Hi all, sincere thanks for the many responses to this work in
progress. I am encouraged to try and finish it.

Though the quatrain and tercet are not typical of English language
renga or renku (genres of Japanese linked verse) the movement between
stanzas is informed by that literature. The following is lifted from
the Editor's Intro to the next issue of Simply Haiku, due online on
Monday

(pasted)So what is it that makes renku renku?
In her address to the Global Renku Symposium in Tokyo, October 2000,
the poet Ai Yaziki drew on 'Renku no Fukkatsu to Sono Shorai' - the
position statement advanced by Meiga Higashi in the founding issue of
'Kikan Renku' - widely regarded as the definitive publication of its
type. Master Higashi wrote:

"The linking verse is deduced from the preceding verse but it has no
other logical connection with the leap-over verse. A work is composed
by repeatedly linking a succession of such a verse ad libitum. This
ingenious process of poetry composition was developed indigenously by
our ancestors and has been found in no culture other than Japanese. In
the final analysis, any verse that embodies this characteristic
dynamic should be recognised as renku regardless of its mode and other
principles of composition."1  (end quotes)


Whatever happened to The Nashville Teens?

Best wishes, john e c

1Trans: Fusako Matano. Ed: Barry Hayter