Wed 14 Mar 2018
Day three, week five – tanka*
Posted by PJ under poetry, poetry project, tanka, weather
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tanka
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Mon 12 Mar 2018
Day one, week five – tanka*
Posted by PJ under poetry, poetry project, sea, tanka
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Tue 6 Mar 2018
Day three, week four – tanka*
Posted by PJ under crows, poetry, poetry project, tanka
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Fri 2 Mar 2018
Day one, week four – tanka*
Posted by PJ under birds, poetry, poetry project, tanka
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Four white egrets dive
in rainy air just above
the startled cars, a
chase and loop close to doom. Do
they dance—or are they fighting?
*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.
Wed 28 Feb 2018
Day three, week three – tanka*
Posted by PJ under flowers, poetry, poetry project, spring, tanka
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Thu 8 Feb 2018
I’m going to try something here
Posted by PJ under art, cinquain, haiku, nature, poetry, poetry project, tanka
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But the writing…fits and starts, can’t keep going on anything, things bubbling below the surface, but they won’t come out. I need to write. I long for it so hard, so deep. I think I need to force my own hand, so I’m going to try doing little things with that, too. I remember a writing teacher many long yarns ago who made us do five weeks (out of 20) of nothing but haiku, tanka, and cinquains before he’d let us do any other kind of writing. We chafed at that, some dropped the class, but for those of us who stuck with it this discipline turned into an amazingly freeing exercise. So…
Haiku
Poems of 3 lines and 17 syllables:
Line 1, 5 syllables
Line 2, 7 syllables
Line 3, 5 syllables
Tanka
Poems of 5 lines, 31 syllables:
Line 1, 5 syllables
Line 2, 7 syllables
Line 3, 5 syllables
Line 4, 7 syllables
Line 4, 7 syllables
Cinquain
An American form in imitation of the Japanese forms above. (Some cheat and title these poems, allowing themselves an extra line.)
Poems of 5 lines with iambic accents:
Line 1, 1 accent
Line 2, 2 accents
Line 3, 3 accents
Line 4, 4 accents
Line 5, 1 accent
Can I keep up the discipline? What discipline should I set myself? One a day? One a week?
I’ll try one a day, but that may be ambitious. One a week seems too little. So maybe I’ll compromise. I have to do at least 3 a week. If I do more, that’s great, but at least those three. So, here we go.
Edited to add:Â I started this on a Thursday, so my week runs Thursday to Thursday.
Day One – Tanka (with a thanks to mountoregano and a side thanks to Billy Collins)
The daffodils hold,
their green ranks standing silent.
The peach tree, chafing
with impatience, holds forth in
full spring, laughing pink blossoms.
