Modern Tanka: To Know It Is to Want to Compose It

I started writing tanka when I was a university student. Machi Tawara was in the same grade, and it was an era when tanka was shifting toward spoken language. The catalyst was seeing a collection of Kunio Tsukamoto's poems that my roommate at Hokkaido University was reading.

Later, I dropped out of Hokkaido University and entered Sophia University. I found a tanka magazine in the back of the library and read a work by Amari Hayashi, another contemporary poet: "A dream of a night of a flashy festival, everything / Just look at the fire / Goodbye, you." I thought, "Is this tanka?" I didn't think I could write like the "Man'yoshu" or the "Hyakunin Isshu," but I started because I felt I could do it if spoken language was allowed.

Ms. Tawara and Mr. Homura emerged when I was a high school junior. At first, it wasn't "Salad Anniversary," but Machi-san's "Yotsuba no Essay" that I picked up as something easy to read for university entrance exam essay preparation. In it, there were teenage tanka by Shuji Terayama, and I was shocked that such a world existed. After that, I wrote tanka earnestly while attending prep school.

Right after entering Keio, I won the Kadokawa Tanka Award for a set of 50 poems I had submitted while I was a ronin (student studying for exams). At that time, just as Matsuo Basho traveled around Japan to compile "The Narrow Road to the Deep North," I wanted to travel around the world and create a global version of "The Narrow Road to the Deep North."

I thought that in 1,400 years of history, there probably hasn't been a single poet who has set foot in all 200 countries to write tanka. I figured I could achieve it in 50 years by visiting four countries a year.

That's amazing. Are you still traveling now?

Yes, I am. While searching for "utamakura" (poetic sites) in each land, I have visited over 100 countries so far.

I started tanka a bit late, at age 27. I also read Machi Tawara's "One Hundred Love Poems to Read with You." Every poem featured was wonderful, and both of your poems were in there.

I bought every poetry collection I thought looked good and read Mr. Homura's "Syndicate" and Ms. Tanaka's "Distance to a Kiss." I love Mr. Homura's poem, "Thermometer in mouth, forehead against the window / 'Yuhira,' making a fuss / Is it about the snow?" and Ms. Tanaka's "To you who asks the difference between heartache and loneliness / I gave a kiss / This is heartache."

A big factor in being moved by tanka was moving from Tokyo to Osaka in April 2011 due to my family's work, right after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Life in Osaka began the month after the disaster, and the loneliness of leaving my parents and friends behind overlapped with the feelings of longing for someone in the poems.

Later, as I read Mr. Homura's essays, my feelings intensified, and I started submitting to "Tanka Kudasai" (Please Give Me Tanka), which is still serialized in "Da Vinci." I thought that even if it was a one-way street, I could send a message to Mr. Homura. Sometimes my work is actually featured, and I continue to send them even now.

"Tanka Kudasai" has produced many poets. How long has the serialization been running?

16 years. When I get a request for a series, I basically say, "I'll do it forever." I'll continue as long as the magazine exists. But quite a few people quit tanka, don't they? There are people like Haruka-san who start because their environment changes, and others who quit when they get a job. It's a waste, but if you collect them, the poems remain even if the person stops.

Was writing in spoken language revolutionary in your era, Mr. Homura?

In truth, it shouldn't have been revolutionary. After all, ordinary people all speak in spoken language, and novels had shifted to that long ago. Even in modern poetry, Sakutaro Hagiwara's "Howling at the Moon" was published in 1917.

For some reason, only tanka and haiku used literary style as if time had stopped, which was both an attraction and a hurdle.

Mr. Homura, you said in a previous interview that tanka is a minority. Now, the number of people writing haiku and tanka is increasing worldwide, and when I was a goodwill ambassador for a UN agency, I heard that movements to make tanka a World Heritage site were happening both in Japan and abroad.

It's tanka rather than haiku because World Heritage sites are generally recognized for things with over 500 years of history. Tanka is a poetic form that serves as the national anthem; "Kimigayo" is a waka of unknown authorship in the 5-7-5-7-7 format, and many of the 126 generations of the Imperial Family have written poems.

Such things seem to be attracting attention from people overseas who value history and tradition, but the era when Mr. Homura and I started tanka was a time when it was still thought of as a hobby for the elderly.

