heron

Frogpond 33.2 • 2010

Museum of Haiku
Literature Award

Haiku & Senryu

Revelations Unedited

Essay 1 - Hackett, part 2

Essay 2 - Miller

Haibun

Rengay

Renku

Book Review

From the Editors

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Editors’ Note: The renga is an older form of Japanese linked poetry than the renku. For the HSA definition of the renku, go to the HSA Web. site <https://www.hsa-haiku.org/archives/HSA_Definitions_2004.html>. For a scholarly, but clear, discussion of how the renku evolved from the renga, read the chapter “Distinctive Features of Linked Poetry” in Miner, E., Japanese Linked Poetry, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 140-159. As can be seen in this section, both forms are practiced today. Of interest to readers will be that the authors of “36 Renga” have shared the template they used.

Muddy Waters
A Renkubluz

by Paul David Mena, (pdm), Massachusetts
Brett Peruzzi (bp), Massachusetts
& Rafael de Gruttola (rdg), Massachusetts

Introduction by Rafael de Gruttola

We’re all musicians and we perform with different groups in and around the Boston-Cambridge area. We’ve been writing renkubluz for over eight years. We don’t follow the Japanese renku rules completely, but add our own twenty-four bar blues choruses with every reading we do.

Muddy Waters

1. (bp)

from the Delta to Chicago
the blues flow north...
Muddy Waters

2. (pdm)

     a gypsy woman told my mother
     I’d be a son of a gun

3. (rdg)

hollerin’and shoutin’
I’m a hoochie coochie
kind of guy

4. (bp)

     hearing my voice on Lomax’s recording
     I can do it.

5. (pdm)

I got my mojo workin’
but it just won’t
work on you

6. (rdg)

     ah ha just watchin’ her move—
     MAN! rdg

7. (bp)

Chess Records
a row of Cadillacs
parked out front

8. (pdm)      magnolias in bloom
     I Feel Like Goin’ Home
9. (rdg) Guys from England
“Who you?”
Rolling Stones
10. (bp)      slide guitar moaning
     across the cotton fields
11. (pdm) I’m Ready
but
I Can’t Be Satisfied
12. (rdg)      fish gotta swim birds gotta fly
     when I go I wanna go hi
13. (bp) if the river was whisky
I’d be
a divin’ duck

14. (pdm)

     40 Days and 40 Nights
     in the arms of another man’s woman

15. (rdg)

I just wanna
make love to you
baby!

16. (bp)      in his guitar case
     spare strings and a .38
17. (pdm) “I’ve got seven hundred dollars.
Don’t you mess around
with me."
18. (rdg)      no more down home blues
     life be electrified
19. (bp) after the day job
playing all night
in the bars
20. (pdm)      a tortured slide solo
     with a broken beer bottle
21. (rdg) my man Willie
slappin’
the upright bass
22. (bp)      late in life
     playin’ with the rock stars he inspired
23. (pdm) “They say you can’t lose
what you ain’t
never had.”
24. (rdg)      “Gotta go to church
      to get this thing in your soul.”

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