Micro Tanka Prose: A
Novel Experiment
Pravat Kumar Padhy
James Longenbach
defines poetry this way, “Poetry is the sound of language organized in lines.” Historically, some examples of
monostich (one-line poem) were attempted by ancient roman author Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38 and 41 AD
– c. 102 and 104 AD). “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is
a remarkable six-word story by Ernest Hemingway. It is probably the shortest story or flash fiction
ever written.
The basic forms of tanka prose: preface (exposition)
and poem tale (episodic narration) were practiced in Japan. There are records
of literary classification by Japanese scholars. They are known as a preface (kotobagaki),
diary (nikki), biography (denki), and travelogue (kiko).
In the iconic literary work, Ise monogatari Contes d’Ise Tales
of Ise during the 10th century, poetry (waka )
gains importance over prose narration. The
poem-tale (uta monogatari) of the
Buddhist monk, Saigyō Hōshi (1118-90), is a poetic biography of the late Heian
period.
Tanka prose, a combination of
tanka poem and prose, is more subjective in its literary manifestation in
contrast to haibun. In conventional tanka prose,
the prose section comprises the human experience, personal recounts or
confessional anecdotes, topics related to the surroundings, socio-religious
issues, cultural expressions, wars with historical implications, a travelogue,
fiction, etc. The structural form is broadly in the poetic style (prose-poem)
expressed in long (diary or travelogue) or short (a few lines to a short
paragraph) prose. Additionally, the transition from prose to poetry or
vice versa is the key to the art of this genre.
Jeffrey Woodward says, “Tanka
prose is one species of prosimetrum; it combines, like other members of that
genus, the two modes of writing, prose and verse, but can be distinguished from
its fellows by a preference for tanka as its verse component. Tanka prose is
constructed upon a building block or basic unit—one paragraph, one tanka—and
admits greater complication in structure through the compounding of either one
or both of these elements. Variation in the number and placement of tanka in
relation to the prose is the prime source of its rich formal diversity. That,
in brief, is a simple definition of the form of tanka prose.”
The trend or innovative
experiment of writing micro novel(s), micro-poetry, etc has been in practice
for a long time. There
is a scientific angle to it. In modern days, nano-technology has become the
frontier of research. There has been an indirect influence in literature as
well. The one-line or two-line prose appears as the theory and the following
tanka acts as an experimental manifestation of logical explanation. Probably, poets prefer micro prose to juxtapose
the verse sections in a completely different perspective — to ignite the poetic
spark for an instant impact in the readers’ minds.
I try to analyse the
psychology behind writing minimalist prose with a tanka using some classical
examples of micro tanka prose. Is it enough to complement the tanka or verse
section? Is the verse section more important? How does the poet intermingle
(contrast vs. complement) the micro-prose with the poetry ?
I feel in the literary
consciousness, complementing, yet — with one’s own individuality — orbits
around the thematic concentration with characteristic gravitational poetic
balance. Charles D. Tarlton believes, “The greater the pressure at the
moment of “searching” for the verse that demands to arise from a piece of
inspired prose, the greater the power and the beauty of the tanka-prose.” The poet always tries to do innovative experiments
to explore various possibilities and creative imaginations. Analogously the philosophical lines of Emily
Dickinson strike me:
I dwell
in Possibility—
A faired
House than Prose—
And she metaphorically uses poetry as the limitless
dimension of extension
‘To gather Paradise— .’
Keeping the above in perspective, let us analyse some of the
micro tanka prose and evaluate the importance of the style, compositional form,
poetic exploration, interrelationship with prose and tanka, and lyrical
quality.
In micro tanka prose, the tanka amplifies and expands the
content of the prose section. Thus the minimalistic modulation or expression of
the prose section is expanded and augmented by the tanka which can be termed as
prose expansion through poetry. At times, the brevity in prose expression leads
to a subtle philosophical entity exemplified by the verse narration. It looks
like an expanded form of literature in a poetic form unlike the conventional
tanka prose with a distinct link and shift between the paragraphs.
The minimal expression
creates tension in the reader’s mind and tries to search for the analogous
exactness hidden in the poetry. There has been a literary sublimity in the
short prose that compels the readers to transcend into the realm of poetry for
an explanation. The concept of narration, and the enlarged inputs have been
restricted in micro tanka prose and the verse facilitates to blend the essence
in an effective way. The following selected and representative micro tanka
prose have been interpreted as to how the brevity of prose and its
complementary verse explores creative
imagism.
