excerpted from Tanglad

Renga is a traditional form of Japanese collaborative poetry. One poet writes the first stanza, and another poet the next. They continue alternating writing stanzas until the poem is finished. The stanzas are linked by theme as well as structure (the third stanza follows the structure of the first, the fourth stanza follows the structure of the second, and so one until the end). Many renga are 100 lines long, while some are over 1000 lines.

One of my professors said that some renga were transgenerational, completed by poets over years and decades. But this beautiful form of poetry fell out of favor in the late 1800s, with Western poetry’s emphasis on individual authorship.

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I think the renga is the perfect metaphor for our work.

I have no illusions that we could do away with colonialism and capitalism in my lifetime. But that’s not really the point of allying oneself with anti-capitalist and anti-globalization struggles. Instead, I do think of this work as a renga. The confluence of colonialism and capitalism reproduces itself by commodifying the lives and bodies of women. This is what we have to compete against. Not one another.

So I’m grateful that F works on queer communities of color, and B works on transwoc in the diaspora, and N studies colonial legal structures and C works on trafficking of women. And I’m grateful for organizations like the Asian Indigenous Womens Network and GABRIELA. And all the other people and organizations whose work contributes to this renga.