Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Sept 13 Sunday Zoom Meeting Time 1 p.m. Bonnie McClure

 

[Subject: Unitarian Fellowship of Tokyo Sept 13 CHANGED TIME start at  1:00]

 

Dear members and friends of the Fellowship,

 

Our speaker for Sunday September 13, 2020 is joining us on ZOOM from California and has requested an earlier start of 13:00 (that is 1:00 Tokyo time). 

We plan to meet 1:00 to 3:30 on ZOOM. 

With extended time for discussion and friendly sharing.

 

All are welcome to join us-- please send   a request for the ZOOM link which will be  sent out a few days before September 13.

 

Bonnie McClure--  Japanese Medieval Linked Verse: Renga  anthologies for the modern reader.

This month is a cultural topic steeped in Japanese history: renga, or long linked sequences of short verses that were typically composed by multiple poets at all-day parties of the noble and warrior elites. Renga as a poetic form flourished in the 14th through 16th centuries (the Nanbokuchō and Muromachi periods). Navigating these sequences can be quite difficult for the modern reader (let alone anyone translating them into English), as they are built around many now-obscure conventions and allusions. But there were also anthologies of renga anthologies, which collected particularly skillful examples of individual renga links, categorized by topic. Reading these anthologies (in English translation) is an easy way for us to enjoy renga as a modern reader, and to see the best of the fun twists and turns that skillful poets liked to use. Renga give us an entry into a very different world but one with concerns and emotions that are often remarkable resonant for contemporary readers.

Bonnie McClure has been a  Fellowship member at various times, and has spoken to us before. A native of Georgia, she is a fine pianist.  She worked in Kanagawa  and then  studied Japanese literature  at the University of Washington, coming back to  Aoyama Gakuin for graduate work , and is now in the Ph.d program at UC Berkeley. 

 

I trust you and all your loved ones are well in this time of the Covid19 pandemic and the extreme heat and rains this summer.

 

Your moderator,

Peggy Kanada

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