Nearly
There
I
told them I was dead, but not a single person there believed me . . .
the
sign said
turn
back, road ends here
I
waken
from
a brief sojourn
in
another realm
-Debbie
Strange, Atlas
Poetica, Number
23, 2015
Ellipses mark in the one-line prose infers a possible
continuation. This is a personal experience of life and near-death
metaphorically portrayed through the signpost indicating the close of the road.
The truth of life is reflected at the threshold of happening. It infers a brief
halt and recovering back to usher in a new journey. The brief expression evokes
a sense of awakening. The tanka embodies a sort of mystical manifestation (yugen tei) expanding the essence of the
prose.
After
Reading Joy Harjo
the
day rides
a
splintered horse
and
leaves
a
trail of barbed wire
in
my heart
And
then I wished I could write poetry like the Native Americans I admire.
-M.
Kei, Skylark, Winter 2014: volume 2, number 2
This
is classic inverted micro prose. The poet feels sad for the horse,
probably with broken legs. The poet
expresses as if he himself is severely hurt by the barbed wire. The tanka prose
reflects kanashi (sadness). There has been a persistent
‘s’ sound in the upper strophe of the tanka and also in the one-line prose (
wished, Americans). Here the tanka expands the inner zen-feeling of the prose
line referring to the poetry of native Americans.
Traditionally
the oral poetry of native Americans is about reverence of nature and spirituality with the balance of life, and
respect for others as annotated in the poem given below:
The
air is precious
to
the red man,
for
all things
are
the same breath —
the
animals, the trees
the
man
-Chief
Seattle
The
micro tanka prose embodies the sense of emotion assimilating the cultural
entities in a brilliant way.
Cycle
of Memory
Rocking
my grandchild to sleep, I am caught in a cycle of memory which takes me from
the past to the future then to the present once again, rocking, rocking . . .
full
moon rising—
our
breathing sighs
in
unison
can
it be my mother
I am
holding in my arms
-Marjorie
Buettner, Skylark, Winter 2016:
Volume 4, number 2
This
is an elegant example of micro tanka prose by Marjorie Buettner. The prose
transcends memories through a timeline–past to the future and back to the
present reality. Let us observe the eagerness with reverence, how the poet
imagines the grandchild as her mother!
The poet dreams of the rising moon in the present and reminisces about
the past. There is a sense of poetic allusion referring to the moonrise. The
metrical sense and the sound ‘ing’ also add resonance to it. Repetition of the
word (Epizeuxis, Diacope) ‘rocking’ in the prose section gives
emphasis and lyrical sense.
Troubled
Water
They
operated on the seventh day. Seven days after that . . .
at
the airport
returning
from
the clinic
the
first time, he said
I
saw you hold her hand
-Don
Miller, Atlas
Poetica, Number 23, 2015
The story of one-line prose with a pause denoted by
ellipses looks like unfolding its continuation and linking in the following
tanka. It is a piece of deep emotional expression of reunion after perhaps a
critical operation. The last two lines of the tanka manifest the deep human
feeling (ushin tei).
New England Palms
Somewhere between weed
and tree, the sumacs that jungle my unkempt property. I like them.
My neighbors don't. I call them New England palms.
cliffside cottage
blue hills in the distance
here I could be
a Ryokan
or a Han Shan
- Larry Kimmel, Tanka
Prose Anthology, Modern English Tanka Press, 2008
Larry’s micro tanka prose is unique in the sense that it
assimilates the essence of prose with the richness of tanka. The prose looks
very simple in its expression and
it refers to the importance of plants and the climate.
Sumacs are flowering plants
and widely grow in subtropical and temperate regions.
Some people consider them weeds. Occasionally people shape the top branches in
the form of a crown shape and they look like small palm trees. The poet refers to
them as New England palms and titles the tanka prose after them.
Let us observe the concluding tanka carefully. The verse
section manifests a completely different aspect with historical references to
great poets namely Hanshan and Ryokan and their philosophy.
Han
Shan is a Chinese hermit and poet. He is honored as an emanation of
the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī. The poet Hanshan (meaning Cold Mountain) was
one of the iconic poets who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He stayed in a cave or hut in Tiantai
Mountain near modern-day Taizhou, Zhejiang, China. His poems are transcendental
and biographical.
Red Pine's poem 307:
Whoever has Cold Mountain's poems
is better off than those with
sutras.
Write them up on your screen
and read them from time to time.
