Haikus and Tankas

Konichihua! Welcome to Japan!

No, we are not actually at Japan. But we are learning two poems that came from Japan.

Haikus and Tankas are two poems about nature that comes from Japan. It is also an ancient way for a man to show his feelings to a women he likes. The man sends a haiku and if the women likes the haiku, she sends a reply tanka. Pretty weird procedure, huh? So let's learn about the ancient way of Japanese poetry.

Let's start with Haikus. It has three lines of 5, 7, and 5 again of syllables. This is probably the second most famous type of poetry. O.K., here's an example.





Running upon us
A speedy runner of Earth
Blowing things away

Did you notice anything weird about the haiku? You might have noticed that this is about wind, but I don't mean that. What I am talking about is that the haiku has no title. This is one of the beauties of the haiku. You need to read and find out what the poem is about. It is a tanka's wonder,too. A tanka is a reply to a haiku, like I said before. That's why this is similar to a haiku, but there are two more lines of 7 syllables. Here is a tanka. Can you see what it is about??




Factories make smoke
I think that cars make more smoke
It doesn't matter
The sky turns grey anyway
People don't care anyway

As you can see, this is about pollution. Can you see what these two is about?




Poetry writing
We are writing Haikus
Even this is one


Poetry again
This time we all write Tankas
Close to Haikus
But not Haikus at all
Come on, it's just poetry!


Well, that's it for the trip to Japan. Sayonara!

From James K to all other poets