Re: TANKA POETRY - for improving our skills at writing tanka... ;)

[Doctor Fab]

so far only three friends have submitted their entries (see below). Their 4 tanka will be in the anthology.

Anyone else want to try? 😎

Come on.. don't be shy! 😜😁

Best

F.

🎄

________________________

Lidia:

1.

now is the time

to change this harsh world into

a loving one

or the world will change your soul

into a wandering wolf

2.

this sadness of mine...

such human heart’s enemy

changes its colour

never comes in white only

some days it is black emptiness

Geeta:

a chameleon —

its changing colours from grey

to green pink red...

ah, volatile emotions

of the human heart!

Annette:

her hello

smothers my goodbye

at the station —

arrival and departure

of two trains on the same track

Annette also tried to make a tanka out of a haiku... and it worked 🙂 :

a lone
frosty rose —
new year

photos in the calendar
of last summer's rose garden

On Wed, Dec 8, 2021 at 5:03 PM Doctor Fab wrote:

Hello All,

as we did more than two months ago, for our TANKA anthology project, I wish to stimulate your poetic creativity by asking you to compose up to 5 tanka using the following five suggestions:

1. it changes color

2. now is the time

3. at the station

4. inside a mirror

5.  the east wind

They come from the following tanka  — you remember the "kami-no-ku" (upper poem: the first 3 lines) and the "shimo-no-ku" (lower poem: the last 2 lines)? 🙂

1.

how invisibly
it changes color
in this world,

the flower
of the human heart

— Ono no Komachi (825–900), translation by Jane Hirshfield.

2.

now is the time
you think to leave me,
I'm growing older  —

your promises too
are leaves of turning colors

— Ono no Komachi

3.

our life in this world
is like the image one sees
inside a mirror —

something that's not really there,
but then not really not-there

— Minamoto no Sanetomo (1192–1219), translated by Steven D. Carter.

4.

at the train station
my wife came with our daughter
on her back

I caught sight of her eyebrows
through a blanket of snow

—  Ishikawa Takuboku (1886–1912), translated by Roger Pulvers.

5.

her loose hair entwined
around a young branch
by the east wind...

and in the west a rainbow
so small, yet radiant!

—  Yosano Akiko (1878–1942), translated by Roger Pulvers.

In addition, for those who feel more "intrepid" 😎 I propose a more demanding challenge: although the following three poems are not tanka (they are haiku), what about trying to use them as if they were the "kami-no-ku" (upper poem) of a tanka? 

Of course, haiku is not a shortened tanka, nor is tanka a prolonged haiku, but it may be interesting to see how these 3 haiku can be transformed into tanka by adding a proper "shimo-no-ku" (the lower poem, made of 2 lines) to them 😇

H.1.:

envied by us
they turn beautiful then fall —
autumn leaves

— Kagami Shiko (1665 – 1731)

[or, as in another translation of the original Japanese text:

" envied by us all / turning to such loveliness / red leaves that fall "]

H.2.:

a lone
frosty rose —
new year

— Shūōshi Mizuhara (1892–1981)

H.3.:

first snow —
begins in the darkness
ends in the darkness

— Nozawa Setsuko (1920–1995)

Who feels like trying? 🙂

Cheers

F.

🎄