President’s Message:
A New Year’s Potential

What is the difference between waka and tanka? Many people assert that “tanka” is the poetry that we and the Japanese write today, and that “waka” is the term for its precursor. But it may not be that simple. As you may know, the Emperor and Empress of Japan write this poetry. In 1991, Weatherhill published Tomoshibi Light: Collected Poetry by Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, edited by Marie Philomène and Masako Saito. In the introduction (where TSA’s own Kristen Deming is acknowledged), Marie Philomène writes the following:

A word of explanation . . . of the term waka. Literally meaning Japanese songs, it came to denote Japanese lyric forms in the days before the Imperial Court was moved from Kyoto in 1868, and includes the chōka, tanka and sedōka poetic forms.

The longer chōka comprises a number of five-syllable and seven-syllable couplets and ends with a seven-syllable line to which one or more envoys, or hanka, may be attached. The tanka is a shorter poem, consisting of 31 syllables grouped in five lines, of which the first and third contain five syllables and the others seven. The sedōka comprises two three-line stanzas, each with five, seven, and seven syllables, respectively.

Of the above three forms, the tanka is considered the norm of Japanese poetry, so much so that today, when one speaks of waka, one is usually referring to tanka.

I mention this perspective because it’s not the only one. Another perspective is that taken by members of the “Mountain Home” online discussion group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mountain-Home [link no longer works]), which has sought to revitalize “waka” in a modern English form. By espousing pre-Shiki aesthetics, they seek to recognize the spiritual roots and tradition of this venerable poetry. Though the group’s members generally do not write in a set syllabic fashion (the 5-7-5-7-7 form is not part of their emphasis on tradition), they do promote a focus on nature and simplicity, a pivot in a fairly regular place, the avoidance of manmade subjects, and other strategies such as employing formal methods of punctuation. The term waka means “Japanese song,” and must, by definition, be written in Japanese. Perhaps as a result, the Mountain Home group calls what they write “modern waka,” and they assert that it can be written in any language.

Certainly there is value in being aware of historical aesthetic values, and I applaud the members of this group for their discipline and study in that direction. But I also wonder if it needs a separate name, and if such attempts at distinguishing their writing too strongly from tanka produces a harmful degree of cloisterism. To my mind, as Marie Philomène points out, tanka in both Japanese and English is the larger rubric of which waka is a subset (regardless of how many tanka or waka are now being written or have been written throughout history). The many “modern waka” I’ve read are hardly different from what can be written—and are written—as tanka. Tanka may allow a wider range of subjects than the more traditional waka, but tanka does not disallow the “modern waka” aesthetic. Thus, to me, tanka includes waka (“modern” or otherwise), rather than tanka being distinct from waka—or “modern waka”—or vice versa.

But what do you think? I would encourage those interested in tanka poetry to delve deeper into tanka’s history, to read the excellent books of waka translation by Steven D. Carter, Edwin A. Cranston, Amy Vladeck Heinrich, Helen Craig McCullough, Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, William R. Lafleur, and many others. Also read the waka and tanka translations of Jane Hirshfield, Makoto Ueda, Donald Keene, Burton Watson, Janine Beichman, and Sam Hamill. The amount of translation and critique available is extensive, just in English, but is worth diving into as much as you can. With at least some of this reading experience in mind, balanced by a knowledge of contemporary tanka in Japanese and English, I would be curious to know your thoughts on the possibilities of writing “modern waka” in English today.

TSA News

It’s a new year, and exciting new things are afoot with the Tanka Society of America. Much has happened since the previous newsletter. To start with, we have two new officers. I’m very pleased to welcome an’ya as our newsletter editor, and kirsty karkow as our secretary. All other officers are continuing in their previous capacities. I am again deeply grateful to Marian Smith Sharpe for her service as secretary in 2003, and to Pamela Miller Ness for setting the newsletter on such a fine path from its beginning in 2000 through to the end of 2003. Both an’ya and kirsty are now adding their considerable energy to TSA, and I look forward to continued good things for our society with their enthusiastic input.

As you have already noticed, the TSA Newsletter has a new look. We hope you like it! With an’ya at the helm, our publication has a new design. Especially exciting are three new columns or features. The first of these is “Poet and Poem,” coordinated by Michael McClintock, which features one of our members telling a bit about themselves and their personal history, and then presenting one of their tanka with an explanation of how it came to be written. We hope this column will help us to get to know our members better, and provide some background to their poems. Our first contributor is Melissa Dixon, from Victoria, British Columbia.

Another new column is by Alison Williams. Her focus for the year will be on global tanka, starting with the United Kingdom, where she lives. Tanka, like haiku, is becoming increasingly international, thanks to the energy created by online discussion, the Japan Tanka Poets’ Club, the Tanka Society of America, various tanka publications, and other influences. Alison will be giving us a view this year on tanka poets and developments in various places around the world.

