What a great deep dive into tanka! This is a form I'm striving to give more attention to (although haiku will always be my first love). Thanks for this great newsletter!
Cheers Jason - and you are very welcome! Thanks for reading, and the lovely comment. Yeah, tanka has its own pleasures, not entirely distinct from haikai, but definitely with a slightly different edge. The extra 2-phrases provide their own kind of timespace/scope in tanka. :-)
This year I’ve wanted to focus on short poems. I love tankas and haiku and they can be so hard to write. Thank you for this post. And I love your tanka.
Ah awesome! I look forward tp reading some of your tanka and haiku. And yeah, they can be really difficult - but I think with a little study, they can become a lot clearer, and then the poems should start to flow easier. At least that has been my experience - kind of stripping it back to basics. You might enjoy the article I wrote a couple of weeks ago for Haiku Thursday called 'One Plum Slowly Ripens: An Introduction to Haiku' :-) Thanks so much for the kind words about my tanka as well! Really appreciate it.
Aw cheers! Take as long as you need. I know they're pretty long and involved haha. Yeah that Ono no Komachi tanka is so good huh - I think one of my favs of all time, and the translation just nails it so well.
What a great deep dive into tanka! This is a form I'm striving to give more attention to (although haiku will always be my first love). Thanks for this great newsletter!
Cheers Jason - and you are very welcome! Thanks for reading, and the lovely comment. Yeah, tanka has its own pleasures, not entirely distinct from haikai, but definitely with a slightly different edge. The extra 2-phrases provide their own kind of timespace/scope in tanka. :-)
This year I’ve wanted to focus on short poems. I love tankas and haiku and they can be so hard to write. Thank you for this post. And I love your tanka.
Ah awesome! I look forward tp reading some of your tanka and haiku. And yeah, they can be really difficult - but I think with a little study, they can become a lot clearer, and then the poems should start to flow easier. At least that has been my experience - kind of stripping it back to basics. You might enjoy the article I wrote a couple of weeks ago for Haiku Thursday called 'One Plum Slowly Ripens: An Introduction to Haiku' :-) Thanks so much for the kind words about my tanka as well! Really appreciate it.
Thank you once again for a great post, I missed it last week, but I'm trying to catch up, Dick! The last tanka is truly awesome :)
Aw cheers! Take as long as you need. I know they're pretty long and involved haha. Yeah that Ono no Komachi tanka is so good huh - I think one of my favs of all time, and the translation just nails it so well.
This is a fascinating study of simplicity.
Thanks so much Mark! Yeah - turns out there is quite a lot that goes into that sense of effortlessness and simplicity ;-)
Absolutely! You can't afford to waste a syllable with these concise forms.
So true!