Tanka on haiku – questioning the rules of beauty

Posted on by Colleen M. Chesebro

Sue shares her thoughts on writing the Japanese poetry forms. I stand corrected – she brings up excellent points about diction and pronunciation in British English vs. American English. I accept that some poets write in their native language which is then translated into English. The syllable count may be off because of the differences in language. I have no problems with this. The poetry challenge was started to share our love of poetry while learning about the different forms. Please write your poetry with your particular syllable count as close to the 5/7/5 format as possible. If you are not spot on, don’t worry. Creativity should be allowed to flourish. That works for me. Thank you, Sue, for sharing your thoughts. ❤

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

There are many set forms of poetic structure. Books and websites abound, setting out the rules of form and content that allow us to label our work and provide a framework in which to explore a concent. The very stringency of these forms, where rhyme schemes, syllable counts and even content are dictated give us a measure against which we can be judged, and many will judge on the slightest deviance from the accepted norm.

I enjoy writing haiku. The ‘midnight haiku’ I started publishing a couple of years ago now have become a staple feature of the blog and I think I have missed no more than a couple of days in that time to illness. I like the constraints imposed by the widely accepted ‘English form’ of the poem; seventeen syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern leave no room for extraneous thoughts, but give plenty of space to explore…

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8 thoughts on “Tanka on haiku – questioning the rules of beauty”

  1. Thanks for sharing, Colleen. I love writing haiku, as you know, but love many other forms too and believe that the chosen form…or lack of it…should fit the essence of the poem and what is in the wroters heart. As you rightly say, it is the ceative expression of the writer that needs to be allowed to flourish.

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    1. You’re welcome. We all learn together, which I think is fabulous. ❤

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