Renblog

Renblog-1: So what's a Renblog? In medieval Japan, poetic anthologies were compiled in a sequential manner. For most of us in the west, we think of anthologies as books with representative poems by recognized poets. Usually, poems were categorized by poets or genres. But in Japan, these anthologies were works of art in themselves. Compilers chose and entered poems into anthologies by sequencing them, often temporally. Spring poems were brought together and then sequenced from the first day of spring to the plum blossoms to the cherry blossoms and then the scattering of blossoms, etc. regardless of poet.

This kind of sequencing led to a more innovative poetry that defined the idea of participation art. Three poets would sit together and take turns composing a verse of a few lines in about 30 rounds. This was called renga, or linked verse. There were a number of rules, but the most important one was to compose a verse that was related to the previous verse but not related to any earlier verse. They endeavored to create a single piece of art that meanderd much in the way a scroll painting might. If you have seen a scroll painting, you probably know that it is viewed by srolling out on one side and scrolling in on the other. No one unscrolled the piece all at once to veiw the entire scroll. One was to scroll across and enjoy the picture unfolding before their eyes, much like scrolling down the page of a website. In the same manner, a renga sequence could be read a little at a time. Any give portion of the renga would be understood as a part of a whole, but still could be enjoyed for independent of the rest, as it was not connected to it in any logical way. It might be a kind of poetic stream of consciousness.

Anyway, I was talking about this in my classical class, and one of my students, Ducky--she's a J-major, on the crew team and pretty buff--mentioned that she had a similar assignment when she was in high school. they would have to write a short paragraph on anything, and then continue it a few days later by writing something related to the previous paragraph but not to anything else...

A light bulb goes on above my head. Now wouldn't that be cool on a weblog? Actually, I'm beginning to think that this weblogging is very J-Lit. Reading many other sites, I can easily imagine them being descedents of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, a collection of opinions, lists and observations organized randomly. But I meander...

I will write whatever I want to write about and the next day I will write something that can be "linked" to the last sentence, phrase, thought, whatever. The sequencing will be backwards unfortunately, so it will be a kind of Memento Renblog... I might flip the order and enter it on my JA Journal for posterity's sake... Hah! Anyway, I'll give it a try and see how it works, tho' it might just totally flop.