About haibun-renga: a brief position paper March 2012 - Beverley George:

About haibun-renga: a brief position paper March 2012 - Beverley George:

Brief History
Jeffrey Harpeng, who has held a long-term interest in renga, explains in his preface to the haibun-renga, Four Tellings:
‘In December 2007, Patricia Prime, in her role as correspondent for Haibun Today, contacted me and after a flurry of emails I suggested a renga/haibun, offering a game plan that Jeffrey Woodward simplified. […] Thanks to his energy Quartet (1) was begun and completed in Jan 08.

The energy and sheer heady pleasure of that project was still welling and so after Haiku Aotearoa [2008] the present collusion of haibuneers; a Kiwi and Aussie and two Auskiwis blogged their way throught the following sequence.’

The writing of the sequence Four Tellings: a haibun sequence (2) by Owen Bullock, Joanna Preston, Jeffrey Harpeng and Beverley George, was co-ordinated by Joanna Preston on WordPress. I also found Joanna’s guiding comments during the process very helpful.

Renga has a long and divergent history. This subset, haibun-renga, devised by Jeffrey Harpeng with Jeffrey Woodward, has no clear antecedent of which I am aware. Hence it seems worthwhile to set down its brief history, to circumvent confusion later, and to attribute it accurately to those who started it, which is apparently the four authors of Quartet: a string of haibun in four voices.

A review by Joanna Preston of Quartet is available on Haibun Today
http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com.au/2008/07/review-of-quartet-string-of-haibun-in.html

In a phone call I made to Jeffrey Harpeng he confirmed that the schema he devised is loosely based on kasen renga. This is a genre I had previously published in Yellow Moon, judged, though with strict adherence to the structure, by Janice Bostok. As Four Tellings is out of print, I obtained permission from Jeffrey Harpeng, Joanna Preston and Owen Bullock to photocopy it for teaching purposes.

A review by Patricia Prime of Four Tellings is available on Simply Haikuhttp://haibuntoday.blogspot.com.au/2009/02/review-of-four-tellings.html

Another review, brief but rather lovely, is available here
http://www.librarything.com/work/7989946/reviews/

In October 2011, I gave a workshop for the Bottlebrush Tanka Group, based in Sydney,
and included in the programme, a workshop on haibun-renga, using Four Tellings as an example. Members were enthused and subsequently produced two printed examples of haibun-renga. The current leader of Bottlebrush is Marilyn Humbert. Thanks to email, Jan Foster, founder of Bottlebrush who now lives in Geelong and leads the Breathstream Group, was able to participate actively too.

The haibun-renga Sunbeams in a Jar, 2011, was written by Marilyn Humbert, Lois Holland, Merle Connolly and Maria Encarncao. Small Packages, 2011 was written by Dorothy Walker, Jan Foster, Keitha Keyes and Marilyn Humbert. Both are a delight to read

Haibun-renga is meeting with rapidly growing enthusiasm. As at March 2012, one is in progress between Beverley George, Margaret Grace, Jan Foster and Lynette Arden; another between Jan Foster, Keitha Keyes, Marilyn Humbert and Anne Benjamin; and Lynette Arden is now writing this genre with the Bindii Tanka Group in South Australia.


Writing Haibun-Renga
Haibun is haiku-like prose and is usually written in present tense for lightness and immediacy.
Although greatly admired in Bashō’s day, haibun is apparently not widely written in Japan currently, a notable exception being the Genjuan competition, adminstered by Nobuyuki Yuasa and Stephen Gill in Kyōto.

In the US, haibun is often written in the form of one paragraph and one haiku but I see no Japanese precedent for this and believe it can be written at any length, to suit the writer’s needs, bearing in mind, many journals do set limits on length, for practical reasons.

The really tricky part of haibun-renga, as with other forms of renga, is the link and shift principle. Following the principles of kasen renga, it is required that a specific bird or animal is mentioned only once, and there is no looping back to subjects previously discussed. Seasons are proscribed. The prose should link and move away in a fresh direction. And for the poem three lines should link to two; and two to three. The three or two lines should advance what information has preceded them; not repeat it.

Jane Reichhold writes: “If the prose closes down or reaches a definite conclusion, adding the poem will detract from the story’s impact. The poem has to add to the prose a new dimension, to change the scene, alter the voice of time…” (3)

All very challenging, but great fun.


