How to Write a Tanka
Start with something concrete. A physical image. Not an abstraction like "love" or "sadness", but an actual thing you can see, touch, or hear. The creak of a screen door. Rain pooling in a pothole. Your tanka's first three lines should ground the reader in a specific moment, following that 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count. Count on your fingers if you have to. Seriously, even experienced poets do it.
Here's where most people go wrong: they treat all five lines as one continuous thought. A tanka needs a turn, usually between lines three and four. The upper phrase observes. The lower phrase feels. If your poem reads like a single run-on sentence spread across five lines, you've written a paragraph, not a tanka. The pivot is everything.
Another common mistake is forcing nature imagery where it doesn't belong. Yes, traditional tanka draws heavily on seasonal references and the natural world. But modern tanka can use urban settings, digital life, or domestic moments. The key isn't the subject, it's the structure of moving from external to internal. The best contemporary tanka poems are the ones that break from cherry blossoms and actually describe the world their authors live in.
Read your tanka out loud. Twice. The syllable count might be technically correct on paper, but if it sounds clunky when spoken, your reader will feel that friction. Japanese poetry prizes musicality, and English tanka should too. And don't end on a cliché. "And I felt so alone" will flatten even the most vivid opening image. End with something specific, a detail that carries the emotion without naming it.