Monday, October 1, 2012

Tanka


So tanka is this form of Japanese poetry that is becoming more and more popular among English literature. There is a pattern with the syllables where it is divided into lines of 5-7-5-7-7. This is not always the case though because some styles tanka are free form but the basic idea is that they are short poems that can be said in two breaths when read aloud. Tanka poems don't usually have titles and are many are based off of a single memory that is expanded to the five lines.
Sanford Goldstein is this really cool American writer who started writing tanka and haiku before it was a common thing. She did this longer extension of tanka where each stanza is a tanka poem. She also has a bunch of normal tanka poems in a book that she had published.

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