Tanka Andy?
Not quite, but I've been curious about the form for a long time, and have never really heard a satisfying definition. What you find in dictionaries is something like:
noun - a Japanese poem consisting of five lines, the first and third of which have five syllables and the other seven, making 31 syllables in all and giving a complete picture of an event or mood.
Not a whole lot to grok there. Yes, but what IS it?
Finally, I stumbled onto something. In The Essential Haiku, editor Robert Hass includes the essay A Note on Haikai, Hokku, and Haiku that addresses the evolution of these related forms. In the third sentence, he solidifies it for me:
Renga was a form of collaborative poetry, usually written by three or more poets, that was created by giving the tanka, the five-line poem of the classical anthologies, a sort of call and response form.
This may not be the working definition -- I'm sure a lot of modern tanka doesn't follow this -- but it gives me something I can work with. I want to start thinking about that when I finish a haiku. If this is a call, what might be the response?
Anyway, here are the past week's haiku and where they were mailed to.
haiku 20230320 >> Albuquerque, NM USA
stars and planets
chasing the sunset
spring equinox
haiku 20230321 >> Santa Barbara, CA USA
just as we're about
to give up hope
white apple blossoms
haiku 20230322 >> Brighton, MA USA
household chores
the cat politely waits
while I clean her box
haiku 20230323 >> Berkeley, CA USA
spring lightning
the mountain spirits
shaking off winter
haiku 20230324 >> Charlotte, NC USA
spring!
even the trees
make to-do lists
haiku 202300325 >> Brooklyn, NY USA
how many places
can one heart call home?
back in the city
haiku 20230326 >> Taytay Rizal, Philippines
north beach saturday
admiring the sights
we get beeped at
I want to send you a card
The haiku hat is getting low again. I WANT to send you one of my haiku postcards. Please ask! It’s free. I ask nothing in return, aside from your good graces.
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