Tanka

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A tanka poem is a Japanese poem which can also be known as a waka or uta. A tanka poem is similar to a haiku but has two additional lines.

What is the Structure of a Tanka Poem?

A tanka consists of 5 lines and 31 syllables.

Each line has a set number of syllables see below:

Line 1 – 5 syllables
Line 2 – 7 syllables
Line 3 – 5 syllables
Line 4 – 7 syllables
Line 5 – 7 syllables

A Quick Start Guide to Writing Tanka
by Jeanne Emrich

Tanka, the 5-line lyric poem of Japan is quickly becoming popular in the English-language poetry community. Like haiku, its shorter cousin, tanka usually is well-grounded in concrete images but also is infused with a lyric intensity and intimacy that comes from the direct expression of emotions, as well as from implication, suggestion, and nuance. If you already write haiku and have ever wanted to add commentary to your verses, tanka is the form for you! The tanka aesthetic is broad and all-encompassing. You can write on virtually any subject and express your thoughts and feelings explicitly.

For an overview of this form, you may wish to browse the other articles and essays featured on Tanka Online, as well as our "Tanka Gallery" which showcases a variety of tanka written by poets from around the world. Then return here and consider these quick-start steps to writing your first tanka:

1. Think of one or two simple images from a moment you have experienced and describe them in concrete terms -- what you have seen, tasted, touched, smelled, or heard. Write the description in two or three lines. I will use lines from one of my own poems as an example:

an egret staring at me
me staring back
2. Reflect on how you felt or what you were thinking when you experienced this moment or perhaps later when you had time to think about it.

Regarding the moment described above, I thought about how often I have watched and photographed egrets. In fact, they even could be said to be a defining part of my life. My poetic instincts picked up on that word, "defining," and I knew I had a clue as to what my next lines would be.

3. Describe these feelings or thoughts in the remaining two or three lines:

wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment
4. Combine all five lines:

an egret staring at me
me staring back
wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment
5. Consider turning the third line of your poem into a pivot line, that is, a line that refers both to the top two lines as well as to the bottom two lines, so that either way they make sense grammatically. To do that, you may have to switch lines around.

Here's my verse with the lines reordered to create a pivoting third line:

wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment
an egret staring at me
me staring back
To test the pivot line, divide the poem into two three-liners and see if each makes sense:

wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment

my life's defining moment
an egret staring at me
me staring back
6. Think about the form or structure of your verse. In Japan, tanka is often written in one line with segments consisting of 5-7-5-7-7 sound-symbols or syllables. Some people write English tanka in five lines with 5-7-5-7-7 syllable to approximate the Japanese model. You may wish to try writing tanka in this way. But Japanese syllables are shorter than English language syllables, resulting in shorter poems even though the syllable count is the same. To approximate the Japanese model, some poets use approximately 20-22 syllables and a short-long-short-long-long structure or even just a free form structure using five lines. You may wish to experiment with all these approaches. My egret verse is free form.

7. Decide where capitalization and punctuation may be needed, if at all. Tanka verses normally are not considered full sentences, and the first word in line 1 usually is not capitalized, nor is the last line end-stopped with a period. The idea is to keep the verse open and a bit fragmented or incomplete to encourage the reader to finish the verse in his or her imagination. Internal punctuation, while adding clarification, can stop the pivot line from working both up and down. In my verse, a colon could be added without disenabling the pivot:

wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment:
an egret staring at me
me staring back
I decided to use indentation instead:

wondering for years
what would be
my life's defining moment
an egret staring at me
me staring back

A few final tips before you write your first verse:
Tanka verses normally do not have titles, unless they are in a "tanka sequence" or "tanka string."

Commentary can be separate from the concrete images or woven into them. Even though commentary is fine, it's a good policy -- as in any fine poetry -- to "show rather than tell."

[pinuno]

May ganito palang mga uri ng tula?abay buti nalang browsing mode ako now at may mga natututunan akong mga bagong bagay

[naruto789544]

nice topic... tanka is quite hard if you're used to writing in free verse... but if properly done, it connotes a very simple poem that goes straight to it's emotions...

[Heathcliff]

if you would examine each verse , tanka is basically a free verse poem...only it has a 5,7 , 5, 7 , 7 word structure that consists of 31 syllables in all...in difference from a free verse or lyrical poem...wherein poems are usually written with 4 or more verses, tanka however consists only of 3 lines...with a 5,7,5 (haiku) and additional 7,7 for tanka...

five, fiveness in a two or three line poem with 5 phrases is the traditional tanka...the poem structure breaks somewhere in 2nd verse giving it a powerful climax. Similar with the Haiku...thus Tanka with it's poetic variations was defined as Haiku2 (pertaining to the climactic ending) ...

5,7,5,7,7 is the traditional rule...but some tanka poets created their own style in writing tanka...I suppose, Jap language is far different and even more complex than english langage...one cannot write in such a way as the japs do...for me, English is an elaborative language while asian language such as Japanese is expressively multiplex and it requires deep understanding not only of their language but also , the Japanese culture.

tanka, simply is a signature short verse poem of the japs some centuries back...any poet, lyrical or free verse can concoct a tanka or a haiku...provided they use the 5,7,5 or 5,7,5,7,7, syllabic measurement otherwise...it wot be a tanka or a haiku anymore.

quite simple eh...?

[naruto789544]

i tried to write tanka before... sadly i wasn't too happy with what i made... free lyrical verse is my thing...

[Heathcliff]

try lang natin, my free verse sample of an amateur Tanka poetry...



vividly like moths

too sleepy thoughts flickering

like flames faltering

 softly... tantalizingly....

Sleep trailed off into the night.

------


let me quote you Sir. . . .



as the leaves one by one began to fall and rested,
in the dark brown earth that i can remember,
it's like what you said when i raised my head,
that forever i will remember this autumn day of past...




. . . my tanka version of the last stanza of your poem "Autumn Past"

withered leaves fell down

nestled upon it's resting place

though Time may forget

but mine heart shall not undo

one autumn past "lived for you" .

 . . .

pardon me for my interpretation of your words... but that's how I felt the emotion of your poem. I preferred to use the phrase "lived for you" instead of "lived or spent wth you" mas may lalim kase yng previous phrase. I hope you don't mind.

. . . late response na ito ah, thanks for the exchange Sir Naruto!


 

[naruto789544]

speechless mam @Schy... i know tanka has depth but i never knew it would be like this... thank you so much....