And finally, thanks to a generous anonymous donation of prize money, we have a new quarterly award, the “Member’s Choice Tanka,” chosen from poems submitted to the Tanka Café column. Here’s how it works: The first award winner has been selected by Michael McClintock from poems in the previous issue. Hereafter, whoever is chosen as the winner will have the opportunity to make the next selection, as well as offer some commentary on his or her selections. The winner each quarter will receive a $25 prize. We hope this award will encourage increased participation and refinement in our Tanka Café column, recognize good poetry, and present comments on tanka from a greater variety of members.

Speaking of encouraging good tanka, the deadline for the 2004 TSA international tanka contest is fast approaching—April 30. See the announcement elsewhere in this issue. If you haven’t submitted before, now is a good time, and do encourage others to submit also. Not only is this a chance to share your best tanka, but above all it’s an opportunity to help our organization raise money. We are grateful to all contest participants for helping the society in this way.

In other TSA news, I’m delighted to announce the appearance of Searching for Echoes, the 2003 TSA membership anthology edited by Karina Young. She’s done a spectacular job, and if you haven’t already seen a copy, do hurry to order one to see how beautiful the book is, and to read the fine poems included. Copies have been sent to all members who preordered. If you haven’t got a copy, look for ordering instructions elsewhere in this issue, plus an announcement later to contribute to the 2004 membership anthology.

This newsletter contains our usual festival of news, information, columns, reviews, and poems. Look for the treasurer’s report, the secretary’s election report, and the listing of new members and our annual membership list insert. Selected results from the Yellow Moon tanka contest in Australia also appear. And if you attended the TSA Tanka Day last June, you’ll remember Pamela Miller Ness’s fine presentation on punctuation in tanka, which makes its appearance as an article in this issue. I contribute a trio of international book reviews—three recommended books from England, Japan, and Australia. an’ya provides an addition to the “Favorite Tanka” column, and we have a great set of new Tanka Café poems on the theme of “approaching spring.” I don’t think anyone can complain that our newsletter doesn’t provide good value for the money!

Speaking of money, though, our membership dues rise with this issue. By now, all of our 2003 members have had the opportunity to renew at our previous rates, but effective with this newsletter, and for anyone joining later this year, new rates apply. See the announcement by Larry Lavenz elsewhere in this issue. Since our last dues increase, our newsletter has slowly increased in size and our costs have been increasing as well, so we felt it was time to raise the dues. However, we are only raising them now, and hope that 2003 TSA members appreciate the opportunity to have already renewed for 2004 at last year’s lower rates.

One final note of TSA news. If you haven’t visited the TSA website in a while, check it out. Look for the winners of all past TSA tanka contests, plus some tanka definitions, and other new updates. Continued thanks to Jeanne Emrich for working on our website. If you know of anyone who might be interested in joining TSA or finding out more about our society, do send them to our website. Information on our 2004 contest appears online, too.

In the previous newsletter, I wrote about the distribution of syllable counts for the poems in the Tanka Café column two issues ago. For comparison, here’s a summary of the poems from the previous issue (syllable count followed by the number of poems with that count): 19:1; 21:1; 22:4, 23:3; 24:3; 25:5; 26:5; 27:1; 29:1; 30:1; 31:5; 32:2; 33:2. Of the 34 poems, the total syllable count of 845 yields an average syllable count of 24.85. This is down from the previous issue, which had an average of 25.77. A continued assessment would surely reveal further ups and downs and variety, for tanka is a malleable genre of poetry.

The Tanka Anthology

As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, the biggest publication news for tanka in English in at least the last thirty years is the appearance of The Tanka Anthology from Red Moon Press late in 2003. Edited by Michael McClintock, Pamela Miller Ness, and Jim Kacian, The Tanka Anthology is a supreme milestone in the development of tanka in English. The book, available in hardback, contains some 800 tanka by 68 tanka poets from around the world. Rather than representing some poets with just one or two tanka, the book generally showcases poets with more sustained expertise. Most poets included are TSA members, but you’ll find other refreshing voices, too. Michael McClintock provides an extensive introduction delving into such topics as the cultural context for tanka in English; tanka precursors; notes on form, techniques, and subject matter; tanka themes and topics; and the future of tanka in English. The introduction to The Tanka Anthology is a must-read discourse for anyone who is seriously interested in writing tanka, and the book’s poems are even more important. Look for a review of this essential collection in the TSA Newsletter soon.

New Potentials

At the beginning of this message I mentioned the Emperor and Empress of Japan. Every year they host the nationally televised New Year’s Poetry Party at the Imperial Court where winning waka or tanka written on a specified theme are chanted in a grand ceremony. The first American to participate in this prestigious event was pioneer California tanka poet Lucille M. Nixon, in 1957. Other American participants have included Neal Henry Lawrence, Kristen Deming, Donald Keene [Keene is incorrect; it was actually Edwin G. Seidensticker who has attended], and, in 1998, Jane and Werner Reichhold. I look forward to the days when more and more American and other non-Japanese tanka poets might receive this honor. With the new year now upon us, and with many exciting new developments in English-language tanka and the Tanka Society of America, I believe such days are a significant step closer.