People would ask me, "Don't you wear a kimono?" (laughs).

Compared to that time, had tanka already taken root among the younger generation when you started writing, Ms. Suzuki?

Yes. But personally, when I first read Mr. Homura's collection, I didn't even know such a world existed. I remember being shocked by the poem: "The death of the lover of the lover of the lover of the lover of the lover of the lover."

It might be like the feeling of seeing manga or contemporary art for the first time. Ms. Suzuki, were you able to easily tell your friends that you were "writing tanka"?

I could say it, but when they respond with "You must be very sensitive," I don't know how to answer.

Both of you belong to tanka societies (kessha). That might also look like a mysterious culture to outsiders. If someone who doesn't know "Kokoro no Hana" or "To" hears that you are "in To" (The Tower), they might imagine the world of Rapunzel.

Like you can't escape (laughs).

How did you both end up joining your societies?

I learned about Kazuhiro Nagata and Hiroshi Yoshikawa through Ms. Tawara's books, and since I was based in Kyoto where I had just started working, I chose "To" to study in a place with tradition.

I belong to "Kokoro no Hana," but both are long-established societies that rank among the top ten in the modern tanka world. "Kokoro no Hana" celebrated its 125th anniversary last year.

"To" is centered around the couple Kazuhiro Nagata and Yuko Kawano, and has produced Hiroshi Yoshikawa, Kyoko Kuriki, and several Kadokawa Tanka Award winners. How many years has "To" been active?

The 70th anniversary issue came out this April.

Both are amazing. The history of the magazine "Kokoro no Hana" must be among the top five in Japan.

As a magazine, it is old. In my case, I found out they were holding a monthly poetry meeting (utakai) at Nakano Sunplaza and dove in just to see what it was like. I wanted feedback on my poems, so I participated for the first time in my school uniform on my way home from high school.

When I did, they really cherished me—the younger generation. When I won the Kadokawa Tanka Award, amidst the aging of the tanka world, it felt less like a child actor debut and more like a grandchild generation debut (laughs).

In "Kokoro no Hana," Kazuhiko Ito is currently selecting poems for the Mainichi Shimbun's tanka column, Machi Tawara for the Yomiuri Shimbun, and Professor Yukitsuna Sasaki for the Asahi Shimbun. But being inside the society, even after 125 years, it still feels like it's in its youth.

Professor Yukitsuna's grandfather, Nobutsuna Sasaki, first said, "Broadly, deeply, each in their own way," and it is precisely because of that desire to value what each person has that various people still gather today. Death row inmates even send their works from prison. The age range is wide, and it's a place that welcomes all and lets those who leave go freely.

How much of an educational nature does a society have?

The Tokyo poetry meeting of "Kokoro no Hana" is held once a month, where people of various generations and professions gather with their 31 syllables, and candid opinions are exchanged. In that environment, you explore yourself, thinking about new perspectives or how to rework a piece.

These poetry meetings are held monthly in over 26 locations, including major cities nationwide. Since commenting at a meeting requires some background knowledge, I study casually before attending (laughs). It doesn't feel like "education"; it feels like I'm learning naturally while earnestly facing the 31 syllables.

Do you get your work corrected?

I didn't have much of that. Opinions fly around saying it might be better this way, but because it's "each in their own way," you aren't forced to do it a certain way. However, there is a system where selectors carefully correct the work of those who wish for it.

"To" is basically the same; the poetry meeting is a place to learn how to read and interpret. Looking at social media, one is tempted to create poems that get "likes," but in a society, there is a place where you can become an anonymous poet within a long history. It's important to know that you are part of the history of tanka.

In "Kokoro no Hana," I believe Yukitsuna Sasaki is the teacher now, but his grandfather Nobutsuna Sasaki was of the same generation as Tekkan and Akiko Yosano. Hirohiko Okano was also a disciple who took care of Shaku Choku (Shinobu Orikuchi) in his later years. When you interact with such people, you get a sense of being directly connected to history, thinking, "This person lived with Orikuchi."

Professor Okano was the one who had been in charge of the tanka classes at Kokugakuin University for about 10 years, which I have now taken over. At Kokugakuin, the faculty asked me to speak about the appeal of waka, including Orikuchi, because they wanted modern students to know what Orikuchi tried to preserve.

