Throwback Thursday: Let's Get This Renga Started!

Happy National Poetry Month!

We thought we'd kick off the festivities with a good ole THROWBACK THURSDAY.....Renga-style. Do you know what a Renga is? It's OK if you don't---Emily and I had no clue until our Forms of Poetry class a few years back. Of course, we love collaborative poetry so this suited us perfectly. We even wrote a whole post on Rengas, which you can find by clicking this here link. If you're too lazy to click, a Renga is essentially a conversation in alternating haikus. But wait---what if you don't know what modern (and traditional) haikus look like?! Don't panic---we wrote a post on that, too. You can click here to see lots of funny memes....and some haikus.

Like this one. AKA the best haiku ever.

Anyway. This National Poetry Month, Emily and I will be writing a Renga together! We wrote one a few years back that we'd like to share with you to kick off our month-long, collaborative project. (Hence the Throwback Thursday part of this post.) Can you guess who wrote each haiku? Probably not, actually. It took me a few minutes to puzzle it out. (It HAS been awhile, after all.) But anyway, here is our very creatively titled Renga....

"Renga"

The year of the flood

never let us ask questions.

We slept in the street.

At night I'd trace words

drifting out high windows in

puddles stained with soot.

Soft underfoot are

your tender promises, now

wet with empty light.

Flames whispered to life

curbside rarely carry on

for dampened mud-dawns.

In flickered faces

I named you my escapist

my answer to all.

But you never thought

to answer when I asked why

there's no sunlight here.

Rengas are known to have this effect on people.

Taaad-daaaaa! Isn't that a cool little poetic experiment? It's sort of interesting how we picked up on each other's imagery and tried to sustain a metaphor across two voices. Granted, this is definitely a deviation from the traditional Renga. But, I think it turned out rather well all the same. Are you hooked? Do you want to write one yourself? The time is nigh! Join along with Emily and I during National Poetry Month as we create another Renga. If you don't have a partner to write with, we'd be more than happy to help you out. The more Rengas, the merrier!

Rengas make kittens dance. This is why you should write one.
More dancing kittens can never be a bad thing.

If you want to share your adventures with us at the end of the month via email, you could end up in our Featured Friday section. Which would be pretty rad. So, stay tuned for posts updating you on our progress week-to-week, and for the final product at the end of the month. Check out our post on Rengas and Haikus if you need more information and/or guidance!