Waka, Tanka, Renga — Haiku!

by Janice M. Bostok

When we speak of haiku we are speaking of a very short poem with a very long history of development — and much baggage!  This situation is also true of the tanka and we find that the history of the haiku and the tanka is somewhat interwoven. 

In the beginning the three lines of verse which we might now recognise as 'Haiku' were the  upper lines of the tanka.  The tanka poem was originally adapted from the Chinese Waka poem.  The waka has been written in Japan since the beginning of time.  The Waka was also known as 'choka' or long poem.  It was arranged with its phrases of five and seven sounds symbols in continuous short/long patterns.

'Tanka'  has a specific  short/long/short long/long pattern. 

It may be undignified of me, but I think of the lines like leggo blocks!  They fit together and one can keep building.

I'll just explain what I mean by 'tan renga' here.  To distinguish the tanka written by two poets, from the other tanka which were written by one person, or the renga which were written by many poets, we now call them 'tan renga'. Very few examples of 'tan renga' (written by two persons) survived and it wasn't until around the eleventh century that the imperial anthology included this form. 
   
While the tanka and the haiku are forever joined by their history of development of form, the tanka is noticeably different in content.  During the period before 700 AD tanka was predominantly used to express an appreciation of nature.  This is believed to be how the link between nature and human nature became so important in haiku.   'A view of my garden' by Masaoka Shiki: (indicates that the link is still strong)

crimson-budded rose
grown to two feet tall
its thorns
tender in the misty
spring rain

Later, after 700  AD the tanka was used as the love poem.  Not merely writing of one's love and desire, but actually using the form to send notes back and forth between lovers. 

For many years, tanka was the courtly poetry of aristocracy.  It was formal in tone and inaccessable to the common people. Waka, or tanka took Japanese poetry to its highest form through classical allusion, wordplay and symbolism.  Through these devices they could create novel comparisons or contrasts that would expand the meaning of the poems.  The poet of the day needed to be highly educated.  As can be seen from the later example by Yosano Tekkan:

  on the African continent
  and my stubbornness
  both from the primeval age
  vast wilderness
  something beautiful in common
 
In the haikai-no-renga form it became the poetry of the people.  The haikai-no-renga was able to explore areas previously left untouched by court poetry.

Western poetry's influence in the late nineteenth century in Japan brought tanka into a less favourable light.  It was even feared that the traditional Japanese verse forms might not survive the onslaught and the popularity of western verse (particularly free verse) and its writers.  This was a valid concern as renga became almost extinct in the early twentieth century.

Shiki tried to save the tanka from the influence of western free verse.  This was very unusual as most Japanese poets write predominantly in one or other of the forms.
 
Shiki was an innovator of the modern tanka and as with haiku he proposed his 'sketch from life' method.  Shiki and his group began publishing an objective, descriptive, type of     tanka that depended on  observation    rather than imagination.   One example from Shiki:

in the vase
a plume of wisteria
hanging
too short to reach
the tatami floor
 
Later, for some writers 'life' came to mean society, rather than the subjective self.

For other young writers such as Tekkan and the young woman whom he later married Yosano Akiko, tanka became a vehicle for self expression and sensual love.  Tekkan:

poppies in bloom
bring back to memory
those lips I kissed
while lying in an attic
lit up with the evening sun

From the history of Waka/tanka it can be seen that it has taken on different roles over the many hundreds of years that it has been written in Japan.  Because of its many facets tanka can be many things to many people, today.  Some believe that tanka should stay centred in nature and the observation of nature.  Others believe that tanka should be an expression of the writer's innermost feelings.  Then there are those who think a combination of these two components are the ideal.  When I learnt of tanka in the seventies I believed the first section should be like a haiku and the second section added the emotion.

incoming tide
ripples the width of river
i remember the touch
of your hand gentle
on the nape of my neck

You may notice the break in subject is in the older style, at the first 5-7.

One of the more modern styles is that of Ishikawa Takuboku (1886 - 1912).  He wrote in an ironic, wry tone, of self examination.  His influence can perhaps be seen in the work of Michael McClintock, today.   Takuboku:

forgetting
my illness for a moment

I try
to bellow like an ox —

 before my wife and child come home

stepped naked
onto the porch
wanted to shout
all you neighbours come out
see the moon!

  Michael McClintock
  
The style of tanka which we are most familiar with today seems to be a combination of lyric love poetry and the nature poetry left over from haiku.  For example:

your heart
still remains unsettled
like the wavering
of a cosmos flower
after the bee is gone

 Mori Ogai

Looking for comfort
I sought the morning sunlight
in the open fields
where we once met in spring
now a land of falling leaves

 Gerard John Conforti

There also appears to be a style of tanka which leads on from the senryu (or human interest)  verses.  Or perhaps it is a expansion of the self examination poem, examining others with the same ironic and wry tone.
 
   writes poetry
   that hand of hers
   now stealing grapes
   her hair soft and fine
   rainbow at dawn

Yosano Akiko  and  George Swede

She called me names
she threatened me
this woman who now
murmurs to the plants
as she waters them
 
Of those writing tanka today in English Sanford Goldstein is probably the most well known.  Some of his work may be compared with those who wrote of life as society, rather than subjectively of self.  Shaku Choku

kidnapping
armed robbery
burglary

committed by people
other than me

the news boggles my mind
 
  downtown
  I pass
  something —
  humanity
  on a stoop

If you'll notice, Choku's tanka on the page, it  is written in three lines.  Both  Ishikawa Takuboku and Shaku Choku are poets who tried to modernise the tanka by writing in three groups of lines.  A tanka in Japanese characters is written in two lines down the page.  One is the 5-7-5 upper lines and the second one is the 7-7 lower lines.

While all traditional Japanese poetry is related and is sometimes called by the general term 'haikai'.  Tanka, Renga, Haikai, Hokku, and Haiku are all considered to be distinct genres in Japan.  It is of benefit to know these histories, for those of us in the West who wish to understand haiku a little more.

Bibliography

Modern Japanese Tanka, Edited and Translated by Makoto Ueda,  New York:  Columbia University Press, 1996.

Wind Five Folded:  An Anthology of English-language Tanka, Compiled by Jane & Werner Reichhold, Gualala, CA:  AHA books, 1994.

The Haiku Handbook:  How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku, by William J. Higginson and Penny Harter, New York:  McGraw-Hill, 1985.

One Hundred Frogs:  From Renga to Haiku to English by Hiroaki Sato, New York:  Weatherhill, 1983.

Three Genres:  Tanka, Renga, Haiku by William J. Higginson, Modern Haiku Vol. XXIV, No. 2 1993.