Duncan Hines, Cheerleaders, and Rocking the Rockah

(Preface, in the form of a poem)

(That makes it a proem – watch out, VAMPY kids – The Boulder’s just subtly slipped in another literary term!)

Without Internet

The Boulder sits at home, sad,

unable to post.

While some claim that one should party like it’s 1999, here at VAMPY, we prefer to party like it’s 1699. And so, much of Thursday was spent in preparation for our renga party (more about the renga later). After posting our revised waka in the morning, we began our exploration of the fine art of collaborative verse through a group reading of the two-line poem section of Matthew Roeher and Joshua Beckman's Nice Hat. Thanks. Published in 2002 by Verse Press, this book is perhaps the penultimate example of contemporary collaborative verse, showing how this form can lead to surprising leaps – and also, importantly, that the form can be funny as all get-out.

After reading and discussion, the class developed a form of poetry based on Roeher and Beckman’s work: The Rockah. The rules of The Rockah are as followed: each writer in a group composes a series of first lines. Then, the group of writers exchange notebooks/computers/iPhones/clay tablets carved with cuneiform/sheaves of papyrus, and supply second lines. Here are some examples of our class Rockah:

Your glass left a ring on my table

and I said yes.

•

Calling it dangerous

because dangerous is what it was.

•

Duncan Hines Angel Food batter.

Baking cheaters.'

After lunch, we put our work with the waka and The Rockah to work with our study of the renga. The class read “Out in the Streets,” a piece of Japanese linked verse written by Mastuo Bashō and two of his students, Mukai Kyorai and Nozawa Bonchō. By this point in Japanese history, the strict traditional forms of collaborative linked verse had given way to the less-stringent-but-still-mighty-difficult haikai renku. Through their study of “Out in the Streets,” the students discovered the basics of the form: after the renga master (in the case of this piece, as in the case of many, Mastuo Bashō, who was, we decided, the Bono of his day) composing the three-line starting link, or the hokku (which would, incidentally, later become the haiku), the next poet writes the two-line second link, connected to the first.

Here’s where it gets tricky: the next participant then composes a three-link link which connects to the previous link, but not to the first – and so on and so on, until the poets have completed a kasen, or a thirty-six link series.

Here’s where it gets even trickier: not only do these links have to incorporate traditional Japanese aesthetics, they must also move through the seasons (in sequence) and obey whatever other rules the renga master supplies. Though this may be a great deal of work, it is also a great deal of fun: kasen were typically composed in raucous and boisterous parties.

Our party, though not as boisterous as those in the 17^th century, was still made joyous through the wonder of ice cream and High School Musical stickers. As renga master, I composed each group’s first sequence and also set down the rules, which can be seen in this photograph:

Poets were, of course, in competition with each other, reaching Bono-like levels of fame for their renga skills. The overall winner of our renga competition was the kasen composed by Steve, Penguin, and Surge, as they not only beautifully completed all 36 verses but also managed to do so with no mistakes in sequence and with every rule followed. Other prizes included Best Individual Links, Best Use of Popular Culture, and Best Use of Lincoln’s Froe.