In keeping with the April Tanka Awareness month, I have decided to complement my tanka deviations with some of my ideas concerning modern tanka. Keep in mind that definitions of the art may vary depending upon the artist, but to truly know tanka...you must experience it

Originating in Japan during the Heian period, tanka is well over 1200 years old. Tanka began as the standard lyric poem of Japanese literature. Like classic haiku, tanka was composed of structured metrical units. These units were 5 lines in a format of 5-7-5-7-7. Observing the principles of brevity (albeit in a much more fluid manner than haiku), tanka consist of no more than 31 sound symbols (similar to syllables in English). In the Heian period of Japan, while haiku was considered the poetry of the middle class (merchants, commoners, etc), tanka was associated with aristocracy and was often complemented with music.

Today, modern tanka has undergone many transformations in both definition and structure. Although the form structure of 5 lines is still regularly observed, modern tanka often eschews the sound symbol structure of the classic verse.

F.Y.I- I have seen tanka composed of four lines that work equally well.

In my opinion, the most important aspects of tanka are not the play-by-play historical facts, but rather the principles of the art itself.

According to haijin Pat Shelley, Tanka can embrace all of human experience in its brief space with emotions of love, pity, suffering, loneliness, or death, expressed in the simplest language.

Tanka incorporates metaphor, line breaks, ellipses, and other techniques to emphasize
human emotion. Where the expression of emotion in haiku is subtle, tanka is very overt and flowing...

That is all for now. There will be 4 journal updates after this one. Each discussing a various aspect of Tanka style poetry.