Ryokan (1758-1831) was
a Japanese Buddhist monk and poet. His poems are more about nature, rich with
zen-feeling. While narrating when the thief broke into his hut and stole his
things leaving a cushion behind, he tried to offer it back to the robber and
thus composed the iconic haiku:
The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window. (Tr. Stephen Mitchell)
There
has been an art of inter-juxtaposition within tanka referring to the name of
Han Shan (a ‘cold mountain’) and ‘blue hills.’ Interestingly poet wishes he could be one of the
great poets like Hanshan and Raykon imbibing the greatness that lies even in
the weeds!
Leadership
Retreat
The
speaker uses an empty paper plate to illustrate how one can create something
out
of nothing. On it, he writes some abstract nouns, such as engagement,
responsibility, honesty, self-sacrifice.
But
no matter how emphatic his talk sounds, I wish he could juxtapose something
concrete onto the plate.
December
sky
a
vast expanse
of
leaden gray …
not
even the voices
of
crows
-John
Zheng, Haibun Today, Volume 11, Number 2, 2017
John has embarked on a topic having a political reference in the prose section.
The images have been beautifully crafted in the concluding tanka implying
sluggishness of implementation of promise as if it is all sullen and stodgy.
One can correlate the complementary characteristics in the 2nd
short paragraph, ‘not even the voices / of crows’ in tanka links and juxtaposes
with that of inference of emptiness or intangible promises mentioned in the
preceding prose section, thus twisting into an infusion of contrast.
Cooking Lessons
Today was a good
day. He brought over rice and peas that his nan had made. A far cry from
yesterday’s overcooked dinner which had been thrown against the wall.
today I eat
his latest offering
of peace
sweeping the scraps
under the carpet
-Urszula Funnell, Kyso Flash, Issue 9, 2018
This
is interesting micro tanka prose about cooking written in three lines of prose
with a message of inner reconciliation and self-realisation. How self-awareness brings peace by shedding
one’s anger has been nicely crafted in the tanka. Here Urszula tries to
chrystallise the simple content of the prose in the form of an artful style in
poetry.
Meandering
Strewn on the garden patch the parijaat blossoms create a
new morning.
leaves
turn red
in which year
did my womb
stop preparing
for a child
-Kala Ramesh, Contemporary Haibun Online Issue 17.1, 2021)
Here human psychology is expressed through nature. Here
the poetic prose line incorporates the seasonal reference. Awakening to life
and newness has been expressed by the phrase ‘new morning.’ There is a contrast
image in the following tanka inferring the world of complexity. The tanka
expands into the realm of sadness and how the new morning slides into the
evening of life, further evolving the truth of the evolution cycle and the
human psyche.
#smileyfacelol
Him:
OMG! I can’t believe I’ve finally found you after all these years.
Her:
Weird, I was just thinking about you the other day.
Him:
You still look amazing btw.
click—
the unraveling
of a life
she worked so hard
to build without him
-
Urszula Funnell, Kyso Flash, Issue 9, 2018
Here Urszula Funnell experiments with dialogue-based micro tanka prose with
a surrealistic message. The title is
unique inferring face with tears of joy! In 2016, Linguist
Gretchen McCulloch says, “It’s clear we love to laugh and communicate laughter
digitally!”
Interestingly the use of
the acronym, btw, meaning ‘by the way’ infers the informal way of expression.
The prose section indicates both (could be close friends, relatives or I feel
they may be husband and wife) were meeting after a long time. Let us explore
the transition from formal prose to the poetry section.
The phrase ‘unraveling
of a life’ reveals the emotion of how she struggled alone all through without
his support. She could achieve the goal by herself undergoing strenuous time.
This imparts an amazing personality and self-respect. Moreover, it infers a
path towards gender equality. The micro tanka prose manifests poet Urszula’s
sagacious creative imagination.
Sign
on wooden
stilts
next to
Father
I'm delicately
balanced
and
follow in his steps
picking
peaches
The sign that bears my father’s name now dangles from the
weathered arm of the post at the front gate. I take the shingle down because I
am his only child, and carefully wrap it in the blanket brought from home.
new line
posts
and
barbed wire
razor
sharp
the buyer
renames
our
family farm
-Tish Davis, Modern Haibun and Tanka Prose (Summer 2009)
The verse-enveloped micro tanka
prose, “Sign” is perhaps one of the thoughtful literary pieces depicting a
subtle philosophical lineage. The transitions from poetry to prose and prose to
poetry reflect a deep sense of consciousness threaded in time. Tish emphasises
this truth through her verses by artfully comparing the time periods and
embedding the two-line prose. The opening verse narrates the happy time with
family in the ‘present.’ She recalls her playful period of picking peaches from
the farm with her father. She gracefully collects the old nameplate that bears
her father’s name and keeps it as a memorial. The transition from the ‘present’
into the reality of time is manifested in a sublime way through the use of
literary allusion in the prose section. The farm with the evergreen scene has
now been converted into perhaps a prison (?) with a new signpost and a barbed
fence. The ‘past’ remained as a memory antique.
