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Creating a Poem for Change: Your Very Own Tanka

If you wonder what a "tanka" might be, you can read some wonderful examples of this ancient style of poetry that "speaks to the modern soul" on the website of the journal American Tanka. As the homepage notes:

Tanka is the modern name of a form of Japanese verse that dates back over twelve centuries. Older than haiku, tanka differs from haiku in both its form (31 syllables) and its style of expression. In Japan, tanka has long been considered the most important form of Japanese poetry.

In recent decades, not only have western readers begun to discover Japanese-language tanka through originals and translations, but western poets have begun to explore the power of the tanka form in their own languages.

It is probably not an exaggeration to say that when many people first discover tanka, they experience a revelation about the power of poetry in their lives, as if they at last understand the transformative emotional significance both of reading others' words and of writing one's own poetry. Around the world, tanka poetry is making poets out of people who never would have thought of writing a poem before.

We are again grateful to Alysa Cummings for this new feature. She's the marvelous woman who's given us the Fill-in-the-Line Poetry section and was the inspiration for Notes to Myself. After she read Perspectives on Why and How People Change, Essential Qualities of the Human Spirit, and Using Symbols for Transformation, she created the following "change tanka" based on five questions she created for anyone to use and which we have turned into an online tanka form.

Risk the unlived life

Tapes run in my head; judge me

Turn them off; tune in

New songs, new stations — risk it

Radio Grow: top ten hit

— Alysa Cummings

Create Your Very Own Change Tanka

Use your creativity to reinforce your desire to become the best you can be by answering the five questions on the form of My Very Own Change Tanka and move a little closer to changing your life.

This will be YOUR personal, private, confidential tanka poem by yourself to yourself. We assure you that we will NOT keep a copy or read what you write. We will NOT disclose your address to anyone else. When you submit your e-mail to YOURSELF, as soon as you click "Send this poem to me," it is speeded on its way only to your personal inbox.

© Copyright 2002, Alysa Cummings