Renku
Quick answer: What is renku? Modern Japanese linked verse in Basho's haikai lineage: the 36-verse kasen, moon and blossom positions, and how a session actually runs.
Renku is collaborative linked verse in the haikai lineage of Basho: a sequence of alternating three-line and two-line stanzas composed by a group of poets, each verse linking to its immediate predecessor and shifting away from everything earlier. The word is the modern name for what Basho's circle called haikai no renga, adopted to distinguish this living practice from the older courtly renga.
The most loved renku length is the kasen, thirty-six verses, the format Basho favoured. A kasen is short enough to finish in an evening and long enough to travel through seasons, love, moonlight and nonsense before it closes. Poets around the world now write renku in many languages, by post, by email and around actual tables.
How It Works
A kasen opens with the hokku, which fixes the season and greets the company; the wakiku answers it quietly; the daisan turns the poem loose. From there the sequence follows the dramatic curve called jo-ha-kyu: a calm opening, a long turbulent middle where love verses and surprises belong, and a swift graceful close ending with the ageku, a verse of settled good fortune. Certain positions are reserved: the moon appears at fixed points, and blossom close to the end. The one unbreakable law is uchikoshi: never echo the verse before last, so the poem always faces forward.
In practice a session leader, the sabaki, selects each offered verse and keeps the sequence balanced, part editor, part referee, part host.
Where You Will See It
The classic kasen of Basho's school, gathered in collections such as The Monkey's Raincoat (Sarumino, 1691), remain the form's textbooks. After long neglect, twentieth-century Japanese poets revived group composition, and the practice crossed languages: renku circles now operate across North America, Europe, India and Australasia, with journals publishing finished sequences and annotated commentaries on how each link works.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Start smaller than a kasen. A twelve-verse form called the junicho gives newcomers the full experience, seasons, a love passage, a moon verse, inside an hour or two. Value your worst-placed brilliance lightly: in renku, a verse that serves the sequence beats a verse that shines alone, and learning that difference quietly improves your solo poems too. Every stanza is an act of reading as much as writing, which is why renku is sometimes called the best workshop a poet can join.
What poets can take from this
- Begin with a twelve-verse junicho before attempting the thirty-six-verse kasen.
- Link to the last verse only; the leap-over rule against echoing the verse before last is absolute.
- Vary your contributions: person verses, place verses, seasons, one touch of love.
- Accept the sabaki's choices without sulking; the sequence outranks everyone.
- Study one classic kasen link by link, asking how each verse both connects and escapes.
Try it yourself
With two or three friends, write a twelve-verse renku over a shared document in one week. Fix the season in the opening verse, place one moon verse and one love verse in the middle, and end on quiet good luck.
Questions
What is a kasen?
A kasen is the thirty-six-verse renku format favoured by Basho's school, with reserved positions for moon and blossom verses and a three-part dramatic shape of calm opening, eventful middle and swift close.
How is renku different from renga?
Renku is the modern name for linked verse in the plain-spoken, humorous haikai tradition, while renga usually refers to the older courtly practice with classical diction. Structurally they are near relatives.
Can renku be written in English?
Yes, and it widely is. English groups keep the stanza alternation, the linking rules and the moon and blossom conventions, while counting stress or line length instead of Japanese sound units.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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