tanka and haiku 06.20.24

I’ve started reading a book on japanese death poems. Unsure on how it relates to content, but it’s interesting to explore a different type of media and begin to understand its origins and why that specific medium of expression became a thing. Rhyme wasn’t really interesting to the Japanese, with every word ending in 1 of 5 vowels, so that’s where the syllabic structure of Japanese poetry came from. A societal need for expression and the use of language met a road block and yet still prevailed. This definitely begs questions of how to artistically and effectively communicate translations, but off topic atm. I want to focus on the origins. From that limit in language, came long form poetry first, I forget the form name, but it had multiple lines of 5 or 7 syllables. Eventually, poets limited to the intros, which was either 57577 the tanka, or 575 the haiku. Both included limitless observations of nature, but the haiku lacked the self. The mirror in which the author reflected upon is missing within the haiku. understanding the origins leads to understanding the art form. Duh. Fuck where does that lead