No matter how long (12, 20, 36, 100, or even 1000 verses, a renku consists of three distinct parts.
A shorter renku, like the 20-verse nijûin (二十韻) that this website features, can be (and originally was) written on a single, large sheet of paper, folded in two. The first section is written on the front of the folded sheet. The second section is written on the right and left sides of the fully opened sheet. And the third section is written on the back. Visually, this results in a relatively short introduction, a relatively longer body, and a relatively short ending part.
Japanese people call the first section Jo 序 ("beginning"). The second, main section as a whole is called Ha 破 ("break" or "rip") but on the page it divides into two parts: Hatsu ori no hyô 初折の表 ("front inside fold")—the half of the middle part written before the center fold—and Nagori no hyô 名残の表 (the second half of the middle part written on the other side of the centerfold). They call the final section Kyû 急 ("hurry") or Nagori no ura 名残の裏 (written on the back of the folded paper).
Jo-Ha-Kyû 序破急 has a long history in Japanese aesthetics, connected to Noh theater, the tea ceremony, and to linked poetry. Literally, the three parts mean, as we have seen, "beginning," "break/rip," and "hurry," but the "break" and "hurry" sections have nothing to do with breaking or hurrying. They are simply conventional words to describe an aesthetically pleasing pattern. In English, I have chosen to translate them as Introduction, Main Body, and Enlightenment.
Introduction The renku begins here and now, with a strong feeling of present place and present season. As the directions say, think of a train slowly pulling out of a station. This isn't the time for dramatic or violent imagery. This is the time for beginning a journey—and beginning it well.
Main Body This is your chance for rapid, breathless exploration of the universe and all imaginable human experiences.
Enlightenment I like to call this last section "enlightenment" because this is the prescribed destination that the Buddhist shapers of renku had in mind: a climax of blossoms, insight, and (if the poets are lucky) a touch of nirvana. It certainly isn't a time to "hurry" (though, as we have seen, this is the original meaning of kyû). In this last section, the train (of thoughts/feelings/images) in fact slows down so that the renku will come to rest in a place of blissful peace.
There is a practically infinite number of different renku that could be written, but no matter how many we write, the journey is always the same: from this moment in space and time, friends contemplate the universe and human experience together, and they arrive always, together, at enlightenment.
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