About Rengay

SEEKING SUBMISSIONS: 30th Anniversary Rengay Anthology

Rengay is a six-verse poetic collaboration usually by two or three writers using a set pattern of three-line and two-line haiku. Unlike renga or renku collaborations, all six poems focus on at least one unifying theme. Having a theme is the most important characteristic of rengay. Garry Gay invented the rengay form in 1992, and together Garry and I wrote the very first one, “Deep Winter,” on 9 August 1992, in Foster City, California. That same morning, I also proposed the three-person variation. On 18 November 1993, I wrote the first three-person rengay, “A Rain of Leaves,” with Claire and Patrick Gallagher, in Sunnyvale, California, and the first six-person rengay, “Journey in Blue,” on 28 April 2002 in Santa Rosa, California. I also published articles in Frogpond and Woodnotes that first began to popularize rengay, and the form is now written widely in many languages. I believe the first published rengay was “Between Storms” by Garry Gay and John Thompson, which appeared in Romania in Albatross Volume 2, Number 2, in January of 1993. In 1995, with Garry Gay and John Thompson, I published the first book of rengay, Hammerhorn Lake. Since 1995, the Haiku Poets of Northern California has sponsored a rengay contest. I have judged this contest numerous times (including the first one), and have won first prize in the contest seven times (plus many second and third prizes, and honourable mentions). In 2020, the Haiku Society of America started the Garry Gay Rengay Contest. In 2014, I published a book of solo rengay, titled True Colour. And in 2021, Marcyn Del Clements, Seren Fargo, and Ignatius Fay began publishing Tandem, the first rengay journal. This website began in October 2021, with initial content migrated from the rengay sections of my Graceguts website. This site is dedicated to all-things rengay. To learn more about rengay, please visit the Rengay Essays page.

—Michael Dylan Welch

Explore this website to read examples of rengay by Michael Dylan Welch written by two, three, and six writers, plus solo rengay. For renku and other collaborative writing, please see the Collaborations page on Graceguts. See also the Rengay page on Facebook.       +       +       +       + 

First-Prize Winners

from HPNC Rengay Contests

These are my rengay that have won first prize in the HPNC rengay contest, which began in 1995. The first six of the following rengay are also available in Six Rengay, a free downloadable flyer available in PDF format on my Trifolds page on Graceguts.       +

• 1998: Dying Spark by Rich Krivcher, John Thompson, and Michael Dylan Welch

• 2000: Cornstalk Twisting by Michael Dylan Welch and Lenard D. Moore

• 2003: The Hilltop Castle by Michael Dylan Welch and Ikuyo Yoshimura

• 2005: Inside Passage by Michael Dylan Welch and Dejah Léger

• 2007: Sixth Sense by Tom Clausen and Michael Dylan Welch

• 2008: Returning by Michael Dylan Welch and Alice Frampton

• 2015: Weighing In by Michael Dylan Welch and Sonja Arntzen