Japanese Short Form Poetry For Dummies



Current mood: iconoclastic

Category: Writing and Poetry




DEFINITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS



Haiku are cornball
platitudes about nature,
mercifully short.


A tanka is a
haiku that didn't make the
cut, taking thirty
one syllables to say what
could be said in seventeen.




(From Deeplip's "The Little Book Of Poems About Poetry and Poets".)