About
Sunflower Tanka is a new journal of contemporary tanka, tanka prose & experimental tanka forms.
Founded by Robbie Cheadle & Colleen Chesebro, Sunflower Tanka Anthology is published once a year, in December.
🌻 Submission periods are open from July 15 through August 31, 2026. The theme for this anthology will be announced on July 15, 2026. Stay tuned! 🌻
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Resources
- If you’re using the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count, please count your syllables and the number of lines for the form you’re writing. Use a qualified syllable counter to check your syllable count. We use: syllable counter.net (https://syllablecounter.net/). If you’re writing in the s-l-s-l-l format, please check your syllable count.
- Double-check your poem. Look at the spelling and grammar.
tanka
Tanka are written in a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure, or s-l-s-l-l. Tanka consists of 5 lines written in the first-person point of view from the poet’s perspective.
Jenny Ward Angyal, in describing what she is looking for as tanka editor for Under the Basho, summarizes the prevalent view:
“Each line is ideally comprised of a single, coherent poetic phrase.” (tankasocietyofamerica.org).
The third line is considered your “pivot,” but let it happen anywhere, or exclude it. If you use a pivot, the meaning should apply to the first two lines, as well as the last two lines of your tanka. Tanka are untitled and do not rhyme.
tanka Example
soft hues wash the eye
these heady honeymoon days
on the horizon
sailboats softly drift away
carrying worn dreams with them
© AJ Wilson
The Pivot in tanka
The third line is considered your “pivot,” but let it happen anywhere, or exclude it. If you use a pivot, the meaning should apply to the first two lines, as well as the last two lines of your tanka.
- Tanka are untitled.
- Tanka do not rhyme.
- First line capitalization is not used in syllabic poetry.
- Punctuation is optional.
Tanka Pivot Example
soft hues wash the eye
these heady honeymoon days
on the horizon
sailboats softly drift away
carrying worn dreams with them
© AJ Wilson
The Pivot Explained
Take the first three lines of the example above. (on the horizon, is the pivot)
soft hues wash the eye
these heady honeymoon days
on the horizon
Next, take line three, four, and five together:
on the horizon
sailboats softly drift away
carrying worn dreams with them
The first three lines give you a message about a couple embarking on a life together (honeymoon days).
When you take lines three, four, and five, you get another meaning. These lines possibly allude to all the years they spent searching for each other. The pivot allows the reader to infer a new meaning to the poem as a whole.
Tanka Example #2
➡️ Despite its rarity, enjambment’s legitimacy as tanka technique has long been acknowledged, including in Michael McClintock’s introduction to the seminal “The Tanka Anthology,” where he quotes Geraldine Clinton Little’s poem:
ah, summer, summer,
how quickly you fade. I cut
rusted zinnias,
place them on a glassed tabletop,
as if time could double.
Rensaku
A rensaku is a series of any number of tanka poems: double, triple, or more. Rensaku should contain a title.
The word rensaku is used for any combination of two or more tanka that are somehow related in a series. Shiki defined this term as referring to the practice of writing tanka in sequence, usually in such a way that the poems, although autonomous, take on additional significance when seen as a group.
From neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com, is Shiki’s 10-poem rensaku about the wisteria (Burton Watson, Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems by Shiki Masaoka, pp. 105-110) See below:
Rensaku Example
Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase
are so short
they don’t reach
to the tatami
Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase —
on cluster
dangles down
on the piled-up books
When I look
at wisteria blossoms
I think with longing of far-off times,
the Nara emperors,
the emperors of Kyoto
When I look
at wisteria blossoms
I want to get out
my purple paints
and paint them
If I were to paint
the purple
of wisteria blossoms,
I ought to paint it
a deep purple
Sprays of wisteria
arranged in a vase —
the blossoms hang down,
and by my sickbed
spring is coming to an end
Last year in spring
I saw the wisterias
in Kameido —
seeing this wisteria now,
I recall it
Before the
red blossoms
of the peonies,
the wisteria’s purple
comes into blossom
These wisterias
have blossomed early —
the Kameido wisterias
won’t be out for
ten days or more
If you stick the stems
in strong sake
the wilted flowers
of the wisteria
will bloom again like new
© Shiki
This rensaku tanka series is written in the first person. Notice the repetition of words (anaphora) that connect the reader to the wisteria blossoms. This rensaku series also reads like a story—that’s how the tanka stanzas are related.