Here the brief prose stitches the
reality of phases of time through divergent imageries of the verses. The
literary work is indeed a pathfinder of philosophical instinct.
Pas de Deux
the
perfect line
of a kingfisher’s streak
held between us
we stand with the river’s
adagio
flowing as one
Practice of writing. A bridge’s rails, the back of a
bench must suffice as a barre.
sequined
in light
the wings of an egret
caught in a lift
soaring soaring
our unified leap
-Diana
Webb, Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue 12, December 2021
The title “Pas de Deux” refers to the characteristic of
classical ballet where elegant posture has been showcased by the danseurs.
Barre is a form of group exercise in ballet. One can find the inter
juxtaposition of the image in the prose portrayed in a concise form such as
‘handwriting practice like rails’, and holding the ‘linear edge’ of the bench
in school during barre exercises. Diana
has created the brilliant composite images that are juxtaposed in the tanka
with the linearity of ‘kingfisher’s streak’ and ‘river’s adagio’ manifesting in
unification. The closing tanka portrays an ill-fated egret whose wings are
caught in a lift and who tries to fly. The acrobatic leaps, twists, and locking
postures are sublimely juxtaposed with the flapping wings of the egret which
tries to soar up. The verse envelope in micro tanka prose is a brilliant piece
of composite imagery in brevity. Here the two-line prose creates a link of
imaginative space for the readers to visualise while juxtaposing the two verse
sections.
Chen-ou Liu also attempts the
inverted micro tanka prose titled, ‘A Life in Transition.’ Poets namely Jenny Ward Angyal Adelaide B. Shaw, Jane Stuart, Christine Shook, Collin
Barber, Mary P. Myers, Matthew Caretti, Djurdja Vukelic-Rozic, Vandana Parashar, Janet Lynn Davis, and others have experimented with the writing of micro tanka prose.
Synthesis
It is observed that poets try to sketch sublime imagery within concise
prose, and the verse section expands it for the readers to discover the essence
of the expression. Poets often artfully try to assimilate the art of
link-and-shift within the short prose in
the form of switching of word phrases as seen in the tanka “Nearly There” by
Debbie: ‘I told them I was dead, but not
a single person there believed me . . .’ and in “Troubled Water” by Don Miller:
‘They operated on the seventh day. Seven days after that . . .’ This is an
innovative experiment as to how to tie and link the ideas even in one-line
prose. In micro
tanka prose, I feel the verse section has a higher role to create a spark in
the reader’s mind through prose and poetry which are complementary to each
other like a ‘single flower stem.’ Kala Ramesh in her “Meandering” exhibits the credence of literary
expansionism. The one-line prose appears like a monoku with its internal
juxtaposition or disjunction, thus profoundly exhibiting a sense of a link and
expansion with the verse section.
In the case of verse envelope, the continuation with complement is
poignantly exhibited and beautifully contemplated by Tish Davis in “Sign” and
by Dianna Webb in “Pas de Deux.”
Similarly, the interrelationship of prose and poetry exhibits an in-depth
quest with a pragmatic amalgamation as manifested by Larry Kimmel in his “New England Palms.” Interestingly John Zheng in the socio-political-based write-up,
“Leadership Retreat” portrays hope in the prose and in reality discovers a
contrast at the end in tanka.
M Kei has compressed the emotional reference embedded in the tanka in his
one-line prose at the end of his inverted micro prose (tanka followed by
prose), “After Reading Joy Harjo.” Short dialogued-based micro tanka prose, “#smileyfacelol”
by Urszula
Funnell is unique and the gender-centric emotional feeling referred to in prose has been distinctly
highlighted in tanka. “Cooking Lessons”
by Urszula is an interesting exploration of familiar understanding in the topic related to cooking and overcooking!
Marjorie Buettner in “Cycle of Memory” creates an emotional bridge between
prose and tanka and transcends through the timeline – past, present and future.
