Q VVER the centuries several techniques ofjoining linked tanka verse Crenga3 have been recognized and studied. Only in comparatively recent years, however, have we witnessed a discovery of, and a consequent surge of interest in, patterns of progression and association integrating poems found in anthologies and sequences of Japanese court poetry.' Writing on this subject has been concerned mainly with those techniques through which poems by different authors are integrated into an artistic order so as to achieve an effect greater than the simple sum of the individual poems in the sequence. There does not seem to be, however, any suggestion of such an ordering of tanka to form a sequence integrated by content into a single poem, although reference is made to sequences by single authors.2 This being so, little interest has been taken in certain of the chain-compositions Crensaku3 of tanka found in the Zoku Gunsho ruji7 text of Kogon'in gyoshui CPrivate Collection of Cloistered Emperor KJgon.3 3 These chains have individual topical titles, but not headnotes, and are sequences of tanka linked together by diction, imagery, or development of an idea; several, in effect, become stanzaic poems. This, of course, begs the question: What is a poem? It does not seem stretching a notion too far to argue that a sequence of poems, each independently describing a subjective impression but all associated by a common theme, becomes a single poem whether or not a clear progression exists. Such poetry would be contemplative, conformable with the intuitionalist approach identified with Zen.4 To illustrate the variations in integration technique employed by Kogon' in, three of his sequences are presented here.