Carpe Diem Haiku Kai Academy #1 Tan Renga the short chained renga

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,


I love to introduce Tan Renga, the short chained renga, to you.

Tan Renga the short linked chain of two stanza

Maybe you know the Tanka that poem with 5 lines following the syllables count 5-7-5-7-7, A beautiful Japanese poetry form which I just started recently to create. The Tanka is a poem written by one poet and that's the difference with the Tan Renga.

The Tan Renga has also 5 lines following the same syllables count as the Tanka, but the Tan Renga is written by two poets. One poet writes the first stanza of three (3) lines in the following example that will be Jane Reichhold:

Here is the first stanza of this example Tan Renga:

morning sun
the twinkle of stars
still in the dew                      (Jane Reichhold)

The goal for the second poet is create the second stanza of two (2) lines through association on the first stanza (as we do in a renga). For this example I have written the second stanza:

her bright shining eyes
she unpacks her new doll     (your host)

This is what you call a Tan Renga. It's possible to leave a blanc line between the two stanzas, but you can also make it unite with each other as I do mostly. Than this is the result:

morning sun
the twinkle of stars
still in the dew                      (Jane Reichhold)

her bright shining eyes
she unpacks her new doll     (your host)

It’s a nice way to discover the beauty of haiku. And it turns haiku writing into a nice way to work with other people.

Here you can read an E-book with Tan Renga written for Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, the daily haiku meme.

Namaste,

Chèvrefeuille