It is brief in its manifestation, but the space it creates is indeed vast.
Conclusion
To
me, it looks like the micro tanka inherits the power of literary exploration in
its brevity. Like
conventional tanka prose, micro tanka prose could be a prose envelope, verse
envelope, or could be inverted one. In the micro-scale of this genre, the
competency of fusion of micro prose with the verse is very important. Here,
prose, irrespective of its narrative quantum, the essence needs to be compacted
to associate with a verse to ladder up to a different height; in the words of
Charles D. Tarlton: “…the two in tandem,
the dialectical transformation that takes place in the well made tanka-prose
elevating the prose and the tanka to a new level of perception.” The potential energy it retains
has to be released at the end to make the literary piece a success. The art of
the genre imparts instant literary wakefulness and consciousness rather than
poetic narration. It is essentially characterized by a subtle abstract form. In
contrast to the narration or long prose, the micro tanka prose offers a
literary platform, with a very limited option for the prose to maneuver, to
assimilate the art of imagery building, thus offering more imaginative space
for the readers to unfold.
I wish
to conclude with the memorable quote of the great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh:
“To know fully even one field or one lane is a lifetime’s experience. In the
world of poetic experience it is depth that counts and not width…”
References
Atlas Poetica, 2011:Tanka Prose, Tanka Tradition: An Interview with Jeffrey
Woodward by Claire Everett, Atlas Poetica, Issue 9, Summer.
https://www.raysweb.net/haibunresources/reprints_pdf/Everett%20Woodward%20Interview.pdf
Atlas Poetica Number 23,
2015, https://www.atlaspoetica.org/read-atlas-poetica/
Contemporary Haibun
Online, Issue17.1, 2021.
https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/cho-17-1-table-of-contents/
Dickinson, Emily. “I Dwell in Possibility.” Poem
Analysis by Emma Baldwin
https://poemanalysis.com/emily-dickinson/i-dwell-in-possibility/
Drifting
Sands Haibun, Issue 12, December 2021.
https://drifting-sands-haibun.org/11/2021/welcome-to-issue-12-of-drifting-sands/
Haibun Today Archives, 2010-2019 http://haibuntoday.com/pages/archives.html
Kyso Flash Archive, Issues 2014-2019 http://www.kysoflash.com/Archive.aspx
Longenbach, James The Art of the Poetic Line: 2008, Graywolf Press, pp. 120.
Meng-hu, 2006: Zen
Poetics of Ryokan Simply Haiku: Summer 2006, vol. 4 no 2.
http://www.simplyhaiku.com/SHv4n2/features/Meng-hu.html
Padhy, Pravat Kumar, 2019:The Garden of Blooming Flowers: My Experience of Tanka
Writing, Atlas Poetica, Issue 29.
https://www.atlaspoetica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/29-Atlas-Poetica-Journal-of-World-Tanka-poetry.pdf
Padhy, Pravat Kumar,
2022: Tanka: The Meandering of Musical
Song, The Wise Owl, Tulip Edition.
https://www.thewiseowl.art/tanka-article-dr-padhy
Skylark, Claire Everett, Ed, Issues:
2013-2017
http://skylarktanka.weebly.com/read-skylark.html
Tarlton, D. Charles, 2022,
Towards Theory and Practice of Tanka-Prose,
Contemporary Haibun Online, 17.3
https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/cho-17-3-table-of-contents/toward-a-theory-and-practice-of-tanka-prose-by-charles-tarlton/
Woodward, Jeffrey, 2007: The
Road Ahead for Tanka in English, Modern English Tanka 2:2.
https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/the-road-ahead-for-tanka-in-english/
Woodward, Jeffrey,
2008: Tanka Prose Anthology, Modern English Tanka Press (Ed. Jeffrey Woodward).
https://www.raysweb.net/haibunresources/reprints_pdf/Woodward%20-%20Tanka%20Prose%20Anthology%20(2008).pdf
Woodward, Jeffrey, 2015: The
Segue in Tanka Prose, Ribbons, 11:2.
https://poetrysociety.org.nz/affiliates/haiku-nz/haiku-poems-articles/archived-articles/monthly-article/
**************
Publication Credit: Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue 18,
2022
https://drifting-sands-haibun.org/12/2022/welcome-to-issue-18-of-drifting-sands/
https://drifting-sands-haibun.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Micro-Tanka-Prose-A-Novel-Experiment.pdf
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