Tanka Poem

[lifeselector002]

Searching for sunshine
SUn always glows
playing with sand and rocks
Does any of them counts
SLipped pricsckly in an intimacy I cannot recover

 

[NivKay]

Searching for sunshine
SUn always glows
playing with sand and rocks
Does any of them counts
SLipped pricsckly in an intimacy I cannot recover

Not sure what @Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer would say about that line though, but nice!!

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

東海の
小島の磯の
白砂に
われ泣きぬれて
蟹とたわむる

Tōkai no
kojima no iso no
shirasuna ni
ware naki nurete
kani to tawamuru

In the Eastern Sea,
Of the beach of a small island,
On the white sand.
I, my face streaked with tears,
Am playing with a crab

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

so the 5-7-5-7-7 goes back to the original Japanese and not so much the English translation.

I'm not sure what we should do.

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

Searching for sunshine
SUn always glows
playing with sand and rocks
Does any of them counts
SLipped pricsckly in an intimacy I cannot recover

interesting capitalization: SUn followed later by SLipped...

you must've done that on purpose...so, please, pray tell...

 

[NivKay]

so the 5-7-5-7-7 goes back to the original Japanese and not so much the English translation.

I'm not sure what we should do.

But the English translation would keep to the spirit of the original. And so would have adhered to the form…

 

[lifeselector002]

Not sure what @Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer would say about that line though, but nice!!

Thank you

 

[lifeselector002]

interesting capitalization: SUn followed later by SLipped...

you must've done that on purpose...so, please, pray tell...

Every detail in poetry is very important
You can consider this capitalization as a highlight in the similarities between both sentences

We can slip easily when we cannot see clearly
So anything glows brightly like the sun
Can blur our sight

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

MACHI TAWARA​

Machi Tawara (b. Osaka, 1962) is one of Japan’s most popular tanka poets and is credited for giving new relevance to this millennia-old Japanese poetry form. Her first volume of tanka, Salad Anniversary (1987), became an immediate bestseller and turned its author into an instant celebrity. Salad Anniversary inspired televised serial dramas, a musical revue and a full-length movie, and went on to sell 8 million copies worldwide. She has been awarded multiple prizes for her poetry, including the Kadokawa Tanka Award and the Modern Japanese Poets Association Award. Tawara is also a critic, translator and travel writer, and contributes to various national newspapers and magazines in Japan.

 

[NivKay]

This was great! thank you...it does give some good context. Need to get back into some tanka-writing..

 

[Angeline]

MACHI TAWARA​

Machi Tawara (b. Osaka, 1962) is one of Japan’s most popular tanka poets and is credited for giving new relevance to this millennia-old Japanese poetry form. Her first volume of tanka, Salad Anniversary (1987), became an immediate bestseller and turned its author into an instant celebrity. Salad Anniversary inspired televised serial dramas, a musical revue and a full-length movie, and went on to sell 8 million copies worldwide. She has been awarded multiple prizes for her poetry, including the Kadokawa Tanka Award and the Modern Japanese Poets Association Award. Tawara is also a critic, translator and travel writer, and contributes to various national newspapers and magazines in Japan.

Thank you for this! I went exploring and found this link to examples of Tawara's modern take on the form. She writes in Japanese and the examples are shown in English translation, so they don't adhere to the 5-7-5-7-7 structure. They are poetic though and give one a feel for how she applies the thematic requirements of the tanka (i.e., first person narrative, focus on human life rather than nature) to her contemporary world.

 

[_Land]

he slept in my bed
his name still a question mark
on my bathroom sink
now the pill waits—plan B’s hush
cradled in my trembling hand

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

Thank you for this! I went exploring and found this link to examples of Tawara's modern take on the form. She writes in Japanese and the examples are shown in English translation, so they don't adhere to the 5-7-5-7-7 structure. They are poetic though and give one a feel for how she applies the thematic requirements of the tanka (i.e., first person narrative, focus on human life rather than nature) to her contemporary world.

Your left hand,
exploring my fingers one by one —
maybe this is love

This too a memory
I leave it as it is —
dent in my straw hat
~ August Morning

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

still undecided
but I agree to his place
then there's warm vinyl
his moves now smoother than jazz
I'm soon completely undone

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

 

[Jocelyn_Nicole_Sawyer]

my deepest desire
play me like a piano
tickle all my keys

and now we just need two more 7's ... take it away, Tanka-team!

