A Renku as a tradition in Japanese poetry goes back
nearly a thousand
years and reached its zenith with Basho.
It is a sequence of 36 linked poems composed by a group of haiku poets
(traditionally 4) writing alternatively (5/7/5 - 7/7 – 5/7/5 – 7/7,
etc.) in a precise order and following codes and rules: each verse may
have a set theme, season.
Thus certain stanza should have the moon or flowers mentioned or
different aspects of human nature and philosophy.
Each section is “linked” to the former one as each poet wrote his poem
in response to the “fragrance” of the poem previous to his but each
poem can still be read as a separate entity.