Modern Japanese Tanka by Makoto Ueda

First you have to understand that all “tanka” is “waka,” but not all waka is tanka. Both forms are 31 syllable verses that generally follow a 5-7-5-7-7 format, but waka is an ancient type of poetry that has been a Japanese literary tradition for centuries. Waka poetry can be found in the “Kojiki,” Japan’s oldest book.   Tanka, however, is a new literary genre that came out of the late 19^th Century by a restless generation of poets that found traditional waka to be stale and repetitive.

In his excellent book, “Modern Japanese Tanka” Japanese scholar and Stanford professor Makoto Ueda discusses the development of tanka from the late 19^th Century to modern times. He shows how it differs from “haiku,” and more importantly how tanka is a more liberating and versatile art form. He does this with 400 samples by twenty different poets. In each chapter, Ueda introduces and describes the contribution of a different tanka master.

Tanka can be very haiku-like with the use seasonal references and cutting words, like Yosano Akiko’s:

evanescent

like the faint white

of cherry blossoms

blooming among the trees

my life on this spring day

Tanka, more importantly can also be about anything else-especially about the emotional reactions to the events and environment around the poet. When military veteran Mori Ogai ironically recalls his military service, he writes:

some medals

compensate for the terror

of the moment

while others pay for many

humdrum days spent in the service

A tanka writer can also poke fun at his own foibles. The reader can almost see Maekawa Samio slap his forehead as he recounts and complains:

monumental

idiot that I am

I’ve sent an umbrella

to a bicycle shop

for repairs

Tanka can also capture Life’s poignant moments. Yosano Tekkan writes of the loss his six-week old daughter in “To our baby that died:”

in the dark woods

lying ahead on your road

whom will you call?

you don’t know yet the names

of your parents or your own

It should be pointed out that translated tanka can look like free verse, and some tanka are. Editor Ueda helps those readers concerned with the 31 syllable constancy of the verses by presenting each poem in English and in Romanized Japanese at the bottom of the page.

 

Facebook friends know that I have been captioning with verse some of the photos I make of a ten kilometer walk along the canals between my home and the local library. It’s a therapy of sorts. The photos remind me to keep searching for beauty during this terrible time of being unemployed. The captions/lyrics/verse/poems were, at first, in the style of seventeen syllable “haiku,” but recently I’ve been offering some poor samples tanka as well. It’s a more suitable form sometimes. I know that from reading this book.