Is this the way the universe works? (555 Verses / 77 Verses)

This book contains performative ‘tanrenga’ poems, intended to be read out loud. A ‘tanrenga’ appears similar to a ‘tanka’, a form of five-lined Japanese poetry, but there are some differences. The poem is a conversation between what is essentially a three-line haiku and a two-line verse written by another writer in response, in this case British artist and curator Gavin Wade and poet Paul Conneally. The ‘tanrenga’ form was popular in Japan from the start of the Heian period until the end of cloistered rule, and would sometimes appear in imperial anthologies of ‘waka’, which it closely resembles. This collection includes images by James Langdon, based on photographs by Gavin Wade.