his answers to them. Let us see the crucial bits:


JRR1 December 2010

Gradus ad Mount Tsukuba An Introduction to the Culture of Japanese Linked Verse

H. Mack Horton

Linked verse was one of the most important literary arts in premodern Japan.1 Courtiers, warriors, and commoners alike were devoted to linking alternate seventeen- and fourteen-syllable verses into long series, so much so that the number of preserved linked-verse sequences dwarfs the total number of surviving premodern waka, the classic thirty-one-morae courtly poetic form, in all twenty-one imperial anthologies (chokusenshû).2 Some of Japan's greatest poetic figures, most notably Sôgi and Bashô, were practitioners of varieties of the linked-verse art, and its opening verse, the hokku, gave rise to what is now the most famous of all traditional Japanese poetic forms, the haiku. But throughout its history, linked verse has been the marked term, the subsidiary "other" to courtly waka, traditionally viewed as the pinnacle of Japanese literary creativity.3 The court poetic anthologies that were imperially commissioned from the 10th through the 15th centuries are devoted almost entirely to waka, and when courtiers of the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura periods (1185-1333) set out to produce their most lasting work, it was waka that they composed. But linked verses survive from the dawn of written Japanese poetic history, and the line of development of the genre has been one of continual dialogue and shifting ratios between high and low aesthetic desiderata, oral and written expression, and harmonization and competition.4 What follows is a short introduction to the history and practice of this remarkable art form, focusing in particular on the interaction of the labile relationship through time between the "elegant" (ga) and the "mundane" (zoku). The art of linking has been an essential characteristic of Japanese poetry since its first written manifestations. The very sobriquet of the genre, the "Way of Tsukuba," derives from an exchange in Japan's earliest extant myth-history, Kojiki of 712 C.E., composed when Prince Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, on a tour of conquest through the eastland, inquired of his keeper of the fires how long their campaign had lasted:

While sojourning at the palace of Sakaori, the prince sang this song:

niibari Since passing

tsukuba o sugite Niibari and Tsukuba,

iku yo ka netsuru how many nights have we slept?

1 For a concise introduction to the rules of orthodox linked verse (ushin renga), see Konishi, Sôgi. This was partially translated and adapted in English by Cook and Brazell. For a longer treatment in English, see Carter, The Road to Komatsubara and Miner, Japanese Linked Verse, though the latter must be read in concert with Ramirez-Christensen, "The Essential Parameters of Linked Poetry." In Japanese, see in particular Kaneko, Renga sôron. 2 Konishi, Sôgi, 63. 3 Waka in its larger sense means "Japanese poetry" of any type, in contradistinction to poetry in Chinese (kanshi), but it is usually used in reference to the thirty-one-morae variety, also referred to as tanka or uta. 4 On these dialectics in China and Japan, see Martin, Pigeot, and Chemla, ed., Du divertissement dans la Chine et le Japon anciens.


JRR1 December 2010

Commentary on Dusk Over Dry Grass with a Little History of Related Techniques

Keith Kumasen Abbott

In writing my second (and apparently last) solo composition of a kasen or haikai no renga, formally called a dogukin, I cut my time down to two years worth of composition from two and half years for the first solo, Twisty Chunks. So there was progress! Slow, yes, but progress. By this time, the mid-1980s, I had learned even more about the complex rules of writing one of these verses, and also had written more with friends, providing even more revealing and instructive experiences. Here are some leisurely and somewhat random remarks about my techniques and literary adventures.

One of the aspects of Japanese language is the many homonyms and how poets freely play with these in their linked verses. So I loosened my rules for using the same words or the same sounds, when these words were altered by meaning or circumstances. In Dusk Over Dry Grass I used “coat of paint”, “paint job” and “painters” as being three different aspects and/or actions inside different situations. The first repetition happens in the same stanza, and seems to break the usual rules.

on the cross bar under a chair the dust has been disturbed by his feet 7 the wall where the dinghy used to lean needs a new coat of paint 8

the wall where the dinghy used to lean needs a new coat of paint early morning fog stacked beside the shed door unsorted paint cans 9

early morning fog stacked beside the shed door unsorted paint cans “Now that I’ve sold all my junk I can see what stuff owns me.” 10

In One Hundred Frogs under “Rules and Restrictions” Hiroaki Sato remarks on several instances of forbidden repetition, of particular words, syntax or images, but how some are okay if placed far enough apart or provide variation.


JRR1 December 2010

Book Reviews

Birds on a Wire: A Renga ’Round Town .......................................................................................................... by J. Patrick Lewis and Paul B. Janeczko, with illustrations by Gary Lippincott

120

book of days ......................................................................................................................................................... by Linda France

123

Under the Roan Cliffs: A Collection Of Renga, 1994 – 2001......................................................................... by Lorraine E. Harr and Brad Wolthers

125

Haikai Poetics: Buson, Kitō & the Interpretation of Renku Poetry ................................................................ by Herbert Jonsson

127


JRR1 December 2010

Triparshva Twenty-two stanzas on three sides

6 : 10 : 6 Design by Norman Darlington

* * * Winner of the 2010 JRR Renku Contest * * * The Tiniest Pebble ................................................................................................................................................ by William Sorlien, John Merryfield, Sandra Simpson, Linda Papanicolaou and Shinjuku Rollingstone

135

The First Warm Day .......................................................................................................................................... by Barbara A. Taylor, Colin Stewart Jones, Genevieve Osborne, John Carley (sabaki), Sandra Simpson, and William Sorlien