 

[AlinaX]

Slightly off-topic, but I just discovered the answer to something that has riddled me for twenty-five years.

In Dark Angel, Kendra is teaching some children Japanese and she recites a haiku, translated roughly as:

my remaining days are numbered... brief night​

The original, it seems, is by Shiki:

yomei ikubaku ka aru yo mijikashi​

 

[AlinaX]

my deepest desire
play me like a piano
tickle all my keys

I will sing octaves for you
from now until eighty-eight

 

[Angeline]

Deep Elem Blues

The band is bouncing,
rocking joyful melody.
But aren't these blues?
Blues blow your sorrow away:
that's what they're made for, Mama.

 

[_Land]

To memories, sweet Angeline


Trumpet in the dark—
smoke curls around old laughter,
ghosts sip their bourbon.
I sway out of rhythm now,
the soul of the room gone hushed.

 

[Angeline]

To memories, sweet Angeline


Trumpet in the dark—
smoke curls around old laughter,
ghosts sip their bourbon.
I sway out of rhythm now,
the soul of the room gone hushed.

Can you hear whispers,
the rustling of our dear ghosts,
gone and yet so close,
friends and lovers locked to us,
their words written on my heart.

 

[_Land]

Can you hear whispers,
the rustling of our dear ghosts,
gone and yet so close,
friends and lovers locked to us,
their words written on my heart.

I lit one last song
beneath the blue club spotlight—
your laugh in the smoke.
Even now, you sway with me,
but the chairs are turning cold.

 

[_Land]

Can you hear whispers,
the rustling of our dear ghosts,
gone and yet so close,
friends and lovers locked to us,
their words written on my heart.

By the way dear ghosts is iconic

 

[_Land]

By the way dear ghosts is iconic

Curtains still shiver,
but I no longer chase them.
Let them laugh and fade—
if love is their soft return,
then I will wait in the hush.

(A glass clinks in air—
I forget whose hand held it.
Laughter skips the walls.)

Your fingers once played
the edge of my shadowed thoughts,
braiding in moonlight.
Now I only hum your tune
as dust settles on the keys.

(Even silence bends—
a note held just long enough
to sound like goodbye.)

I do not forget.
Not the way your echoes touched
my unguarded skin.
Still, I won’t draw back the veil.
Ghosts deserve their resting place.

 

[_Land]

Curtains still shiver,
but I no longer chase them.
Let them laugh and fade—
if love is their soft return,
then I will wait in the hush.

(A glass clinks in air—
I forget whose hand held it.
Laughter skips the walls.)

Your fingers once played
the edge of my shadowed thoughts,
braiding in moonlight.
Now I only hum your tune
as dust settles on the keys.

(Even silence bends—
a note held just long enough
to sound like goodbye.)

I do not forget.
Not the way your echoes touched
my unguarded skin.
Still, I won’t draw back the veil.
Ghosts deserve their resting place.

Epitaph at the End of the Set
(A multi-tanka elegy)

The room breathes shadows—
sultry blues through crimson haze.
Laughter curls the rim
of a glass left still half full.
I sip what they left behind.

Their verses linger—
Angeline’s hips in the smoke,
sweet and sorrow-spun.
She taught me that joy can ache,
and grief still knows how to dance.

Wicked Eve’s wild howl
skipped across the scuffed floorboards,
Elda close behind—
they dared me to lose my name
and answer in moaned riddles.

Judo’s voice, sand-raw,
wrapped truth in silk-stained regret.
Beauty came with teeth.
Even the candlelight flinched
at the hunger in her hush.

Lauren Hynde crooned lust
in languages I once knew—
then forgot to feel.
She cracked open tender bones
and left verses in my ribs.

There was always Kdog—
a wink and another pour.
He toasted silence.
Even grief wore a grin then,
spiked with lime and reckoning.

Rybka saw double
so I might see whole again.
In stitched paradox
in shotglass reflections—
truth flickered, slightly off key.

Peter hummed mischief
in strings of absurdity—
his voice a balloon
drifting just out of reason
and right into my soft spots.

Senna moved like wind
through a chessboard of phrasing,
never off balance.
He checkmated me with grace—
his silence held the last word.

Now the stage is dust.
No one calls for one more song.
But I still hum them—
the ones who touched my shadow
and left jazz in my marrow.

Curtains still shiver.
I do not pull them apart.
Let the hush remain.
If love is their soft return,
I will wait in the quiet.