Thoughts on Teaching Short Form Poetry: Haiku and Tanka
Every child seems to know about writing haiku and tanka poems. Simplicity. Broken down into syllable count as easy as 5,7,5 for haiku and 5,7,5,7,7 for tanka. But shouldn't they know the traditional forms and purposes? I don't remember even learning about true Haiku and Tanka until college, World Literature class.
Haiku is traditionally a poem that focuses on one of two things, Japanese culture or Nature. And, from what I learned and now always try to do because of the beauty and the added challenge, the form should focus from micro to macro or macro to micro - this means the first line should be focused on something small, the second something larger, the third looks at big picture or vice versa. For my students, I have compared it to a small scene of a movie with the idea of zooming into a small detail or zooming out from the detail to the landscape.
ex.) small = the oak leaf hangs light
larger= out upon the highest limb.
largest= Mountains reign supreme.
ex.) largest= The vast open ground
large= holds the herd of elk and wolf.
small= Blood stains the white snow.
Tanka is traditionally focused on love, nature, or the love of nature.
Perhaps the focus on nature is why I am drawn to these short forms of poetry.