1) Characteristics of Haibun
It is worth revisiting The Haiku Handbook (4) by W J Higginson for a refresher course on writing haibun itself. I doubt anyone has said it more cogently.
“1. Written in prose, usually concluded with one or more haiku.
2. Brief
3. Abbreviated in syntax; grammar words, sometimes even verbs, are omitted.
4. No explanation of the haiku; the connection between the prose and the haiku is often like
linking in renga.
5. Imagistic: relatively few abstractions or generalizations.
6. Objective: the writer is somewhat detached; maintains an aesthetic distance, even when
describing himself.
7. Humorous: while seriousness and beauty concern the writer, a haibun usually
demonstrates the light touch.

As Ueda says, ‘It is up to the reader to grasp the meaning of the prose, and then of the haiku, and go on to understanding the undercurrents of meaning common to both.’ ”

Janice M Bostok, who was the senior adviser for haiku and related genres in the issues of Yellow Moon I produced and edited 2000-2006 wrote of haibun:
“It is generally considered that a haibun can be a typical diary of a traveller or an inward journey of discovery or insight. Obviously the diary of a person on a pilgrimage may be a combination of both physical and inner travel.” (5)
Janice advocated that the haiku-like prose in the haibun section of Yellow Moon could be accompanied by haiku, tanka, or a haiku-like poem.
In Yellow Moon 14 (6) the haibun section, judged by Vanessa Proctor, included a haibun by Norman Talbot which is liberally, and effectively, interspersed with tanka only. This was in 2003 and preceded the popularisation of ‘tanka prose’ in English of the past several years.

2) Link and Shift in haibun-renga
This is a little trickier in haibun-renga than in other forms of linking because the two and three line poems are separated by prose.
A positive is that while some types of linked verse can seem like clever word-games, haibun-renga can be a conversation with friends, in which the links, inspired by others, can be developed more fully.
There are many exponents of renku or renga who have written valuable guidelines for the practice. The book by Jane Reichhold I have already mentioned also has guidelines that ‘every student of renga’ needs to know and is well worth reading.
Common to all guidelines are the precepts that:
Each link must only refer to the one immediately preceding it and not hark back to the content of previous ones.
The same nouns or verbs should not be used in proximity to each other.
Too many references to the same kind of things should be avoided eg river, sea, lake, pond.

3) Principles of Writing With Others
Again Jane Reichhold’s views are useful. They include reaching a clear idea of what you want to write; leaving glitches and repeat words until the end to discuss, responding in a timely manner, and not withdrawing your own links from the work. [This is unless the renga is mutually disbanded, in which case, by prior agreement, each writer can retrieve their own work.] And, of course, unless you are referring, with acknowledgment, to the work of an old master, or have an express agreement with your writing partners, everything in linked or responsive writing should be new and fresh.
Janice Bostok wrote that one of the potential pitfalls of renga is that it can too readily become ‘desku’ – verses written at the desk, rather than from actual experience, and perhaps that is something we can keep in mind as we battle with shift and link.

It is rewarding to think of renga as a game. One that can be played with mutual enjoyment and the benefits of shared experience.

Schema:
This schema is the one offered by Jeffrey Harpeng to the writers of Four Tellings. It is for four players, coded as A B C D

1 A–3
2 B–Prose+2 (Autumn)
3 C – Prose+3 (Autumn)
4 D–Prose+2 (Autumn)
5 A–Prose+3
6 D–Prose+2
7 B–Prose+3 (Love)
8 A–Prose+2 (Love)
9 C–Prose+3
10 C–Prose+2 (Summer/Winter)
11 A–Prose+3 (Summer/Winter)
12 B–Prose+2
13 D–Prose+3
14 A–Prose+2 (Love)
15 D–Prose+3 (Winter/Summer, Love)
16 C–Prose+2 (Winter/Summer, Moon)
17 B–Prose+3
18 B–2 (Spring)
19 C–3 (Spring, Blossom)
20 D–2 (Spring)

Note: Summer/Winter denotes summer or winter and the following poet stays with the same season. Whichever season was not used in links 10 and 11 is used in links 15, 16.
References:
1Quartet: a string of haibun in four voices by Jeffrey Harpeng, Patricia Prime, Diana Webb and Jeffrey Woodward. Post Pressed 2008
2Four Tellings : a haibun sequence: a collaboration by Owen Bullock (Wahi, New Zealand; Joanna Preston (Christchurch, New Zealand); Jeffrey Harpeng (Brisbane, Australia) and Beverley George (Pearl Beach, Australia) Teneriffe, Post Pressed, 2009
3Reichhold, Jane: Writing and Enjoying Haiku Kodansha, 2002 p.145
ibid pp.135-37
ibid pp.140-141
4Higginson, W J The Haiku Handbook Kodansha, ©1985, 1989 p. 211
5Yellow Moon Issue 11, Winter 2002 p.4
6Yellow Moon Issue 14, Summer 2003 pp.5-6