Today’s crappy high school poem is brought to you by the tanka, a style of Japanese poetry. You probably know about the haiku, the poem written with five syllables on the first line, seven on the second, and five on the third. The tanka is similar. There are five lines, and the first three are just like the haiku. Then there are seven syllables on each of the fourth and fifth lines, and the poem usually evokes some sort of image.
Like many of the other crappy poems this week, this one’s a love poem. Or should I say, anti-love poem.You can keep your angst, 2002.
Japanese Tanka: The Tanka Sans Title (Me, Fall 2002)
After you left me,
I tried to make you feel this
pain that simply sits
in me, gnawing at my bone,
causing me to slowly die.