Terri Lee Grell has the chance to every day to pass notes to people very close to her.

She doesn't pass them in class, though. She and other poets throughout the United States pass notes to provide material for a magazine called Lynx, which Grell puts together. It has a circulation of 400 and growing. Grell, of Toutle, also is the editor of the Cowlitz County Advocate newspaper in Castle Rock.

Lynx is devoted to a style of poetry called "renga," which started in Japan and often relies on stanzas contributed by several writers in response to each other.

Grell's dream is to involve more poets in a less competitive form of writing. She feels poetry is so competitive that it is shutting out new, talented writers. Renga, she believes, encourages cooperation.

"I would like renga to find its way into the hearts of all contemporary poets for whatever purpose they see fit to use it," Grell said.

"Renga could be a primary force in re-directing the contemporary poetry scene toward unification rather than segregation. It has that potential because it is so simple and pure and can involve so many."

John Balaban, professor of English at Penn State University and a published poetry scholar, said he can understand Grell's feeling.

"Renga is quite a different environment. It involves a number of people and is a non-egoistic game of words. I think it's a healthy anecdote to the other situation, where there are a huge number of egos involved," Balaban said.

In Lynx, the rengas often involve several poets at once. In the last edition of the magazine, 11 poets participated.

Some rengas are humorous:

Some are serious:

Others are sensuous. All of them, Grell said, tout the reason why renga started in the first place - for fun.

"You can inject wit and satire and double meanings into life," Grell said. "We're going back to the original reason why it started - as a kind of rebellion."

A renga writer can start a poem by sending out the first stanza, called the "hokku," to poets or sending it to Grell to publish. Other poets respond by sending "links." The originator can set guidelines or can make it a "free renga."

Renga was created by the Japanese during the 12th century. The original purpose of renga was game-like. In her book The Narrow Road to Renga, California poet Jane Reichhold said rengas would often begin at parties and involved great wit.

But the free-for-all flavor of renga gradually changed until it died out in Japan after World War II. A poet revived the renga, and it slowly moved to the West, where it gained back the fun and humor it had lost, Grell said.

Grell first heard about renga while living in California. She read a book, A Duet For One Mirror, containing a long renga. Intrigued with the style, she wrote to the author, Reichhold.

"I flipped through the book and thought, 'This is really exciting.' I was amazed - the poetry was very simple and precise," Grell said.

Grell corresponded with Reichhold, who taught her how to write renga. They wrote several together, one of which Reichhold published in a book called Tigers in a Teacup.

Grell moved to Toutle in 1987 and in 1989 took over publication of a young magazine, APA Renga, which was founded by a Californian. She changed its name to Lynx, which stands for the "links" that renga writers send to each other.

Also, Grell said, the name represents a concern she has for the art of renga and other writing forms - that they are close to becoming an endangered species. As she puts it, the magazine is dedicated to the care and feeding of endangered forms of creative expression.

Grell also expanded the magazine's appeal so that some mainstream poets would take an interest not only in it, but renga itself. The quarterly magazine contains not only renga, but also columns, essays, letters and other poetry.

She said she feels Lynx is penetrating mainstream poetry, noting that some of the poets featured in the last edition had no idea what renga was about until she introduced the style to them.

"The whole process is like reaching out and opening windows. That's exciting," said Reichhold, one of the magazine's contributors. "Nothing will happen in poetry unless you get people mixing. But we're also having fun."

Each day brings new hope. Grell said she is receiving new subscriptions to the magazine and, during the recent poetry event at Lower Columbia College, she talked with noted poets Knute Skinner, X.J. Kennedy and Madeline DeFreese about renga.

"They asked me to come to where they live and speak about renga. I said 'Book me on a flight - I'm ready,'" Grell said.

But Grell's main love is producing Lynx. Besides editing Lynx and the Advocate, Grell free-lances articles and essays. She also tries to balance a family life with her husband, Tim, and her 8-year-old daughter, Autumn.

Grell said the balancing is often difficult, but added, "When you really love something, you find the time."

Go to Sidebar about John Cage titled "Composer helps Lynx land a grant."