136

Dusty Skechers ..................................................................................................................................................... by Valeria Simonova-Cecon (sabaki), Svetlana Kiolo, and Veronika Ikonnikova

137

Kettle Song .......................................................................................................................................................... by Herbert Jonsson (sabaki), Sheila Windsor, John Carley, and Norman Darlington

138

Summer Stars ....................................................................................................................................................... by Dick Pettit and Francis Attard

139

After the campfire.................................................................................................................................................. by Paul Mercken (sabaki), Vanessa Proctor, and Alison Williams

140

Crop Circles ......................................................................................................................................................... by Sheila Windsor

141

Weave of Dreams ................................................................................................................................................. by Sheila Windsor and Ron C. Moss

142

Here’s Gratitude.................................................................................................................................................... by John Stevenson (sabaki), Hilary Tann, Paul MacNeil, and Yu Chang

143

Above the Treetops ............................................................................................................................................... by Dick Pettit and Francis Attard

144

Last Summer’s Bushfire ....................................................................................................................................... by Lynette Arden (sabaki), Marilyn Linn, and Alex Ask

145

Shards of Coloured Glass .................................................................................................................................... by Origa, Tomislav Maretić, Sprite (Claire Chatelet), Nate Wright, and Mary White

146

Dream of Birds ..................................................................................................................................................... by Mary White (sabaki), Ashley Capes, Origa and Tomislav Maretić

147

Last Interview ....................................................................................................................................................... by Sprite (Claire Chatelet, sabaki), Emma Jolivet and Joseph Samson

148


JRR1 December 2010

A Bibliography of Renga and Renku

Compiled by the Editors

Blyth, RH. Haiku, Vol. I, Eastern Culture. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1949. The Renku chapter includes an annotated translation of Hatsushigure (The Kite's Feathers) by Bashō et al. Bownas, Geoffrey & Anthony Thwaite, translators. The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse. Penguin: Baltimore, 1964. Includes an unannotated translation of Hatsushigure (The Kite's Feathers). No Japanese. Cana, Maeda, translator. Monkey's Raincoat. New York: Mushinsha-Grossman, 1973. Annotated translation of the four renku from the first Sarumino (Monkey’s Raincoat, 1690) collection: Hatsushigure (Winter’s First Shower), Natsu no Tsuki (Summer Moon), Kirigirisu (Katydid), and Ume Wakana (Plum Young Herbs). Verses fully annotated and explained. Includes rōmaji. Eiko Yachimoto & John Carley’s translation of Kirigirisu appears elsewhere in JRR1 under the title, The Lye Tub. Carley, John. The Renku Reckoner. www.renkureckoner.co.uk. Online comprehensive introduction to the genre and its different forms with examples. Carter, Steven D, translator. Sōgi in the East Country. Shirakawa Kikō. Sophia University in Monumenta Nipponica Vol 42, No 2, 1987. The complete 1468 poem with introduction, annotations and rōmaji. Participants: Sōgi and four others. Carter, Steven D, translator. Three Poets at Yuyama. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1983. Introduction, biographical material and appreciation of Yuyama sangin hyakuin, the 1491 hyakuin composed by Sōgi, Shōhaku and Sōchō. Annotated translation with rōmaji on facing pages. Carter, Steven D, translator. The Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading of the Renga Hyakuin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Council on East Asian Studies, 1987. Introduction, biographical material and appreciation of the first of the two solo poems composed by Sōgi (this one in 1492 during his 72nd year), Dokugin Komatsubara. Includes a translation of Shōhaku’s 1501 ‘renga rulebook’. Carter, Steven D, editor and translator. Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Includes an annotated translation of the Bashō Natsu no Tsuki (Summer Moon). Crowley, Cheryl A. Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bashō revival. Leiden: Brill, 2007. A full artistic, rather than just literary, biography of Buson. Includes three annotated translations (rōmaji only included): Shiragiku ni (On the white chrysanthemums) from the collection Kono hotori: Ichiya shi kasen (Around here: Four kasen in one night, 1773), Botan chirite (Peony petals scatter) one of the two kasen in Momosumomo (Peaches and plums, 1780), and Na no hana ya (Rape-flowers) from Mukashi o ima (The Past as Now, 1774). Donegan, Patricia & Yoshie Ishibashi, editors and translators. Chiyo-ni: Woman Haiku Master. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co, 1998. A history of this contemporary of Bashō’s with 30 pages in the Renga chapter containing translations of two short (12 verse) renku: Tai Kayo Chiyo-jo (For Chiyo-jo of Kaga) written at Ise in 1725 and Asagao ya (The Middle of a Dream, 1755) and a kasen, Hototogisu from Himenosbiki (The Princess Ceremony, 1726). All accompanied by notes, rōmaji and the original Japanese. Donegan, Patricia. Haiku: Asian arts & crafts for creative kids. Boston: Tuttle, 2003. Contains a ten-page chapter on writing renga including topic checklist, mini-kiyose, and multi-season charts for a Shisan, as well as examples and explanatory text. Drake, Christopher, translator. Copying Bird Calls: A Hundred Linked Haikai by Nishiyama Sōin (1605-1682). Hollywood, CA: highmoonoon, 2000. Annotated translation, no Japanese. Drake, Christopher, translator. Haikai on Love: A Hundred-Verse Linked Sequence by Matsuki Tantan (1674-1761). Hollywood, CA: highmoonoon, 2000. Annotated translation of a solo hyakuin that has ‘love’ as topic for every verse and also, replaces ‘moon’ and ‘blossom’ verses with ‘stars’ and ‘pines’ respectively. No Japanese.

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