A tanka from me and a piece of poetical analysis (surely, the latter is Ars Poetica)
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
The Tanka poem is very similar to haiku but Tanka poems have more syllables and it uses simile, metaphor and personification. There are five lines in a Tanka poem. Tanks poems are written about nature, seasons, love, sadness and other strong emotions. This form of poetry dates back almost 1200 years ago.
The ‘'Dove with the Olive Branch"
I am like a friendly dove
To the world at large
I am a bird of love mostly
And I flutter my wings of freedom
And lay my timid heart at your feet, dear world and prospective provider of earnings.
The two plays by William Shakespeare that I looked through hastily, did not have any Tankas, I concluded. They are As You Like It and Love's Labour's Lost. I wonder in passing as to why he had an apostrophe for labour. I suddenly thought of William Wordsworth's poem, Daffodils, and surely he also gives a word's worth and I for clarity, introduced an apostrophe.
It has a Tanka. "as a cloud" - simili; "a crowd, a host of golden daffodils" - a metaphor; "Dancing in the breeze" - Personification.
Acknowledgements:
Chenou Liu's poem on PoemHunter, White Gaze Tanka
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Great feel of peace and love thro' 'friendly dove'. A good Tanka popem.