WHO WE ARE:
Co-Editors:
Jane and Werner Reichhold
LYNX
POB 1250
Gualala, CA 95445
USA
Lynx was started as APA-Renga by Tundra Wind (Jim Wilson) of Monte Rio, California, in 1985. Tundra was active in Amateur Publishing Associations (APAs) - groups of writers who shared their work by sending copies of their writings to a central location which were then collated and sent on to the other subscribers. At this time, most of the APAs involved science-fiction writing or diary-zines.
Influenced by John Cage's writings, Tundra, an accomplished flutist as well as an accredited Zen Master of the Korean lines, became interested in renga. Boldly getting the idea he could make an APA where renga were written by the various members, Tundra sent off his first 'issue' copied on sheets collected into colorful folders.
As it happens when one starts a venture like this, others who were practicing solitary or almost secretly, come forward to join the circle. Terri Lee Grell, who lived at Salt Point Lodge, on the Pacific coast, who had come to Gualala to find me after reading my little book - Duet for One Mirror - she had bought in a local bookstore, pulled in her wide acquaintance of writer-kinds of people. I brought in the Haiku Society of America kind of people, with whom I was writing renga, who included from the beginning, Kenneth C. Leibman. These persons added to Tundra's Zen students and friends from the Russian River area made a very eclectic bunch of linkers.
Terri, good on pilgrimages, went to meet Tundra. Her love of typography convinced Tundra to begin to put the renga into the familiar long, thin pages (11 x 4 ½) which he stapled and folded with his partner Bob Jessup. When Bob became terminally ill with AIDS in 1989, Tundra turned to Terri for help. By now she had moved with her husband and daughter, Autumn, to Toutle, Washington on the shoulder of Mount St. Helena (ash and all) where she worked for the local newspaper. Using this valuable connection, Terri completely revamped APA-Renga. Renaming it Lynx, after the endangered cat species, adding haiku, fiction and ghazals, Terri made her new Lynx attractive to the crowd around Exquisite Corpse which pulled in other energies than the Japanese genre afflicted. Printed on newsprint on a web-press with high production numbers, Terri was able to fairly paper the scene with her flashy graphic-rich zine.
To all of her success came problems at home and at work so that the intervals between issues stretched and expanded. In May, 1993, she called asking if I would take over the again endangered Lynx. At the time I was already publishing Mirrors - The International Haiku Forum and AHA Books, plus my own work in tanka, so I felt that there was not one more thing I could squeeze into my day or life. But threatened with a 'hostile takeover' by the air of opponents, I could not let the Lynx die an ignoble death.
Thus, Werner and I took in the bedraggled beast consisting of several floppy disks - none of which were intelligible to my machine. Will persisted, and already by June, a new, tamer Lynx appeared. Back to the 11 x 41/2 sheets, comb-bound to please the archivists who wanted the beast to fit on a bookshelf, this Lynx got a healthy dose of tanka added to the mix. The fiction and haiku went on to other homes giving more space to the increased number of renga being written in English. Always a generous animal, Lynx carried on to hold more renga and more tanka than any other zine in English.
Through all of these changes, though, the participation renga continued. These are the renga, as started in the beginning, each by an author who sets the parameters, rules and limits with the hokku to which readers add their links. To these published links the next issue's readers write new links - always enriching and widening the circles of the layers of meaning. The renga, "Gently Wiping Dust" was one of the early ones started by Tundra which continues even into this first electronic version of Lynx. There were times, when Tundra was at the helm, that these participation renga, when completed, were published with all their links, strings, vines and blossoms.
Still reading back through old issues of Lynx, one can follow the birth and withering of so many great collaborative works. Nearly every configuration has been attempted and the concept of renga has been greatly enriched through the courage and innovation of the Lynx subscribers' free and fancy minds. Even now, reading through the renga in this online version, and the recently finished participation renga, you can see how collaboration has, and continues to enrich the genre.
After some experimentation with various feedings we were able to produce a mellow-colored animal with cream undercoat and brown stripes of lines. This invertebrate was enjoyed until our old printer machine began to fail and we had to have the Lynx printing jobbed out to Mendo Litho in Fort Bragg. It just was not the same to have others picking the papers and inks and goofing around with the carefully made masters so the end product came back looking like a stranger to us. And it cost a lot more to have someone doing the printing though we ourselves still corrected their errors, collated, bound and mailed the issues.
Since 1995, AHAPOETRY had been on the Internet. Over the years, snips and articles from Lynx went on the web, but since so many of the loyal subscribers were not on the web, we decided it was worth it to contribute the extra work and uncovered expenses to continue to paper publish Lynx. The change of the millennium, the decreased cost of computers and their increased availability made us feel it was time to make the switch. So here we are today reaching out to join a new international circle of writers using the Internet.
Blessed be! \o/ Jane
Mother's Day, 2000 - Which seems kind of fitting.
NOTE:
The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the named
authors and are not always shared by the publishers.