Poetic Resonance

P K Padhy

TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge No. 12, Hainka, 5/13/25

May 13, 2025

https://tankatuesday.com/2025/05/13/tankatuesday-poetry-challenge-no-12-hainka-5-13-25/

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4 minutes

haiku, hainka, Syllabic Poetry, tanka, TankaTuesday Challenges

Hello, friends! Welcome to this week’s edition of Tanka Tuesday. This is Melissa from Mom With a Blog, your multitasker host. For this week’s challenge, I’d like us to try our hand at a new-ish poetic form, hainka. If you’re wondering what in the hainka that is…

Hainka is a form created by Pravat Kumar Padhy, combining haiku and tanka. In order to do this, we must understand the basics of both of these forms.

Briefly, Japanese haiku (the plural of haiku is haiku, now you know!) comprise three sections. Each has its own name, but we won’t get into that here. “The art of writing haiku is a way of imaging nature and exploring human feeling and awareness” (Robert Brewer).

The strict syllable style is not followed in English, so focus on lines following short-long-short format. The first line of your haiku is a fragment, and lines two and three make up a phrase. The fragment (line 1) and phrase (lines 2 and 3) juxtapose each other either as association or contrast. Line 2 is often a bridging line.

Kigo and kireji: it is important in haiku to include a kigo, or season word. This can be specific to your location and the season you are in. Kireji refers to the pause in between the fragment and phrase that bridges the two images while facilitating a leap. (Don’t worry, I’ll show you soon.)

On to tanka, a poem consisting of five lines in the pattern short-long-short-long-long. Generally falling somewhere in the realm of 21 to 31 syllables. “Each line is an independent poetic expression, and tanka as a whole is lyric verse” (Brewer).

Tanka (plural tanka!) consist of two strophes, the upper three lines and the lower two lines. The upper three lines are related to nature, and the lower two lines typically relate to aspects of human nature, similarly to haiku.

Tanka employ a pivot line (think: link and shift). This is commonly the third line, and it connects or bridges the two strophes.

Hopefully, everyone is still with me! Here we go! “The synthesis in hainka is based on the image linking (the ‘fragment’ of haiku acting as the ‘pivot line’ of the following tanka) to explore and interweave human nature, love, emotion, humor in a broader sense by juxtaposition of the imageries” (Brewer). This is perhaps the most important part of this form, that the first line of the haiku becomes the third line of the tanka.

“The final structural configuration would be 5/7/5/5/7/5/7/7 (s/l/s/s/l/s/l/l) with the significance of the image linking. A breathing gap (swinging space) is preferred between the haiku and tanka for the reader to imagine and experience the essence of poetry” (Brewer).

Key Points:

Haiku: short-long-short
Image nature using kigo word
Juxtapose with association or contrast

Tanka: short-long-short-long-long
Upper three lines image nature
Lower two lines relate human aspects
Employ a pivot linking and shifting the two strophes

Hainka: s-l-s s-l-s-l-l

Line 1 of haiku is Line 3 of tanka
Employ a breathing gap between haiku and tanka
Both poems should complement

one another, not feel disjointed

Examples:

quiet spring morning
I hear the gentle dripping
of the bathroom faucet

space between birdsong
resting my eyes for moments
quiet spring morning
sounds of cars cruising pavement
compliment golden silence

yellow pollen
blanket on morning car ride
for chilly legs

wind streams through fingers
she laughs and doesn’t notice
yellow pollen
until she sneezes ‘achoo!’
into the crook of her elbow

Is this your first time at Tanka Tuesday? Here is what you do:

#TankaTuesday does not accept AI-generated poetry.
Post your poem on your personal site/blog following the above instructions.
Include a link back to TankaTuesday.com in your post.
Copy the link of your published post into Mr. Linky. There are no recaps this year.
Remember to click the small checkbox about data protection.
Read and comment on some of your fellow poets’ work.
Like and leave a comment below if you choose to do so.
This challenge closes on the following Monday at noon EST, Detroit, USA.
Have fun!

35 responses to “#TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge No. 12, Hainka, 5/13/25”

1.

Rall

May 13, 2025 at 6:00 am

Enjoyed writing this new form. Thank you. Love short form syllabic poetry.Could not get it on Mr Linky.

https://rallentanda.blogspot.com/2025/05/tanka-tuesday-challenge-no-12-hainka.html

Liked by 2 people

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Friday, September 5, 2025

Hainka Challenge: Tanka Tuesday May 2025

35 responses to “#TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge No. 12, Hainka, 5/13/25”

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