Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #98 Choka ... the long Japanese poem

!! Open for your submissions tomorrow Sunday 18th at 7:00 PM (CEST) !!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at this delayed weekend meditation. My apologies (again) for being late I hadn't time enough to publish this weekend meditation earlier.

This weekend I love to challenge you to create a Japanese long poem, or Choka. Let me tell you a little bit more about the Choka.
The choka can be of almost any length, because its form depends on alternating phrases (or lines) containing either seven of five sound units (onji). The end of the poem is signaled by two lines of seven sounds. So the form is five/seven, five/seven, five seven, .... , seven/seven.
This was the most popular form of poetry in the 9th century as indicated by the large number of works in the celebrated anthology Man'yoshu (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves). This anthology of anthologies contained 260 choka and 4200 tanka.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaru

The poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, who composed most of his work in the last decade of the 7th century, took the choka to its highest lyrical point with his finesse in the use of ritual language.
The connection to tanka is evidenced by the envoy or hanka - a tanka-like poem attached at the end of the choka. Occasionally more than one envoy will close the choka. There have been a few efforts to revivie the form over the intervening centuries, but the form has failed to gain any popularity in Japan, and even less has been accomplished in English. (Based on Jane Reichhold's "Writing and Enjoying Haiku")

Here is an example of a choka from the Man'yoshu (no. 802):

The briefest chōka documented is Man'yōshū no. 802, which is of a pattern 5-7 5-7 5-7 5-7-7. It was composed in the Nara period and goes:

When I eat melons
My children come to my mind;
When I eat chestnuts
The longing is even worse.
Where do they come from,
Flickering before my eyes.
Making me helpless
Endlessly night after night.
Not letting me sleep in peace?

(envoy or hanka)

What are they to me,
Silver, or gold, or jewels?
How could they ever
Equal the greater treasure
That is a child? They cannot.

© Yamanoue no Okura (Tr. Edwin Cranston)

My personal weblog: Chèvrefeuille's Haikublog

I once wrote a choka (and published it on my personal weblog), but it isn't really my "cup of tea", but I love to share it here with you all:

the cooing of pigeons
resonates through the gray streets –
ah! that summer rain
refreshes the dried out earth
filling its scars
the perfume of earth tickles
my nostrils
after the hot summer days
I dance in the rain
naked on the top of the hills
I feel free at last
nature around me comes to life
field flowers bloom
I see their beautiful colors
the perfume of Honeysuckle

ah! that summer rain
the perfume of the moist soil
tickles my senses
I lay down, naked in her arms
surrounded by Honeysuckle

© Chèvrefeuille

It's a very nice form of Japanese poetry, but as I said above not "my cup of tea", but maybe it'is your "cup of tea". 

PS. You can choose your own theme.

This weekend meditation is open for your submissions next Sunday August 18th at 7:00 PM (CEST) and will remain open until August 25th at noon (CEST). Have a wonderful weekend ... or maybe I have to say "have a wonderful Sunday".

Carpe Diem's Time Travel, Ancient Japanese Poetry To Inspire You #1 little I should grieve

!!! Open for your submissions next Sunday June 4th 7:00 PM (CET) !!!

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Welcome at a completely new feature for our "weekend-meditation". As you maybe remember, last month I announced to end the "Universal Jane" feature, not to forget her, but to create space for a new feature. Of course I will create another special feature to honor Jane Reichhold here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

This new feature for our "weekend meditation" I have titled "Time Travel, Ancient Japanese Poetry To Inspire You" and in this new feature I will take you on a trip back into time, a time in which poetry was only an art for the higher classes of Japan. A lot of those poems were gathered in several anthologies like the Kokinshu (or Kokin Wakashu - 920 AD) or the Man'yoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves - 745 AD). In these anthologies the "editors" have gathered long poems (like Choka) and short poems (like Waka).

In this new feature I will try to tell you a little bit background on these anthologies and will give you a few examples. Than I will introduce the poem which you have to use for your inspiration.

For this first episode of "Time Travel" I have made a nice choice from the Man'yoshu, but let me first tell you a little bit about the background.

The Man'yoshu or 'Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves' is an anthology of ancient Japanese poems compiled c. 759 CE during the Nara Period but including many earlier works. The most likely person to have assembled the collection is Otomo no Yakamochi, himself a prolific poet who included nearly 500 of his own works in the Man'yoshu. The Man'yoshu is regarded as a literary classic and high point of Japanese poetry.

Otomo no Yakamochi

Many scholars consider the Man’yoshu to have been compiled by the poet Otomo no Yakamochi (c. 718-785 CE)

On an evening when the spring mists
Trail over the wide sea,
And sad is the voice of the crane,
I think of my far-off home.

© Otomo no Yakamochi

The Man'yoshu collection contains poems which were all written in the Japanese of that time, i.e. using Chinese characters phonetically. The work consists of 4,496 poems organized into 20 books, the vast majority being in the waka (aka waku) style, that is each poem has precisely 31 syllables in five lines (5+7+5+7+7). 262 poems, in contrast, are written in the longer nagauta style, which can have up to 200 lines. There are also 62 sedoka poems (six-line poems of 38 syllables) and four poems written in Chinese. The poems come in three broad thematic categories; zoka (miscellaneous), somon (mutual inquiries or love poems), and banka (elegies). The poems cover a period of four centuries and it is likely they were intended to be sung.

A few examples of the poems in the Man’yoshu:

Countless are the mountains

in Yamato,

but perfect is

the heavenly hill of Kagu:

When I climb it

and survey my realm,

Over the wide plain

the smoke wreaths rise and rise,

over the wide sea

the gulls are on the wing;

a beautiful land it is,

Akitsushima,

the Land of Yamato.

© Emperor Jomei 

Cherry Blossoms (image found on WP)

There I found you, poor man! - 

Outstretched on the beach,

On this rough bed of stones,

Amid the busy voices of the waves.

If I but knew where was your home,

I would go and tell;

If your wife but knew,

She would come to tend you.

She, not knowing the way hither,

Must wait, must ever wait, 

Restlessly hoping for your return -

Your dear wife - alas!

© Kakinomoto Hitomaro 

Two wonderful poems from this very ancient anthology of Japanese poetry. All poems I have read so far are even more beautiful as if they were selected to overrule each other ...

For this first episode of "Time Travel, Ancient Japanese Poetry To Inspire You" I have chosen a "waka" written by Princess Kagami (7th century):

Even a breeze may fail me

When I desire it.

Little I should grieve,

If only, sure of its coming,

I could await even a breeze.

© Princess Kagami

This "waka" was written in response on a sedoka written by her younger sister Princess Nukada, the most famous female poet of her time.

Well ... I hope you did like this new feature and I hope I have inspired you to create your haiku, tanka or other Japanese poetry form inspired on that sad sounding "waka" by Princess Kagami.

Here is my attempt to create a haiku inspired on this "waka":

through tears
cherry blossoms scattered
by the breeze

© Chèvrefeuille

This "weekend-meditation" is open for your submissions next Sunday June 4th at 7:00 PM (CET) and will remain open until June 9th at noon (CET). Have fun! I will try to publish our new episode, Om Mane Padme Hum, later on. Have a great weekend!

PS. The Solution to our Haiku Puzzler of May 2017 you can find HERE