Tanka prose

Tanka prose is a literary genre whose individual compositions employ two modes of writing -— verse and prose. It was first composed by Japanese poets, often in the elementary form of a prose commentary or anecdote to accompany a poem, and only later in the more extended forms of memoir and diary. Tanka prose, therefore, is related to but predates another Japanese literary form, haibun, and differs from haibun in the verse form that it utilizes. Tanka prose employs tanka with prose, while haibun employs haiku with prose.

Contents

History

Tanka works were composed in Japan for nearly a millennium before the advent of haiku. Early examples of tanka prose are the Tosa Diary[1] by Ki no Tsurayuki (940 M.E.) and the Gossamer Years[2] by the woman known as “the mother of Michitsuna” (980 M.E.). Early haibun, by contrast, are the 17th century works of Matsuo Bashō,[3] some seven centuries later.

Description

Tanka prose, in its many varied forms, is built upon one common basic unit of composition (one paragraph, one tanka).[4] The simplest applications of this “basic unit” are two and are common to classical Japanese and contemporary English-language practice: preface and poem tale.[5] The preface is expository and often concerned with little more than sketching the motive and setting of the composition. A poem tale, as the name implies, adopts narrative qualities, whether the narration is abbreviated and anecdotal or expansive and closer to the short story proper.

Variation in the number and placement of tanka in relation to the prose is widespread in today’s practice of the tanka prose genre.[6] The basic unit of one paragraph of prose, one tanka, is a very common form while inversion of that unit (one tanka followed by one paragraph of prose) is a frequent variation. Another common form of tanka prose is the verse envelope—tanka, prose, tanka. Many other forms are in use, most generated by inversion or compounding of the basic unit of one paragraph, one tanka. These variations in number and placement of tanka are not without effect upon the flavor and character of the individual tanka prose work.

Tanka prose in English is still in its nascent form. Sanford Goldstein’s “Tanka Walk,” (1983),[7] is one of the earliest examples known. Jane Reichhold, Larry Kimmel, Gary LeBel and Linda Jeannette Ward are some other notable poets who adopted tanka prose in the 1990s. Contemporary practitioners include LeBel, Ward, Ingrid Kunschke, Bob Lucky, Patricia Prime and Jeffrey Woodward. Online journals where new examples of the genre appear with some regularity include Modern Haibun & Tanka Prose, Haibun Today, Modern English Tanka and Atlas Poetica. Tanka prose is also included in the anthology series, Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka" (MET Press, 2009) and Take Five, Vol 2 (MET Press, 2010).

Examples

In literary periodicals
In anthologies and collections

See also

Notes

  1. ^ William N. Porter, Translator. The Tosa Diary of Ki no Tsurayuki. Boston, MA: Tuttle Publishing, 1981.
  2. ^ Edward Seidentsticker, Translator. The Gossamer Years: The Diary of a Noblewoman of Japan. Boston, MA: Charles E. Tuttle, 1961.
  3. ^ David Landis Barnhill, Translator. Basho’s Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho. State University of New York Press, 2005.
  4. ^ Jeffrey Woodward. “The Elements of Tanka Prose,” Modern English Tanka V2, N4 (Summer 2008), 194-197.
  5. ^ Jeffrey Woodward. “The Road Ahead for Tanka in English,” Modern English Tanka V2, N2 (Winter 2007), 180-181.
  6. ^ Woodward, “Elements,” op. cit., 197-203.
  7. ^ Sanford Goldstein, “Tanka Walk,” Northeast III:15 (1983), 26–32.

References