Like Mr. Homura, Orikuchi was someone who continued to take on various challenges in aesthetic sense and methods of expression. I really want current Keio students to experience Orikuchi's challenging spirit and his diverse, multifaceted expressions. One of the prestigious awards in the tanka world is the Choku Award, which honors Orikuchi's achievements, and I think it would be good to have a place at Keio to lecture on Orikuchi's significance and value, as well as the possibilities of modern tanka.

The father of the author Kaoru Kitamura was a student of Orikuchi at Keio. Mr. Kitamura wrote a trilogy called "Itoma Moshite" based on his father's diary. In it, Orikuchi's profile during his time at Mita is written using diaries and documents, and it's very vivid. You can feel both the greatness and the fearsomeness of Orikuchi.

Yukitsuna Sasaki often says that tanka has two characteristics. One is that it is a fixed-form poem with a 5-7-5-7-7 rhythm, and the other is that it is a traditional poem with over 1,000 years of history. He describes it as being at the intersection of this horizontal and vertical axis.

I started because I thought the fixed-form format was interesting like a puzzle, but I think there are individual differences in what one seeks in that short rhythm. How about you, Ms. Suzuki?

Recently, the program "100 Minutes on a Famous Book" featured Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams." When we dream, various memories are mixed together—friends from school appear at the workplace, or separate places are constructed as if they were contiguous. Rather than writing exactly what I actually experienced, I think about layering various memories to create a new world. The fixed-form format draws out and amplifies a "dream-like" imagination.

Ms. Suzuki, you had a tanka like that, didn't you?

It's "Memories don't so much increase as they overlap / Any door opens with any key."

This poem expresses the feeling you just mentioned. It feels like memories increase chronologically, but they certainly are mixed in dreams. Time and space are mixed, and while "any door opens with any key" means the key has no meaning, it certainly feels that way in a dream.

To me, the 31 syllables are like a 1,400-year time machine. It's not just the world we learn in textbooks like the "Man'yoshu" or "Kokin Wakashu"; in the Sengoku period, Date Masamune, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu were also earnestly writing tanka. Even at the end of the Edo period, Kusaka Genzui and Takasugi Shinsaku, disciples of Yoshida Shoin, left behind poems.

It's surprising that many of the key figures in history textbooks actually left behind poems. Knowing that makes me realize that the poetic form itself is a device that can open the doors to various eras.

I really want today's business people to write tanka. I'm interested in what kind of poems people who are accumulating joys and sorrows in their work and lives would sing.

Until a certain era, politicians and company executives also wrote poems. Educators also left behind various poems. There was also a culture of deathbed poems. A culture of telling something in 31 syllables has been cultivated over these 1,400 years.

A long time ago, Akiko Baba, Takashi Okai, Kazuhiro Nagata, and I selected tanka by people from worlds far from literature, such as politicians, soldiers, painters, and physicists, under the title "New Selection: One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each."

That's wonderful.

After all, until a certain era, everyone left behind tanka. Hideki Yukawa, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, published several tanka collections, and he had read the classics far more deeply than someone like me. Yasujiro Ozu wrote not only tanka but also choka (long poems). Thinking about it that way, at some point we started to feel a hurdle to creating tanka.

Come to think of it, there are fewer love poems now compared to the past. In our time, love poems were orthodox. Or rather, young people always wrote love poems.

There were many requests from the editorial departments of literary and women's magazines to use love as a theme. Even in commercial copy, we were often asked for "somonka" (poems exchanged between lovers).

Even in old waka collections, there was a section for love alongside the seasons. Was the idea that it is as essential as the four seasons present since ancient times? In that respect, now might be an exception. Don't you feel a sense of avoiding love poems?

I do. That's exactly why I intend to work hard on love poems.

Why do young people today want to avoid love poems?

It's not just tanka; isn't it largely because the modern situation is no longer one of romantic supremacy?

In this day and age, if someone reads my old poems, they might think I'm a barbarian. They'd wonder what was going on in my head to write so much about romance (laughs).

Even at poetry gatherings, people tell me, "You're young, so you should write tanka about romance," or "I can't write them anymore, so you should."

That's harassment (laughs).

The fact that people feel they can't write about romance in their 70s or 80s feels like a form of self-censorship, or like there's some kind of pressure. I definitely want to keep writing romance poems forever.