By the end of the rensaku, we’ve learned all there is to know about wisteria. (Shiki used no titles in his tanka poetry.) But for the purposes of this anthology, we title our rensaku.
Tanka Prose
Tanka prose is written in the 5-7-5-7-7 or short-long-short-long-long five line syllable structure.
- Tanka prose always contains a title.
- Tanka and tanka prose do not rhyme.
Tanka prose combines two modes of writing: verse and prose. There are two forms of tanka prose: preface/headnote, or poem tale episode (literary diary, travel account, etc.)
The prose must stand on its own and not become purple prose. When the prose passage is overly poetical itself, the line between the prose and the verse is compromised.
At the heart of tanka prose is the crucial juxtaposition (to place close together for contrasting effect) between the prose and the tanka verse.
Jeffrey Woodward, “…uses the term segue to underscore the fact that transitions in tanka prose lean toward compositional harmony, not dissonance. This trait runs counter to the character of a closely-related discipline, haibun, where the borders between prose and verse are frequently disjunctive and oblique.”
Repetition of a Key Word or Phrase
Jeffrey Woodward suggests there are two common methods of segue: repetition and complement.
The prose, therefore, repeats or completes in some fashion what is offered by the tanka and vice versa. (The Segue in Tanka Prose)
Jeffrey Woodward says:
“A simple and common technique involves repetition of a key word or phrase. In “Neighbors,” a short composition that compared the stubborn human spirit to a barren landscape, I achieved unity between the two modes by introducing in the closing tanka the word and image most prominent in the preceding prose: “stone.”
In “Needles by Night,” a work that describes a trip through the Mojave Desert, I repeated a phrase: coming into Needles Gateway to California.
Needles by Night
coming into Needles on the sly and under cover of darkness drunk still on the vacancy of that vivid glare some hours earlier tracked through
coming into Needles by way of the main street 10:30 p.m. a digital bank clock remarks for the record 112 Fahrenheit it reports soberly
coming into Needles
only to pass through
and quickly
into the wide desert
of the night again
© Jeffrey Woodward
“Prose and tanka are closely joined here by anaphora, the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of each paragraph and tanka. Iteration of a single word may serve as emphasis or otherwise affect meaning while the insistent and recurring phrase influences rhythm also.”
In tanka prose, there is only one basic requirement: one paragraph and one tanka.
The paragraph becomes the preface, and the tanka poem then reflects on the prose. You can reverse this with the tanka as the preface and then your prose reflects on the tanka.
There are many ways to create tanka prose:
- Prose/tanka or tanka/prose
- Prose/tanka/prose
- Tanka/prose/tanka, etc.
Preface: an explanation
When we write tanka prose using the preface method, we give a factual summary, like the time and place, the name of the person we’re writing about, or the occasion we’re writing about in the prose potion of our poem.
The tanka portion gives a retrospective turn or sheds new light on the preceding prose.
Preface Example:
Taco (Tanka) Tuesday
Summer rainstorms battered the two pepper plants we planted this spring. Against all odds, the plants stand tall. The peppers remind me of Yule, one red, the other green. Peppers off the stalk—the gift that keeps giving.
It's Taco Tuesday
spicy bite of green peppers
a taste sensation
of late springtime memories
planting under the hot sun
© Colleen Chesebro
(This is a preface poem because it sheds new light on the prose. Memories are a great way to connect your prose and tanka. The details are minimal, but enough to set the scene).
Poem Tale: episodic narration
The second type is the poem-tale or episode written as a literary diary or as a diary of your travels or experiences.
In the episodic poem tale, the tanka is the center from where the narrative episode arises.
Poem Tale or Episode Example
Jeffrey Woodward, in his essay, Element of Tanka Prose, shares the following:
“A second example – this from Karma Tenzing Wangchuk – assumes a midway
point between the simple preface and the nascent narrative of the poem-tale:
Traveler’s Moon
Last night I left my room in central Tucson and began a residence
at the Dakshang Kagyu dharma center on the east side of town.
