April Tanka Challenge
Mar. 31st, 2010 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyCan you think of anything more antithetical to the concept of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days than the discipline of coming up with one 31-syllable poetic gem a day?
Here's the concept - because I suspect some of my readers will want to jump on the old ox cart too:
Write one tanka (waka)* a day.
*Resources on tanka:
http://www.ahapoetry.com/TANKA.HTM
http://www.americantanka.com/
http://www.wodefordhall.com/heianpoetryj
The spirit of this poetic form being the impermanence of this dewdrop life, no other make-ups are permitted. If you miss a day, you miss a day and as in real life, you never get it back. (You're on the honor system here....)
No limits on subject matter other than any you chose to impose upon yourself. Hopefully, some moment in your day will inspire you to write about it.
If you write more than one tanka a day, fine. However, you may not carry over tanka to other days except for the November 1 grace tanka. You have to write a poem on each day.
(If you are inspired to "answer" someone else's poem, great. Personally, if I do so, I am not going to count it toward my daily assignment. The idea is to come up with something myself each day. What you do is up to you.)
Adherence to the 5-7-5-7-7 line/syllable count is required, otherwise it's not a tanka.
It's poetry, not stereo instructions. It should say something and it should make sense.
No rewrites.Don't post it in MY personal journal. Post it in YOUR journal - or post it here in the LJ I set up for that purpose. (I had someone start sticking his poems in my journal last year and he had the nerve to be all hurt and upset because I kept asking him nicely and politely not to do so and deleting them as they had did not count as responses to things I was writing.)
