Using Poetic Forms, Part 5: The Tanka

Many know about haiku, that ultra-short form of poetry from Japan that captures a flash of consciousness in only three lines. But a thousand years before haiku was created, Japanese poets developed and perfected the tanka form. Tanka is slightly longer—five lines—but it’s significantly different from haiku in the type of moment that sparks it.

Like haiku, which crystallizes one specific moment in time or consciousness, tanka is about a particular observation of the poet. But unlike haiku, tanka can reach both backwards and forwards in time to include a broader observation, or even a story. How can just five short lines of poetry tell a narrative? It’s not easy, but with the conciseness of tanka, a poet finds the fulcrum of a story, the moment of truth in that encounter.  Here’s one of my favorite tanka poems, by the great Japanese woman poet Yosano Akiko, who lived from 1878 to 1942, and wrote over 50,000 poems:

early evening moon
rising over a field of flowers
somehow I knew
he was waiting for me
and I went to him

(translated by Leith Morton and Zack Rogow)

Here the poet describes the moment when she made her choice to embark on a difficult relationship. The image of the evening moon suggests the expectant lover, wishing for her. The field of flowers makes me think of the fullness of her love.

I haven’t said anything yet about the rigorous form of the tanka. In Japanese, each of the five lines must have a specific number of syllables. The number of syllables per line is: 5-7-5-7-7. I haven’t mentioned this because this form works beautifully in Japanese, but when English-language translators or poets attempt to duplicate the form exactly, it often takes away from the freshness and the gentle punch of the tanka. Personally, I prefer poems that follow the spirit of the tanka and don’t count syllables like pennies. On the other hand, if you’re up to twelve syllables per line, you’re losing the concentrated flavor of the language in tanka.

Another fascinating side of the tanka is that the poet often sharply splits the five lines between two seemingly unrelated images. The writer does not directly link these two worlds, but leaves it entirely up to the reader to make the connection. Yosano Akiko does this in the poem just cited about the moon over the evening field and the lover’s impulse. Here’s another example, a thousand-year-old tanka by the 10^th century poet Fujiwara no Toshiyuki:

in the Bay of Sumi

waves crowd the shore

even at night

by the corridors of dreams

I come to you secretly

(adapted from the translation of Kenneth Rexroth)

The poet never says that the waves are like him, the lover. He never directly mentions that the shore is a metaphor for his beloved. It’s all just understood. That’s what I love about it! And the fact that the waves are not simply approaching the shore, they are crowding it. It is a little invasive to tell your beloved that you can visit her at night, even when she’s dreaming. The poem acknowledges that, in the midst of a wonderfully romantic moment. That’s an amazing amount of emotional complexity to pack into five lines.

Another classic tanka that I love is one by Ariwara no Narihira, who lived from 825 to 880 C.E.:

I always knew
that I would take this road
but yesterday
I didn’t know
it would be today

(adapted from the translation of Kenneth Rexroth)

There are so many amazing things about this poem—the ease and simplicity of the metaphor of the road, the way the poem can be applied to a myriad of situations, the way it doesn't hit you till the last line. Beautiful! 

If you’d like to read more tanka, here are some collections of the form:

Kenneth Rexroth, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese

Makoto Ueda, Modern Japanese Tanka

Yosano Akiko, Tangled Hair: Selected Poems from Midaregami

Poetic Forms: Introduction; The Sonnet, The Sestina, The Ghazal, The Tanka, The Villanelle

Zack's own tanka poems appear in his books Irreverent Litanies and My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers.

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