So I'm fairly sure that
trembling-knees is the only one thus far (other than myself) who did prompt #2. This means she's getting the featured spot all to herself. HA. If you still want to write one and get it in, go ahead, I'll add it in.
Tanka: The Tanka has been a well known type of poetry in Japan for about 1300 years. After every special event or occasion a Tanka was written about the event. Tanka tends to be longer than the Haiku so it allows the poet to express his or her feelings in more depth.
Typically the Tanka is written about one's feelings. In order to write this type of poetry, one must write about something they have a great love for and are passionate about. For example, nature, a place, family, a loved one, or their own daily life, most likely whatever you feel is right. A well written Tanka creates a vivid image which is related to emotions. This type of poetry gives poets the opportunity to express their own feelings in an unique way.
The basic technique of writing a Tanka poem is that it has 31 syllables with 5 lines. The order of the syllables are 5,7,5,7,7. This is how people in America write Tanka poetry; however, in Japan it would be written in one straight line. Excerpts from
library.thinkquest.orgA Tanka prose is a piece that includes a short prose and a Tanka. A Haibun does the same thing, only with a haiku.
Now, I'm not personally a stickler for “A Tanka is 57577, a Haiku is 575” so I say, interpret Tanka/Haiku as you will. I'm also not a particular stickler for the interpretation of “great love/passionate about” - so I'm going to say I'll be writing about a family moment that left an impression. Write about your mother's 40th birthday, the weird atomically correct Barbie your aunt gave you one Christmas (no joke), or the time your older sibling put that stupid bully up on the dumpster (ah ha!), whatever.
Here are a couple of examples:
Eric Burke - Losing a ThumbSomeone long ago hammered a nail into the maple that was now ours. At 8, I became enamored of slip-knots; listen, if I tell it right, you can almost hear me screaming, my father busy in the basement, my mother frantic trying . . . .
belly exposed to the sky
watching wind in the locust trees
Tish Davis – The Family VitaceaeClusters of grapes are stenciled on a periwinkle watering can in my aunt’s kitchen. Two rusted hand pruners and the old rosewood harvesting shears, tips in the tin, point down.
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“Do you remember your grandmother’s vineyard?”
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I remember the weekends . . . . Father took a cotton rag and wiped grease off of the old, red tractor while my uncles gathered tools and loaded everyone onto the trailer. Grandmother, always a few rows ahead of us, trimmed and composted in calico dress and barn boots. My aunts said she brought secrets with her—cuttings from the old country.
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Grapes, at harvest time, were packed in wooden crates, loaded onto flatbeds with wooden rails. We cousins played a game of chase alongside the procession. Berries jiggled in boxes. I stopped and pulled the beggar-ticks out of my socks.
.
frozen on the vine
the grapes
my father grew
***As usual, please note me if you submit for the prompt - I want to make sure anything that is submitted does make it into the next feature.
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