Japanese Tanka Verses

Tanka Verse Counter

The tanka (短歌, “short song”) is a classical Japanese form: five verses in a 5-7-5-7-7 mora pattern, 31 morae in all. For total verses across any number of tanka poems, use verses = 5 × tanka_count; for total morae, morae = 31 × tanka_count. The first three verses (the kami-no-ku, or upper phrase) are the very 5-7-5 unit that would eventually break off into the haiku, and the last two (shimo-no-ku) answer back with commentary or feeling.

Tanka came roughly a thousand years before haiku. You find it in the Manyōshū, Japan's oldest poetry anthology (compiled c. 759 CE), and it thrived in the Heian court. Ono no Komachi, writing in the 9th century, ranks among the most celebrated of the early tanka poets, remembered above all for her love poems. Much later, Tawara Machi's 1987 bestseller Salad Anniversary (Sarada Kinenbi) brought the form back for a contemporary readership. In Brazil, Cecília Meireles translated and spread Japanese poetry, tanka included, in books such as Poemas Escritos na Índia.

Applications

Poetry editors lean on it when laying out tanka anthologies, comparative literature courses when setting Japanese forms side by side, calligraphers when estimating ink and paper, contest moderators when enforcing entry-length rules, and teachers when explaining meter through mora counting. Translators find it handy too, for gauging how much a tanka expands once it is carried into Portuguese or English.

FAQ

Is tanka really older than haiku? It is. Tanka goes back to the 7th–8th centuries CE, whereas haiku only stood on its own in the 17th century, having split off from the opening 5-7-5 of linked-verse renga chains.

What is a waka? Waka (“Japanese poem”) is the wider umbrella term that once covered tanka along with other classical forms. These days, people tend to use tanka and waka interchangeably.

Can tanka rhyme? Classical Japanese tanka does without rhyme. What it leans on instead is syllabic rhythm and the pivot (kakekotoba) that turns between the upper and lower phrases.