Tanka is a Japanese form of poetry, cousin to the haiku. There are any number of places and sites that will give you the background, different forms, exercises and such....http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/an-easy-approach-to-write-a-haiku-or-tanka-poem-5633348.html would be one.
My understanding of the lovely Tanka form comes from Susan Carleton (link when I find her latest blog!). She described it as a form that
Uses natural phenomena to illustrate emotions
I've been writing them most days for the past while: a kind of journalling and a creative focus for the day.There's many forms that use a 5-line shape with structures like 5-7-7-5-5, but I've evolved a 9-13-9 form - the Tiny Tanka - or even sometimes a 7-9-7 which is more of a Teeny Tiny Tanka...
I'll be posting a Tanka most days, and would love it if you, Dear Reader, did too.
So off we go. here's a couple I wrote earlier
28/5/12
Dusk silky grey. Dust settles, roof sighs / Edges blur, day
lets go to night, insects creak and whirr / in the low ground. Dog barks at the
moon.
11th June:
Those damn clouds keep appearing / Psyche’s delicate shell
sunburnt: earth splits, heals dusty / On the horizon, clouds move away. Look.
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