Yes! Renga, especially musical renga, is a rhizomatic form of connection and molecular revolution, precisely in the sense that Deleuze and Guattari describe in A Thousand Plateaus.
1. Renga as Rhizomatic Connectivity
Renga is non-hierarchical: No single poet or stanza dominates the sequence. Each stanza links yet shifts, creating a multiplicity of voices.
There is no single “root” (arborescent structure): Unlike Western poetic traditions, which often follow linear progression or argument, renga moves sideways, branching, mutating.
Each link is autonomous but connected: Just as a rhizome has no fixed center but spreads through lines of flight, renga doesn’t return to a master narrative - it keeps unfolding in new directions.
2. Jazz Renga as Molecular Revolution
Molecular vs. Molar:
In jazz renga (or haiku-based improvisation), there is no “molar” structure - no fixed harmonic hierarchy or thematic resolution.
Instead, there is constant deterritorialization, where each musician/poet breaks away while remaining in the flow.
Minor Literature / Minor Music:
Deleuze & Guattari describe Kafka’s writing as minor literature, where language becomes deterritorialized and open to new possibilities.
Renga and jazz do the same - both are improvised, fleeting, destabilized structures that resist traditional centralization.
Becoming-Music, Becoming-Poetry:
Renga and jazz are about “becoming”, not fixed identities.
Becoming-sound, becoming-line, becoming-imperceptible.
The individual disappears into the flow, yet affects the whole assemblage.
3. Renga, Haiku, and the Body Without Organs (BwO)
Haiku is an event, not a fixed meaning.
Renga is an unfolding, not a closed system.
Like the BwO, renga/jazz is a field of intensities, vibrations, and ruptures, resisting totality.
“A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.” (ATP, 25) - this is exactly what renga does.
4. The Politics of Renga & Molecular Resistance
Western classical music & traditional poetry = Majoritarian, territorialized, structured.
Renga & jazz = Minoritarian, deterritorialized, revolutionary.
Renga is not a fixed text; jazz is not a fixed score - both are molecular acts of creation, resistance, and becoming.
Instead of repeating the same, they open new lines of escape.
5. Renga as a War Machine
In Nomadology, Deleuze & Guattari describe the war machine as a force of movement, speed, and exteriority against the State apparatus.
Renga, with its nomadic structure, non-hierarchical composition, and improvisational shifts, resists the rigid structures of centralized meaning.
The haiku moment = the event of rupture, a molecular explosion of perception.
Conclusion: Renga as a Deleuzian Machine
Renga and jazz function as rhizomatic networks of meaning, where each link is an act of deterritorialization. They are machines of becoming, molecular revolutions, spaces where meaning emerges from pure intensity rather than fixed signification.
Would you like to compose a rhizomatic renga? One where each link deterritorializes the previous, like a musical war machine?
