Discover Tanka Poetry For The CSET

My longing for you -
too strong to keep
At least no one can blame me,
when I go to you at night,
along the road of dreams

By Ono no Komachi

Ono no Komachi was a woman writer of the Court in [now] Kyoto of the Imperial Japanese Emperor at the turn of the century; she was declared a literary genius. Even though only about 100 of Ono no Komachi’s poems have been saved, they give the reader an excellent example of writing from the heart within the discipline of tanka.

over the heads
of the shopping crowd
a red balloon –
as elusive as you
that remained unborn

By Marianne Kiauta