Renku Renku , or , is a Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry. It is a development of the older Japanese poetic tradition of "ushin" renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse. At renku gatherings participating poets take turns providing alternating verses of 17 and 14 morae. Initially "haikai no renga" distinguished itself through vulgarity and coarseness of wit, before growing into a legitimate artistic tradition, and eventually giving birth to the haiku form of Japanese poetry. The term "renku" gained currency after 1904, when Kyoshi Takahama started to use it. The oldest known collection of haikai linked verse appears
Haiku in English and Paul Muldoon in Ireland and Britain) and others have tried their hand at haiku. In 1963 the journal "American Haiku" was founded in Platteville, Wisconsin, edited by the European-Americans James Bull and Donald Eulert. Among contributors to the first issue were poets James W. Hackett, O Mabson Southard (1911–2000), and Nick Virgilio. In the second issue of "American Haiku" Virgilio published his "lily" and "bass" haiku, which became models of brevity, breaking down the traditional 5-7-5 syllabic form, and pointing toward the leaner conception of haiku that would take hold in subsequent decades. "American Haiku" ended publication in 1968