Monday, July 27, 2015

Honeysuckle coolness, a tanka



Dear friends and followers,

It's a new dawn ... I, Chèvrefeuille, will start to compose tanka. Tanka is another nice Japanese poetry form. It looks like waka, 5-7-5-7-7 and maybe you recognize it as part of renga or as a Tan Renga.
Recently we had an 'ask Jane' episode at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, my daily haiku meme, about the beauty of tanka. Jane even has said that I could be a tanka poet. I am not a tanka poet, but I do like tanka. So I have decided to pick up the challenge to become a tanka poet next to being a haiku poet and ... seriously I love to try tanka.

Tanka is known as 'love-poetry', because tanka was used, like waka, as the way to give the deepest feelings of love, mostly hidden in the words and lines, to your loved one ...

Here is my first attempt ever to write tanka, as a love poem ...:

Lilies of the valley
their sweet perfume makes me drowsy
hot summer night
between silken sheets her warmth
honeysuckle coolness

© Chèvrefeuille

Well ... what do you think of this first attempt?



Other link for an episode of "Ask Jane" about Tanka