Some of you may be asking, what is a "Tanka"? Unfortunately, Dr Elmer cannot give you the answer off the top of his head, so he decided to ask Wikipedia for help.
Tanka consists of five units (often treated as separate lines when Romanized or translated) usually with the following mora pattern:
5-7-5-7-7. The 5-7-5 is called the kami-no-ku ("upper phrase", and the 7-7 is called the shimo-no-ku ("lower phrase". Tanka is a much older form of Japanese poetry than haiku.
Now that you know what this "Tanka" thing is, let's look at the guidelines for the contest. -Must follow the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable scheme. -Must be in English -No foul words that might make Dr Elmer cry -It must fit the theme -It will not win if it does not meet the deadline -No exceptions!
There is currently no prize for this contest, but Dr Elmer and his super Tanka henchmen are out to fix that.
Dr Elmer (you may know him as DrElmer because armorgames does not allow underscores or spaces) will be the judge unless he says otherwise. He will appoint a new judge when there are expections.
Dr Elmer has no ideas for themes, unfortunately, and he needs your help. After a normal round, the winner would pick the next theme, but there haven't been any rounds yet and Dr Elmer is drawing a blank. So if you could please help him decide a theme, that would make him so happy and it would allow you to submit all your wonderful Tankas that you've got bottled up in there.
1) The Tanka must be original (no plagarizing)! 2) It must fit the weeks theme 3) It must be submitted before the deadline 4) It must be submitted for the contest (no using works previously written) 5) One Submission per user 6) The Same User cannot win twice in a row (but there welcome to submit!)
Make sure the theme is under seven syllables, though. No Paranoid Schizophrenia themes.
Actually, that would make it quite interesting. It would force people to be more creative and to not include the theme's name in their entries. Maybe if I ever have to pick a theme in the future, it will have a long theme name.
Well, they were originally developed with nature in mind.
I have the first theme! The Desert! I found this theme by looking at a map of Africa.
So the first theme is The Desert (not dessert) and the deadline will be determined depending on how quickly entries flow in.
I have a question on the form of the tanka with regard to its syllables. English is not syllabic in the way that Japanese is (i.e. overreliance on articles, verb forms, etc.), and as a result I do not think that a strict syllable count is needed. In fact, the sine qua non of any East Asian poem is absolute conciseness, regardless of language. Do we have to be bound by the 5-7-5-7-7 rule, or can we do 5 lines of terse, unbound lines instead? I note that this is the philosophy that the journal American Tanka has used to great success.
I have a question on the form of the tanka with regard to its syllables. English is not syllabic in the way that Japanese is (i.e. overreliance on articles, verb forms, etc.), and as a result I do not think that a strict syllable count is needed.
Don't make this more complicated than it is. I am a simple fellow, so don't mess my jumbled brain up.
In fact, the sine qua non of any East Asian poem is absolute conciseness, regardless of language. Do we have to be bound by the 5-7-5-7-7 rule, or can we do 5 lines of terse, unbound lines instead?
The contest rules state that yes, we do have to follow the syllable rule. If I make exceptions, it will be a lot harder for me to judge this thing.
I have to agree, Parsat. "The" and "a", required to be grammatically correct in english, tend to make tankas and haikus harder.
What makes things harder is all of these complications about grammar and stuff. If you really have a big problem with articles, exclude them from your entries. A tanka does not need to be gramatically correct. It's a poem.
Did you get the idea for the thread from Greene, DrElmer? I think she introduced tankas and rengas to AG.
I don't remember where I got the idea, but it was recently, and it's possible that I did get the idea from her, but I could not tell you for sure because I do not know.
The desert, a
That would be four syllables.
day and freezing at night. But life still goes on there.
The only legitimate language that a syllable-following tanka can be written in is Japanese, but I have used the syllable rule to write this poem in Chinese. Here is an English translation following syllables, with filler words and a very literal translation.
Grains of sand like bugs Pain of fiery, inflamed bites There is no life here No water, hills; only wind Golden armor fills the streets.
If I would freely write it in a poem that captures the essence in a more conventional style (in relation to original styles of composition):
Sand grains Inflaming stings There is no life Only wind in a void scenery Invading sandstorm
