English Tanka Poetry – Feelings of Autumn
early autumn sun
shining through the distant mist
throwing dark shadows
in harmony with the air
living in dreamland again
English Tanka Poetry – a Verse that consists of five units, usually in the following pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 which is syllables.
What is a syllable?
- a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; for example, there are two syllables in water and three in inferno.
The first three lines (5/7/5) are the upper phase. This upper stage is where you create an image in your reader’s mind.
The last two lines (7/7) of a Tanka poem are called the lower phase. The final two lines should express the poet’s ideas about the image that was created in the three lines above.