Suzuki-san, did you feel any hurdles when you first started writing poetry?

I felt them immensely. I was afraid that it was about exposing my inner heart, and it took me several months before I finally submitted my first piece.

So you write by laying yourself bare.

I have a collector's temperament when it comes to gathering tanka from various places. I previously featured a poem: "Playing shiritori with Mama in the futon / Night came inside / And I got sleepy (Wako Matsuda)." This is the work of a seven-year-old girl, and it's wonderful.

An adult would use personification like "overcome by drowsiness" to describe getting sleepy while playing shiritori with their mother in bed at night. But because she's a child, she doesn't have that concept; instead, "Night" joins them to make it a three-way game of shiritori, and she falls asleep before she knows it.

That's lovely.

There's another one by the same author: "'I'm a Horse,' 'I'm a Sheep' / The old men are swaying brightly / On the city tram." They must have been telling each other their zodiac signs on the tram. For some reason, there's always a time for that, isn't there? Saying things like, "We're exactly twelve years apart." The author was probably a bit surprised to hear them saying "I'm a horse" or "I'm a sheep." The setting of the city tram feels like an ark carrying animals, which is nice.

Even with a poem by a seven-year-old, I'm not sure if a poem we made with all our might could beat it. As we become adults, hurdles emerge, and we lose the ability to do things we could do as children.

Works by seven-year-olds are great, but tanka by the elderly are also wonderful. A few years ago, there was a contest in Shizuoka where I met Tsugi Watanabe, a woman over 100 years old. I helped her create a poetry collection titled "Each and Every Day is a Treasure."

The perspective of someone who has lived for 100 years is so free, and there are many amazing poems. I felt that we should also strip away our preconceptions of how things "should" be. Just look at the humor in this poem: "Turning down the volume / During radio calisthenics / Don't anyone peek / Now that I'm one hundred and two!"

I once saw this tanka sent to a newspaper: "Eight prior convictions / Will this red blood of mine / Save someone? / The transfusion needle pricks." It's by a man named Daijiro Kaneko. I knew there were various conditions for donating blood, like not being sick, but I had never considered "prior convictions."

Even if I think I have no prejudice, if I were told at a hospital, "We are now going to transfuse blood from someone with eight prior convictions," I feel like I might become about 0.25 of a criminal myself after the transfusion (laughs). This person is also slightly hesitant, wondering, "Is my blood really okay?" However, I heard he actually only had one or two prior convictions.

So there's some creative license involved.

Yes. Certainly, "two prior convictions" lacks impact for a tanka. But to think he'd exaggerate it that much (laughs).

It's also good how "ni-han" (two) becomes "hap-pan" (eight), adding those plosive sounds.

In this day and age, with social media firestorms and strict compliance, it's a difficult world to speak out in, isn't it? If someone with eight prior convictions wrote in prose that they "donated blood," people might complain. But with tanka, humor is born, and you can go to a dimension different from the real world. Tanka has the strength of being able to speak in a falsetto (・・) about things you can't say in your natural voice.

In that previous poem, the author increased his convictions to eight, but if I—who have no criminal record—were to write that poem, I'd feel a hesitation. If it's fiction, anyone should be allowed to write it, but tanka has a side that doesn't fully permit that. It feels disrespectful to various parties, and unfair to people who have actually been to prison. Yet, in a mystery novel, it's not considered insensitive to kill someone.

And it's not just tanka, but even in fiction, when there's a major real-world event like an earthquake, people have a lot to say. For a while, it's called insensitive. You get attacked on social media, and there's no rule for how many days need to pass. Even with novels, works written based on reports by people who didn't actually experience the disaster sometimes face criticism. It might be a matter of authenticity and who has the right to tell the story.

I think there should be more freedom for fantasy or mystery in those thirty-one syllables. I've been selecting poems with Machi Tawara for about 10 years for a parenting tanka contest in Shizuoka called "Ai no Uta" (Songs of Love), and there was once a poem like this: "'Here you go, Mama' / This little sand dumpling / Has the gentle flavor / Of two years in business."

The expression "two years in business" tells us the child is 2 years old, but for the mother, there must have been something that could only be created at that specific moment. Whether it's fiction or something that actually happened, I feel there are moments in life where you want to compose a poem with your honest feelings.

