Heeding Haiku With HA: The Tanka

Hello everyone.

Last week your  haiku efforts dedicated to the night were very beautiful and much appreciated by many.

Today, Ha is taking some exams and so I’m going to sit in for him for this post he will be back with us next week to stimulate and inspire a new set of haiku!

1300 years ago in Japan a short poem the waka, known in modern times as a tanka,  first made its apperance.  These waka were originally recited to music.

The tanka is composed of 5-7-5-7-7 sounds or for us syllables.  Here’s an example of a tanka:

early evening (5)
stars begin to fill the sky (7)
the nightengale sings (5)
we walk hand in hand in love (7)
soft, the grassy river bank (7)

© g.s.koch

Unlike haiku,  tanka are  poems about subjects such as the beauty, evanescence of the natural world, human love, laments for the dead, and the affairs of ordinary people.  There is no required kigo and no need for a cutting phrase.  One can write more than one tanka to create a longer poem, using each tanka as new a stanza.

I’m not going to give you a special theme, or rather, here’s a photo of a wood carving which you might use  to find inspiration…or if you prefer, do a free write using your own illustration and/or subject!

Woodcut illustration (1919) of the young lovers from Gottfried Keller’s original story, which became Delius’s opera A Village Romeo and Juliet.

 

Once you have  published your post, you can link your tanka to Mr. Linky below. After making your submission, try to visit other links and share your feedback with your fellow poets.

* You can give your feedback about the prompt or maybe just say hello to all of us, down in the comments section.  Happy Writing. 🙂

** Please add the following tags in your post: HeedingHaikuWithHA and MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie.

 

About Georgia

I love to read...I like to write...I've travelled the world and seen the sites. I'm past my prime and feel so young, especially when near the young. I'm writing this blog, to remember, to think and to share...with the hopes that someone else will make a comment that will stimulate new thoughts and pathways. Actually, I'm a gabber, so the logical extension of gabbing is blogging! ;-)

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