8 Brand New Tanka

In 1956 Lund Humphries of London published a small grey paperback called Japanese Poetry, The ‘Uta’: 158 poems, nearly all tanka, in romanised Japanese, with student-helpful, literal translations and notes by Arthur Waley. The several Brand New Tanka that follow were inspired by this collection: an image, an effect, a rhythm, a thought, a character, the weather. They are neither translations nor versions of particular poems.

A thousand years apart, 31 syllables together.

1
Ratcliffe. Steam balloons
off the cooling towers. Across
...