Japanese literature: tanka and renga

Tanka

Tanka ('short poem') are an older aristocratic form of poetry dating from the seventh century. Also sometimes known as waka, they are five-line, 31-syllable poems in the form of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. The last two lines are sometimes seen as a comment on or explanation of the first three lines and can he separated by a dash:

he cries on and on -
the mountain thrush perched on the
branches of the plum -
long-awaited spring has come -
still the snows of Winter fall

oh flowering reeds
in the Asana Marsh of
far Mackinac -
Will my love for one whom I've
Scarcely seen last forever

Anonymous, from a 10th-century anthology

Renga

Renga ('linked verse') is a form of poetry in which short poems are linked to make a long chain. From the twelfth century onwards, tanka were broken into two to produce stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7 syllables. (The first stanza later developed into the haiku poem form.) Often one poet wrote the first stanza, and another the second: the success of the link was the high point of the poem. In some forms of renga, lines from the previous stanza are incorporated into the new verse:

At the margins of the hills
The village merges with faint haze
The moon sweeps down
And the songs of various birds
Break with morning light

The moon sweeps down
And the songs of various birds
Break with morning light
Do we then wake that we must depart
Like dew soon gone without regret

Sogi (1421-1502)

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was a great flourishing of renga and very long poems were created, some consisting of up to 100 verses. Groups of poets alternated various poetic forms to build stanza into a long chain.