Once upon a time, in the glory days of Live Journal, when online community was a joy, I had another blog. It’s still out there, a relic that I cannot bring myself to torch yet. And it contains SO MUCH GOODNESS that it’s little wonder I don’t want to set it on fire.
This post is constructed from five different blog posts, part of a series on what I call “mathematical forms” in poetry, included the haiku (5-7-5), the cinquain, and more. I’ve edited it lightly, but it does give really good info on what a tanka is, and on the history of the form, including its feminist roots.
Today, a brief introduction to the tanka, which I have in the past referred to as a haiku pulling a trailer.
The tanka (a word which means "short poem") is five lines long - it's essentially a haiku followed by two more longer lines. In Japanese syllable count, which is a bit different from what we do in English, it's 5-7-5-7-7. It's most often written in English using those syllable counts as well.
The opening three lines are similar to a haiku or senryu, using concrete imagery to set the scene or establish the subject of the tanka. The final two lines elaborate on the subject by delving deeper into the emotional heart of the poem. The use of metaphor or simile is encouraged in the tanka, particularly in the closing two lines.
Here's one in translation from a poet called Okura, from the late 7th or early 8th century:
What are they to me,
silver, or gold, or jewels?
How could they ever
equal the greater treasure
that is a child? They can not.
a tanka is a short poem, usually rendered in English in 5 lines of varying syllable lengths, often 5-7-5-7-7.
Side note: The tanka is sometimes known as a waka, or an uta (short form of yamato-uta), which are terms historically meaning "Japanese poetry" (meaning poetry written in Japanese, as opposed to Chinese), but which now is often used interchangeably with the word tanka to mean a poem written in the 5-7-5-7-7 Japanese format. I mention it in case you have seen the word "waka" before (outside the Fozzy Bear context of "wokka") and thought this all sounded a bit familiar. But I digress.
Just as haiku and senryū can have lines that are shorter than 5-7-5, a tanka's lines can vary as well in English, and are more like short-longer-short-longer-longer, basically with 31 syllables as an outside total.
A tanka may have, but does not require, a kigo, or seasonal word.
It is perfectly fine to use the 5-7-5-7-7 construction in every tanka. What you essentially have is a haiku followed by two more lines that expand or expound on the topic of the opening haiku,.
The first three lines are usually as concise and evocative as a haiku, and tend to set the scene through physical description (although there are exceptions, of course). These opening lines do not usually involve metaphor or simile (or, if you prefer, any sense of comparison).
The last two lines expand, comment, and/or delve more deeply into the emotional heart of the poem. This is where thoughts and feelings enter the tanka (usually), and the use of metaphor or simile is highly encouraged here. The goal of a tanka isn't just to present the reader with an image, but to deliberately evoke a feeling or emotion, whether it's pathos or humor or something else.
Here is an example from Carl Brennan, a New York poet who won grand prize in a tanka contest with this one, which many writers can relate to:
She comes at night,
wrapped in convulsive perfumes
and scarred by longings,
lavishing the wrong names on me
at the worst moments: my muse
The first three lines describe a woman in interesting imagery, and we get the sense that this woman is tortured (and possibly spreads that torture around). The last two take the situation - this woman - and makes it personal: she affects ME and is so inconvenient, before identifying that she isn't necessarily a real being at all, but is instead the urge to write. Love it.
Next, a look at Ono no Komachi, a historical figure and one of the most famous female Japanese poets and a complete master of the tanka.
Some of the most famous tanka were written by women who lived centuries ago in Japan during the Heian era (during the 9th century C.E.). One of these was Ono no Komachi, who was likely born between 820 and 830 and lived until perhaps 900. The facts of her life are lost to history (isn't that always the way when a woman is involved?), apart from her romantic relationships with several powerful men, to and for (and with) whom she wrote her remarkable poetry.
It is believed she may have been a courtesan in the service of the Emperor, and that she entered into relationships with other men after the Emperor died, although that is, of course, speculation. What is notspeculative is the exquisite quality of her poetry, which throbs with life and longing, and is quite complicated, given that it can be interpreted in several ways (both by readers in the original Japanese, since her words and images are subject to multiple meanings, and in translation).
Here is one of her most famous tanka, first in the Japanese, and then in translation three ways:
花の色は
うつりにけりな
いたづらに
わが身世にふる
ながめせしまに
A life in vain.
My looks, talents faded
like these cherry blossoms
paling in the endless rains
that I gaze out upon, alone. (Peter McMillan)
The flowers withered
Their color faded away
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling (Donald Keene)
While watching
the long rains falling on this world
my heart, too, fades
with the unseen color
of the spring flowers. (Jane Hirschfield and Mariko Aritani)
Here is a list that includes other possible translations of this same poem.
No matter how you read these translations, it's clear that the opening lines deal with a nature-based image (fading blossoms), while the remaining lines deal with her own fading beauty and passion during the "long rains". The metaphor is clear, and is a good example of how metaphor in tanka can and should work.
I love how startlingly fresh much of her language seems (depending, of course, on the translation involved) despite the passage of more than 1200 years. Others of her poems exhibit longing and loneliness in heart-aching, swoons-good language.
Ono no Komachi was not the only female among the foremost creators of tanka; she was followed in the 10th century by Izumi Shizibu, who is known to have been married twice, and to have been involved with two princes. Her work, like Komachi's, is worth seeking out. Shizibu's work manages to meld Buddhist sensibilities and eroticism.
I will start today with what appears to be a tanka. I say "appears to be" because as a finished product, it qualifies. It was, however, composed in separate parts by two people (or groups of people), and it qualifies as a maekuzuke, a type of humorous verse in which the last two lines are written first, then another writer (or writers) try to top the ending with a three-one set-up. In the time after Basho's death, maekuzukecompetitions were all the rage.
Here's today's tanka, which is overall quite funny, in part because if it were true, it would be 100% pathos.
Catching the thief
And looking at him, --
It was my own son!
I want to kill him,
And I don't want to kill him.
For me, the takeaway from this poem is not based in its content, but on the way it was constructed: the last part first. It's a fun way to turn the process around, and also a way of coming up with the emotional takeaway of your tanka first, then finding the "setting" for it later.