Love, Beauty, and Hope

Tanka stresses love, beauty, and hope, in parallels between human life and nature. What is sought within the very simple form (five lines in English) is to express the essence of a yearning with a depth in which all the emotions are intermingled. The vivid expression of that which has touched the heart has the power to evoke a wealth of associations. Tanka is a wonderful medium of expression. Because of its brevity, it is a form in which poets can produce highly "memorable" and "memoizable" works. Like haiku, tanka often employs natural imagery and settings to evoke thoughts or feelings. However, tankäs greater length (compared with haiku) allows for expressions of deeper thoughts and of themes that would be too difficult for haiku to carry. As an easy definition, tanka in English is a new creation: an ancient style of poetry that speaks to the hearts and emotions of contemporary people. In this spirit, the author's journey in tanka, accompanied by two cats, continues.