: an unrhymed Japanese verse form of five lines containing five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables respectively
also
: a poem in this form compare haiku
Examples of tanka in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Each photo is combined with a tanka (a five-line, 31-syllable poem) written through the lens of a 10-year-old girl encountering the Jews for the first time, composed by poet Hiroko Yamagata.
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Josh Hasten, Sun Sentinel, 21 Sep. 2022
Her third and most critically acclaimed film, Forever a Woman (1955), is a tender, yearning portrait of a tanka poet with breast cancer and one of the first films anywhere to show a mastectomy.
—Lisa Wong MacAbasco, Vogue, 18 Mar. 2022
His haiku and tanka translations influenced Pound, Rexroth, and others.
—Jonathan Dee, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019
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Josh Hasten, Sun Sentinel, 21 Sep. 2022
Her third and most critically acclaimed film, Forever a Woman (1955), is a tender, yearning portrait of a tanka poet with breast cancer and one of the first films anywhere to show a mastectomy.
—Lisa Wong MacAbasco, Vogue, 18 Mar. 2022
His haiku and tanka translations influenced Pound, Rexroth, and others.
—Jonathan Dee, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Tanka.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tanka. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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