How To Write A Tanka Poem

Tanka Poem

Tanka The tanka , was developed during the 8th century in the Japanese Imperial courts.

It was actually the precursor of the haikai-renga poem and has a similar form to the haiku.

The for for a tanka is like this: 5 lines, 5,7,5,7,7 syllables

A tanka contains five lines, of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables.

The poem has a personal and passionate tone, so the topic is often human relationships.

As with haiku, writers of tanka in English often deviate from the exact syllable count, but usually stay with the five-line format.

A tanka usually has two “units” or discernable sections of two or three lines that form separate thoughts.

Example of a Tanka poem:

To live is to break
One's heart for the sake of love;
A couple of doves,
Beaks touching on their way-
Are stepping out in the sun. --

Ueda Miyoji

That concludes a brief discussion of Tanka poetry.

Visit the poetry forum now!



Feel free to link directly to this Tonka poem tutorial using the code below (just copy and paste into your webpage)

<a href="http://www.poetstrain.com/how-to-write-a-tanka-poem.html" Target="_blank"><b>How to write a Tanka poem</b></a><br>Information about Tanka poetry other forms of verse.

Feel free to link directly to this haiku poetry page using the html code below (just copy and paste into your webpage)

The Link Will Look Like This:

How to write a Tanka poem
Information about Tanka poetry other forms of verse.