This month’s Zen Poetry Circle will be devoted to to a renga-kai, or “linked-verse gathering”. Renga (also called renku in its more modern form), is a sequence of linked verses, typically created by a group of 2-4 people in a convivial atmosphere. The traditional syllabic pattern is 5-7-5, 7-7, 5-7-5, 7-7, etc. with participants taking turns writing verses. Renga  sequences varied in length, 100-verse and 36-verse being the most common. Links may be thematic, imagistic, narrative, or verbal (puns). The roots of renga lie deep in the history of Japanese poetry, but the form has survived and evolved through the emergence of haiku and into modern times and other languages.

We will learn how to write and share renga in a way that is both grounded in our Zen practice of awareness, and also accepting and fun!

There is no registration fee for this event, though donations to Mountain Rain Zen are much appreciated. We do ask that you sign up in advance, so we have a idea of numbers, and so that we can send you some reading material about renga about a week before we meet. Further guidance will be given on the day of our renga-kai.