in honor of my first, ever, experience of being in an improvised scene set in feudal japan, i have decided that we are all going to write a renga together. this is a pretty exciting, pretty epic, pretty awesome thing to do. let’s have fun, but this should be sweet. i’ll outline here the rough ideas that i think we should follow.
structure:
- a renga has two alternating verses styles, a 5-7-5 (three lines where these are the number of syllables per line), followed by a 7-7.
- the first 5-7-5 is called the hokku. i get to write it because i’m the only “guest” of the group, now.
- the first 7-7 is called the waki. i also get to write that because i’m organizing this.
- the second 5-7-5 is the daisan. it’s got to end in a verb in a progressive tense
- the last stanza is the ageku
- all other stanzas are called hiraku. i recommend that authors complete a hiraku pair of one 5-7-5, followed by the 7-7 that accompanies it.
i think those will be the only shikimoku, or ‘rules that we follow’, but please study up on the renga terminology to understand it’s structure better if you’re going to participate. i am exciting to be a part of this online kogyo.
to be clear, this can be an ‘epic’ poem, but it is inherently an ‘epic poem’. let’s get started!
that's gross 