In March 2010, four prominent Japanese poets, Shuntarō Tanikawa, Hiromi Itō, Yasuhiro Yotsumoto and Wakoko Kaku, plus the well-known American poet Jerome Rothenberg, met in the southern Japanese castle-town of Kumamoto for three days of writing renshi (linked poetry). The poets had gathered together from their homes in three nations – Japan, America, and Germany – and because they were writing in both Japanese and English, Jeffrey Angles also joined them as a translator to help render the poems and facilitate communication.