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Writer's pictureKala Ramesh

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! one-line tanka!

haikaiTALKS: ONE-LINE TANKA - a saturday gathering_under the banyan tree


host: Kala Ramesh

26 August 2023

Yeah! Another exciting week ahead!!


I have a new request and a suggestion to make.

Can you share a one-line tanka that you've enjoyed & tell your readers why you liked it and how you understood it?

Examples of 1-line tanka:



Enjoy the one-line tanka that were selected for haikuKATHA Issue 22


One-line tanka:

twilight teaching the mockingbird a new song iPhone-14Pro ringtone

Billie Dee


fragments of Sappho’s verses lost poetry between the pages of my blank diary

Firdaus Parvez


fights that began stay till the end their married years a wasteland of pretence

Kala Ramesh


saltwater taffy the bell on the door of a boardwalk shop jingles in jingles out Linda Papanicolaou


a walled courtyard in the nursing home no way to climb this mountain of insecurity

Lorraine Haig


prison's stone walls the color of bone shadows carve the quarry deeper

Lorraine Haig


a skein of geese off the cattail coast unraveling the wild part of me Marilyn Ashbaugh



For your own poems: Only TWO one-line tanka per week, per prompt, per poet.

First post: You'll search and find a one-line tanka, you like.

You'll give your reason/s why you like it. Second post: This will be your first one-line tanka.


Third post: This will be your second one-line tanka.

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_


Have fun! Keep writing and commenting!

320 views128 comments

128 Kommentare


Christine L. Villa
Christine L. Villa
01. Sept. 2023

My first attempt! Still trying to understand what a one-line tanka is.


#1 a phonograph with a hundred skips I tell myself it's over

(Feedback welcome. Please tell me if this works!)


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Alan Summers
Alan Summers
02. Sept. 2023
Antwort an

Dear Christine,


Well, it certainly works as a one line piece!


a phonograph with a hundred skips I tell myself it's over


A phonograph with a hundred skips I tell myself it's over.


A phonograph, with a hundred skips, I tell myself it's over.


a phonograph

with a hundred skips

I tell myself

it's over


phonograph

a hundred skips

I tell myself

it's over


phonograph a hundred skips I tell myself it's over


All versions are intriguing!


It's certainly not a haiku (one line or otherwise) in my opinion. It's subjective, filled with concrete imagery of the phonograph, the sound of multiple skips and jumps as it's played, so it's a concrete landscape with a deeply personal phrase of "I…


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Christine L. Villa
Christine L. Villa
01. Sept. 2023

I'm still trying to understand the difference between a five-line tanka and a one-line tanka. Is a one-line tanka a tanka that can't be written in five lines? I have a feeling it's more than that, but is it one of the reasons why a tanka is written as a one-line tanka?


This tanka below seems to be awkward if converted as a five-line tanka. I like that it is written as a one-line tanka instead. I chose it because I love the imagery and the feeling that comes with it. I can picture myself smiling as I watch a child turning around in circles and laughing. a maple leaf caught in the wind she turns circles of dance int…


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Alan Summers
Alan Summers
02. Sept. 2023
Antwort an

Hi Chrissie!


Regarding multiple-line haiku in the Pan Haiku Review special on 1-line haiku, I talk about this regarding haiku. If we also remember that haiku and tanka are single-line poems in Japan, and that elsewhere we break up this fact and presentation, that's a start.


re:

a maple leaf caught in the wind she turns circles of dance into laughter


It can easily be easily broken into a 5-line poem:


a maple leaf

caught in the wind

she turns circles

of dance

into laughter


I'd say it's the author's decision whether to use (external) enjambment or not.


If I was reading or performing this poem I might use 'timing' and have pauses of different duration(s):


a maple leaf [long…


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Arvinder Kaur
Arvinder Kaur
31. Aug. 2023

# First tanka

a walk by the tree grove in an alien land too the birds sing of homecoming


Feedback welcome

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Arvinder Kaur
Arvinder Kaur
31. Aug. 2023
Antwort an

Thanks Kala. I have enjoyed reading your versions.

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Arvinder Kaur
Arvinder Kaur
31. Aug. 2023

First post


a skein of geese off the cattail coast unravelling the wild part of me


Marilyn Ashbaugh


This beautiful poem works for me for two reasons. One ‘ a skein of geese ‘ have always fascinated me for the multiple layers of meanings and implications inherent in it. Two these days I am really smitten by ‘ the wild part ‘ I have also written a poem about’ my wild streak’. Perhaps as we age such tropes really become appealing and you are not afraid of writing about them. Of course the way the poem is structured it has a nice flow. Well done Marilyn.


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marilyn ashbaugh
marilyn ashbaugh
02. Sept. 2023
Antwort an

Arvinder,

So happy you liked my tanka! To our wild selves!

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marilyn ashbaugh
marilyn ashbaugh
30. Aug. 2023

#2 29/8/23 comments welcome


rev. 1 Thank you, Alan.


inside the nautilus running to my winter's river old age

<<<>>> inside the nautilus running to a winter river old age

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marilyn ashbaugh
marilyn ashbaugh
30. Aug. 2023
Antwort an

Thank you, Alan, will edit.

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