All right, all right, that was pretty unforgivable but I hope you’ll enjoy these tanka, as prompted by NaPoWriMo:
write a tanka. This, like the “American” cinquain, is a poem based on syllables, with the pattern being 5-7-5-7-7. They work best when those final two 7-syllable lines contain a sort of turn or surprise that the first three lines might not wholly anticipate. You can string a bunch of them together to make a multi-stanza poem, or just write one!
while I write tanka
upper and lower phrases
without any rhyme,
the news breaks in to tell me
north korea’s not bluffing.
the tanka, it seems,
while related to haiku
were once love letters.
haiku with still more to say
and fourteen more syllables.
our goal for April:
thirty poems in thirty days,
rhyme nor feet required.
After a few days you’ll find
that everything’s a haiku.