In fall of next year, four members of our sangha are scheduled to
enter a three-year meditation retreat in northern California. I moved
to the dharma center in order to make preparations.Leaving one
temporary home
for another,
a waxing gibbous moon
my companion and guide.[Wangchuk, 2004]
“Greater detail is afforded the reader by this poet who describes a relocation and a reason for it, yet no other real action is described, and so the tanka prose leans back toward the basic prefatory style, despite traces and hints of narrative.”
➡️ Jeffrey Woodward, in his essay, Element of Tanka Prose, shares the following example of the elementary poem-tale or episode:
“The elementary poem-tale or episode is amply demonstrated by the following
work of Gary LeBel.”
Rereading Tsurayuki
It‘s almost midnight—tomorrow‘s Christmas. As I turn the pages of
the Tosa Diary I smell the sea and feel my cold soles‘ impress on
the shingle; I hear those ancient pines whose roots are splashed
by waves‘. The rowers pull hard as a woman intones verses for the
dead amid the long, elegant robes…I peek in on my sleeping
daughter, and then shut the door.like the long sloping lines
in Hiroshige‘s woodcuts, the rain glistens
under streetlights—
what strange coasts
our bows have touched.[LeBel, 2008]
“Though this episode falls short of one hundred words, the reader is introduced to a Christmas Eve setting where a vivid renewal of an acquaintance with the Tosa Diary and that work‘s closing lamentation for a dead child awakens in the poet a concern for his own sleeping daughter. The actual theme is never explicitly addressed but is evoked indirectly in the allusions to the work of Ki no Tsurayuki.”
Other Tanka Prose Examples
A tanka prose called simply “Sign,” was originally published in the first issue of Jeffrey Woodward’s Modern Haibun and Tanka Prose in 2009.
Sign
on wooden stilts
next to Father
I’m delicately balanced
and follow in his steps
picking peachesThe sign that bears my father’s name now dangles from the weathered arm of the post at the front gate. I take the shingle down, because I am his only child, and carefully wrap it in the blanket brought from home.
new line posts
and barbed wire
razor sharp
the buyer renames
our family’s farmFrom: Toward a Theory and Practice of Tanka-Prose by Charles D. Tarlton: https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/cho-17-3-table-of-contents/toward-a-theory-and-practice-of-tanka-prose-by-charles-tarlton/
Charles D. Tarlton (link above) shares his interpretation of the poem:
“Notice how the first tanka and prose gives us a warm feeling from the author’s memory of his life on his father’s farm. The last tanka changes the tone the entire poem! It’s a blending of the past and the present. It is the juxtaposition between the last tanka and the first tanka/prose that make this tanka poem example memorable.”
In Conclusion
Writing tanka and tanka prose can be a deeply personal experience. There’s a lot of creative room in this form, especially when you use the s-l-s-l-l syllable count for the tanka portion.
Reference Links for the tanka prose
Tanka Society of America – Beyond Five End-Stopped Lines: https://www.tankasocietyofamerica.org/essays/beyond-five-end-stopped-lines
25 examples of Tanka Prose: https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/cho-17-3-table-of-contents/twenty-five-examples-of-tanka-prose-by-bob-lucky/
Basic Structure of Tanka Prose: https://www.raysweb.net/haibunresources/reprints_pdf/Woodward%20Elements%20of%20Tanka%20Prose.pdf
Micro Tanka Prose: https://drifting-sands-haibun.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Micro-Tanka-Prose-A-Novel-Experiment.pdf
Tanka Sequence & Introduction to Tanka Prose: https://www.raysweb.net/haibunresources/reprints_pdf/Zimmer_Article_IntroductiontoTanka.pdf
Beyond Five End-Stopped Lines: https://www.tankasocietyofamerica.org/essays/beyond-five-end-stopped-lines
The Segue in Tanka Prose: https://contemporaryhaibunonline.com/cho-17-2-table-of-contents/the-seque-in-tanka-prose/ (experimental tanka prose)
Experimental Tanka
Experimental tanka are syllabic forms made using the basic structure of a tanka using the 5/7/5/7/7 or s/l/s/l/l (short, long, short, long, long) syllable counts.
