Index of Poetry.
Highlights for Poetry.
Books of Poetry Form. How to Write Poetry. Latest books read. | ||||||
Essays on how to write specific forms:
Haibun. Haiga. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Renku. Tanka. Tan-renga. Cinquain. Concrete. Fib. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát. Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle. | ||||||
Las formas de la poesía en Español: El Poema Concreto. | ||||||
Haiku by Bashō.
Haiku by Shiki.
Haiku by J. Zimmerman.
Tanka by J. Zimmerman.
Ueda on Tanka.
Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. | ||||||
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Check How to Learn Japanese. |
The Tanka Verse Form
by J. Zimmerman.
History.
Form.
Hyakushu-uta (the 100-tanka form).
Your Composition.
References.
Tanka surveys:
Voice (I, you, etc) in tanka.
Emotions in tanka.
Punctuation in tanka.
The Tanka is a Japanese verse form, and its name is generally translated as "short poem" or "short song." It is an ancient form of syllabic Japanese poetry, popular in Japan since the 7th century (C.E.) or earlier.
Sam Hamill (in his Editor's Introduction to Love Poems from the Japanese) writes:
Rexroth reminds his readers that the opening lines of a
tanka
...
often serve only to "create a setting"
for the closure, and as a kind of preface
"have only an emotional or metaphoric relevance,
and introduce a poem of only thirty-one syllable an element of dissociation."
... Rexroth offers this warning for readers of poetry in translation: "If Japanese ... poetry is translated into Western syntax and all the spark gaps of meaning are filled up, what results is a series of logically expressed epigrams, usually sentimental, with a vulgar little moral interpretation attached, or at the best a metaphorical epigram of a moment of sensibility like [Ezra] Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," which most resembles, not classical tanka or even the best haiku but the more sentimental work of the late Yeddo [Edo] period. It is this compulsion to fill up the gaps and interpret the poem for Western readers which vitiates the work of so many translators, both Western and Japanese. |
The tanka developed during Japan's Heian period (794-1185 A.D.) as a poem to recognize an occasion (especially romantic).
Woman and men composed tanka. Often they wrote and sent the tanka to an actual or desired lover.
Each line (or sound group) of a tanka can be a different one image or idea, with the resulting five lines flowing together as a greater whole.
Modern tanka express many emotions including heartache, longing, and loss.
Modern Japanese Tanka (edited by Makoto Ueda) is a good place to begin reading tanka. It it is the first collection that makes modern Japanese tanka available in English. The simplicity and elegance of the tanka is beautifully translated and presented in this anthology, with biographies of the poets. |
Historically, many of the most beautiful tanka are the love poems by the Japanese women poets:
Some of the best translations of their tanka are in The Ink Dark Moon translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani.
The Ink Dark Moon
translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. |
In English, the tanka is usually written as five short lines.
5-7-5-7-7 |
5 7 5 7 7 |
3 5 3 5 5 |
When we translate Japanese sounds into English very accurately (nothing added to, nothing subtracted from, the original), the number of syllables used in the translation usually settles down around 20. Most translations in this book, therefore, are written in about 20 English syllables. We avoid adding words that were not written in the original just for the sake of keeping the 31 syllables. |
Of course, there is much more to the tanka than the number and length of its lines. To a first approximation:
A tanka tends to be lyrical, while a haiku can be comparatively fragmented.
A tanka was historically written for emotional purposes, to redirect someone's heart, whereas a Haiku is more subtle in its evocation of emotion.
Jane Reichhold in Writing and Enjoying Haiku gives many important pointers, including:
For further information, see:
Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-On Guide by Jane Reichhold. Reichhold's many skills include a keen sense for the writing and appreciation of tanka as well as haiku. This book includes useful guidelines on writing tanka (as well as haiku and related forms). |
Before submitting a tanka for possible publication, check whether it:
Just because you start with the intention of writing a tanka, you do not have to keep your poem in that form if it does not work for you. Your attempt to write a formal poem may help you find words that you would not have found otherwise. And you may decide that you choose to end up with a poem in a different form, perhaps even a prose poem.
In particular, see: String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi (1993) translated and with an introduction by Hiroaki Sato. We have three hyakushu-uta (the 100-tanka format) written by this 12th-century Japanese princess.
Traditionally the hyakushu-uta contains six categories of tanka in six sections:
Modern Japanese Tanka edited by Makoto Ueda. This book is the first collection to make modern Japanese tanka available in English. A delightful and comprehensive presentation of poetry that shows the development of the tanka form. Each poet is introduced with a biography. | |
Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-On Guide by Jane Reichhold. Reichhold's many skills include a keen sense for the writing and appreciation of tanka as well as haiku. This book includes useful guidelines on writing tanka (as well as haiku and related forms). | |
The Ink Dark Moon, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, tanka of Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu of the Heian court. |
Related pages:
Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms, etc. How to Write Poetry. |
Copyright
© 2003-2016 by J. Zimmerman.
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