I wonder about changing the existence, number, age, or gender of children within a tanka.

In this parenting tanka contest, we get about 2,000 to 3,000 entries every year, and eventually about 20 become award winners. Among them, there are poems about LGBTQ themes and gender diversity.

The author might be a person directly involved, or they might be writing while playing a role. There are also poems that capture a sense of swaying between identities. I sometimes wonder if an author who likes girls might deliberately write from a different perspective, or use the name of fiction to express something deep inside.

If we call it a "fiction index," what is your level of fiction, Haruka-san?

That's a difficult question. When I see a friend do something lovely, I might convert that into a romance poem. Even if it's based on actual experience, I layer it with other memories or fiction, so sometimes I later wonder who on earth actually wrote that tanka.

I heard that a long time ago, a mother published a poem in a newspaper about "riding a bicycle with children in the front and back," and someone sent a letter saying it was a violation of traffic laws. Even on social media, someone wrote about sucking flower nectar with their child in a park, and it caused a firestorm with people saying it violated public property ordinances. I wonder to what extent such things should be tolerated.

Examples of social media firestorms and harassment are truly diverse, and I feel it's a difficult world to live in. But in the poem about sucking flower nectar being called an ordinance violation, there might be a broad nostalgia for an era when that was normal.

Tanka has a yardstick spanning over a thousand years, and I feel that the recent excessive awareness of compliance is arbitrarily making human nature feel cramped. To question such things, it's okay to have a place of extraterritoriality within those thirty-one syllables.

The example I always give is a poem from Hiroyuki Ogiwara's youth: "Placing a girl on my shoulders / Whose child I do not know / I wait for the first flake of snow." This was written in the 80s when he was in his 20s, but today, this would be problematic.

But at the time, it was read as a lyrical connection of hearts for a lonely young man. If the poem were about giving a piggyback ride to a well-known neighborhood girl with her parents' permission in front of them, it wouldn't be a tanka.

That's true. It wouldn't be interesting.

Moreover, nowadays it's said that even parents can't arbitrarily judge a child's rights. On the other hand, I have my own memory of my 20-year-old self reading this as an unquestionably lyrical poem. My current self, having become a person of the future, sees this as an "incident." If asked, "Well, how is it as a tanka?" I'd think it's not a bad poem.

Both things are happening: the action of the subject in the poem is now a 'no-go,' and yet I think it's not a bad poem as a tanka. How can we defend this?

About 90% of me wants to defend it, but as a university instructor, I feel we are in an era where it's hard for teachers to write about students. I used to be a teacher at a special needs school. At that time, I wanted to write about various students using their real names, but that too would become an "incident."

But I feel that it would be less fake to include real names in those thirty-one syllables and vividly describe how the subject faced them. I dislike the filter I have that arbitrarily restricts that.

I wonder why giving a piggyback ride is an incident in a tanka, but killing people is fine in a mystery.

It's a poem I like very much, but the world has become one where we find ourselves worrying if it's okay before we know it.

Nowadays, even saying "hello" to a child on their way home from school is an incident.

On the other hand, I think the reason people say there's a tanka boom and the number of writers is increasing is because tanka still has a zone where you can say things you can't say in prose.

We live in a time where many creators fear criticism and social media firestorms, but regarding those thirty-one syllables, if it's something I wrote with conviction, I intend to stick to it no matter how much I'm criticized. Expressing things in tanka that I want to insist on, no matter what others say.

Suzuki-san seems like she could handle it. Like a fighting spirit.

It's hard to use the term "female poet" (joryu kajin) in today's world, but there are many strong-willed women in the tanka world, and the way they stick to their guns is cool. Suzuki-san seems likely to join that lineage.

Thank you.

I like this poem of Haruka-san's: "The fresh fish, thought not to feel the cold / Sleep upon the ice." It's startling to hear that the fish on the ice at the fishmonger's are "thought not to feel the cold." The normal reaction is, "No, they don't feel it. They're dead," but it feels terrifying to think the author sees herself as that fish on the ice, thinking that everyone assumes she doesn't feel the cold.

There was a woman named Tomiko Yamakawa, a rival of Akiko Yosano who died young. Reading this tanka reminded me of a poem from her later years: "The happiness of a fur seal / Sleeping on the ice / I too now know / How interesting it is."