For example, the garland tanka below consists of six tanka in which the last stanza is formed from the preceding five tanka. Typically, line one from stanza one, line two from stanza two, etc. Like tanka, they should always have a title. These forms do not rhyme. They are always written in the first-person viewpoint—just like the tanka.
Garland Tanka Example
Waiting for Autumn
through the morning mist
I see early signs of autumn
red tints on green leaves
baffled by the warm weather
leaves stuck in chlorophyll’s hold
Lake Michigan’s gloom
birthing drizzle on wet streets
the end of my walk
yet, summer hangs on—waiting
for temperatures to drop
first autumn rainfall
the other side of silence
I dance with raindrops
a puddle reflects the sky
dew point reads in the millions
autumn’s solitude
oak branches creak in the wind
my wild dreams of storms
who speak to me in echoes
geese flying in formation
temperatures plunge
dead sunflowers still face the sun
I rake piles of leaves
remembering summer days
Autumn gifts me the goods
through the morning mist
birthing drizzle on dark streets
I dance with raindrops
who speak to me in echoes
Autumn gifts me the goods
© Colleen Chesebro
(From: Poetry Forms – tanka)
Tanka Puente
1st stanza: separate thought, equal number of lines (5/7/5/7/7)
2nd stanza: one-line quote enclosed in tildes (~) to distinguish itself from the last line of the first stanza and the first line of the third stanza. No syllable count, but keep it brief. Let the quote act as a bridge between the first tanka and the second.
3rd stanza: separate thought, equal number of lines (5/7/5/7/7)
The idea is to create tension between the first tanka and the second tanka, with the quote as the bridge that leads from one thought to the next.
Tanka Puente Example
Marital surprises
magical wedding
golden sun gives its blessing
two lives joined forever
youthful, innocent couple
only happiness ahead
~ The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all ~ *
challenges present
chronic illness gobbles joy
life’s path is pitted
some days devoid of sunshine
a burden to be endured
© Robbie Cheadle
*This quote comes from the Walt Disney Company’s animated movie, Mulan. The meaning behind this quote originally comes from the earliest blooming flower in China — the Plum Blossom. The plum blossom, known as the meihua, is a symbol for resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, because plum blossoms often bloom most vibrantly even amidst the harsh winter snow.
Taiga
The taiga is a form that Robbie and I created for Tanka Tuesday and the Sunflower Tanka Anthology. The taiga is a tanka poem placed on a black-and-white photograph that the poet has taken. (Please do not use images from other sources because of copyright issues).
The photograph must be 300 d.p.i. The photograph must be sized in Canva.com with the following dimensions: 1566 × 2541 px. See below ⬇️
Taiga Example
➡This image is 1566 × 2541 px on Canva.com. Please attach your photo, along with the tanka printed in the body of your email (clearly labeled), and I will create the taiga for the anthology. Your photo must fit the size above, or it will not fit in the anthology. No horizontal photos.
Questions? Email us at tankatuesdaypoetry@gmail.com.
bussokuseki
Bussokuseki is an archaic poetic device in which six lines are written in a 5-7-5-7-7-7 mora pattern. Title your bussokuseki.
David Bowles shares the history of the form:
“For centuries, the only existing examples were the twenty-one poems inscribed beside the stone Buddha Foot monument at Yakushi Temple in Nara, Japan, by an unknown author around 753 CE. Though not of particular literary value, the pieces—written in Man’yōgana, a medieval syllabic script—have religious significance: the first seventeen praise Buddha and his life while the last four extol the four-fold Buddhist path and advise against worldly attachments.” (davidbowles.us)
The bussokuseki (Bussokusekika) is an ancient form of waka (tanka). This form is like a tanka, but it includes an extra seven-syllable line at the end.
bussokuseki Example:
NIGHT (WITHOUT AN ECHO)
a slow ticking clock
watching daylight pale away
without an echo
night falls like a silken veil
the lark sings out sorrowful
cold moonlight falls to the ground
© Ann Bagnall
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Contact
If you have any questions, please contact us at tankatuesdaypoetry@gmail.com, or fill out the form below:
Sunflower Tanka Anthology 