Poem of the Week: 8.8.24
"Summer Tanka #1"
SUMMER TANKA #1
by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira
August fireworks lend stars to midnight’s making dreams seem true. Please, let me be that cat, curled on a cooling hood purring today’s tomorrow
It’s summer in San Diego.
This week, I’m trying a tanka.
The tanka is a traditional Japanese form of poetry that today has taken the form of five lines following a 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic count. Additionally, according to the Academy of American Poets, the tanka functions similarly to a sonnet in that there is a “transition from the examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. This turn is located within the third line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.” Notice how a tanka starts with a haiku in the first three lines (5-7-5) before a couplet of equal measure.
I like the tanka form because it includes the haiku’s appeal to the natural world—which is often in the form of a seasonal occurrence or a moment of change—while also acknowledging the person embedded in the scenery. When we write about nature, we are necessarily writing about ourselves.
Poolside, Ricky