She was probably confined to bed with a fever and using ice. And she says a fur seal sleeping on ice is happy. By any normal standard, it doesn't seem comfortable, but she says she now knows it too—I feel a very nihilistic pride based on a certain despair.

Haruka-san's idea that everyone thinks the fish don't feel the cold even though they're supposed to be dead—if a dead fish said that, it would be very scary. This is a bit different from the "comfortable" tanka popular with readers today.

It has a sense of not pandering.

Because we live in an era where everyone wants user-friendly things, that's what's expected of tanka too, but there's also an interest in things that aren't like that.

In my classes at Kokugakuin, students initially try to express the joys and pleasures of life, but halfway through, I tell them to try writing about things they've never told anyone or negative emotions.

The students are usually bewildered, but some come back saying they've expressed this side of themselves. Those are very interesting as works. Beyond the criteria of what others think, you can see them finding the "correct answer" for themselves, or realizing through the poem that they had feelings inside they couldn't tell anyone.

There's a tanka Shinobu Orikuchi wrote for graduating students: "Like cherry blossoms scattering / We part ways / May you too become / One of those distant people." For us ordinary humans, there should be words of encouragement or "Good luck, do your best," right? But Orikuchi has no such congratulatory tone; it's chilly. Yet, even if the teacher who said "Congratulations, do your best" forgets about "you," I feel this person never will.

There are many such poems by Orikuchi, many I find very dark, but there's something there beyond the vector of what we usually consider "good." There's an extraordinary intensity of thought that makes you want to read it. I thought Haruka-san's poems had that quality too. Even the dark ones.

I like dark poems.

For example, there's a poem: "The card the magician told me to remember / When should I forget it?" If I were the magician, I'd find this terrifying (laughs). In a magic trick, everyone is supposed to agree: "Please remember this," "(There's no way he'll guess it)," "Is it this one?" and the world ends with a "Wow!", right? But that person keeps remembering it and seriously wonders when they should forget it.

If you met again 50 years later and were asked, "50 years ago, you told me to remember this card; when should I forget it?" it would be scary. But it's very good. I'd like to taste that fear.

This poem came from the idea that I myself cannot escape this physical body. As long as I am me, I can't truly forget the card.

Certain poets have a quality like they are a mass of "when should I forget it" in everything. It's the scariness of someone who, deep in their heart, doesn't care what happens.

You often see couples hugging at station ticket gates. It's fine if both are completely absorbed, but when one is totally immersed and the other is slightly aware of their surroundings, you think, "Oh, that person is in trouble, that one's going to die" (laughs). The one who is immersed surprisingly doesn't die. Because looking around is an unnatural state. But sometimes poets strongly project that sense of immersion in the here and now, and it becomes scary.

Aren't there both types?

Which one are you, Tanaka-san?

The type to dive in regardless of the surroundings.

Well, you are the type to try and visit every country (laughs). Have you ever encountered danger abroad?

There was a time when a bomb was dropped on the hotel where I was staying, leaving black scorch marks on the walls.

That sounds dangerous.

In Sarajevo, what used to be a soccer field had been turned into a cemetery for 200,000 people. Hearing about that situation, I felt I couldn't go home without seeing it, so I went. I want to cherish the things I see firsthand. A reportage in thirty-one syllables.

Among tanka poets, many of whom are the scholarly, study-bound type, those who actually go to the scene are in the minority.

You're the type who charges straight ahead.

As for me, I was incredibly nervous just trying to get here today. I mean, no matter how you look at it, the way to Keio University should be easy to find from the station, right? And yet, all the maps from Akabanebashi are a bit vague. I got so lost I even started to think, "Maybe Keio doesn't exist."

I have an image of you being very composed, Mr. Homura (laughs).

I just can't maintain a feeling that everything will be okay.

Even in your poetry, you seem to choose your words with such conviction that they don't show any hesitation.

I don't know how other people feel, but there are occasionally people whose intense anxiety shows through in their tanka. Kazuko Otaki has a poem: "How terrifying these cherry blossoms are / as if Tekkan and Akiko / had never been united." That's not a normal sensibility either, is it?

That's interesting.

It's an incredible metaphor. But I think this is probably more of a physical sensation than a mental one.