old quince tree planted
long ago to mark our love
in our first home’s yard —
branches extend to heaven
and your ashes by its roots
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Author Notes
CLASSIC TANKA is a Japanese poetic form that originated in the Japanese Imperial Court, where nobles competed in tanka contests and for men and women engaged in courtship. Created 1,200 years ago, it can embrace all of the human experience in its brief space with emotions of love, pity, suffering, loneliness, or death.
Tanka is succinct and may not exceed 31 syllables (5/7/5/7/7) BUT IT CAN BE LESS THAN 31 in a short/long/short/long/long format because Japanese and English syllables are not the same. Personification, metaphor, simile are permitted in Tanka. Capitalization and punctuation should only be used when necessary. No end rhymes. Alliteration should be avoided or used sparingly. A pivot line, usually line 3, can be read sensibly with lines 1 and 2, and also sensibly with lines 4 and 5, a property which can be used to introduce ambiguity and resonance into the poem.
RESOURCES: Tanka Society of America ; Free Ebook: The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi anmd Izumi Shikibu ; Poetry.Org Tanka Examples
Thank you for reading my tanka
Gypsy
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