S7E36 The Poetry that is Waka

Poetry Pea - haiku and other English Language Japanese short forms

The next couple of months I’m going to intersperse our haiku and senryu poetry podcasts with podcasts about tanka, because we’re going to have a go at writing them in November 2024.

Today I’m looking at the premodern period, so a poetry type known as waka, composed before the tanka reforms of the late 1800s. By the end of the podcast you should know a bit about the history of waka and see the development of the form in this pre tanka world. It’s starting to look like something we might just recognise in our contemporary works. Don’t worry if you don’t immediately get them, we’ll look at them again.

Links in the show notes