What is Rensaku?

One of the forms we use in the Sunflower Tanka Anthology is called a rensaku. Here is an exploration of what rensaku means:

The term rensaku was invented by (Masaoka Shiki) Shiki Masaoka, “a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry,^[3] credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during his short life.^[4] He also wrote on reform of tanka poetry.^[5] (from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaoka_Shiki).

A tanka in Japanese is considered to have two ‘phrases’ (5-7-5 and 7-7). In Japanese the writing is commonly presented as a single vertical line, so these phrases are known as the kaminoku (‘upper ku’) and shimonoku (‘lower ku’).

The splitting up of the upper ku and the lower ku, led us to the renga or renku form where one person wrote the first three lines (haiku) and another person wrote the last two lines seven syllables each line. This has come to be known as linked poetry.

But… this is where the tanka comes in. The tanka is a separate form from the renku. Shiki urged a reform of the tanka form.

“While Shiki criticised renga and haikai as ‘non-literature’, he did not reject the practice of linked verse in itself. Rather, he proposed a new rensaku approach, in which a sole poet would compose a sequence of poems united in theme and viewpoint. Shiki saw this approach, centred on the principles of authorial and thematic unity, as a key technique for elevating Japanese poetry into a ‘modern literature’.”

Kaisa Saarinen on translating Shuji Terayama’s tanka

In closing, the word rensaku is used for or any combination of two or more tanka that are somehow related in a series.

From neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com, is Shiki’s 10-poem rensaku about the wisteria (Burton Watson, Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems by Shiki Masaoka,  pp. 105-110) See below:

Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase
are so short
they don’t reach
to the tatami

Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase —
on cluster
dangles down
on the piled-up books

When I look
at wisteria blossoms
I think with longing of far-off times,
the Nara emperors,
the emperors of Kyoto

When I look
at wisteria blossoms
I want to get out
my purple paints
and paint them

If I were to paint
the purple
of wisteria blossoms,
I ought to paint it
a deep purple

Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase —
the blossoms hang down,
and by my sickbed
spring is coming to an end

Last year in spring
I saw the wisterias
in Kameido —
seeing this wisteria now,
I recall it

Before the
red blossoms
of the peonies,
the wisteria’s purple
comes into blossom

These wisterias
have blossomed early —
the Kameido wisterias
won’t be out for
ten days or more

If you stick the stems
in strong sake
the wilted flowers
of the wisteria
will bloom again like new

This rensaku tanka series is written in the first person. Notice the repetition of words (anaphora) that connect the reader to the wisteria blossoms. This rensaku series also reads like a story—that’s how the tanka stanzas are related.

By the end of the rensaku, we’ve learned all there is to know about wisteria. Shiki used no titles in his tanka poetry, just like we do today. This is how the modern tanka series or rensaku evolved! What a perfect example!