“ Poetry must not be what is usually called poetry. It must be an exact report, an honest diary, of the changes in a [person's] emotional life.” (Takuboku Ishikawa)

Ryoko Ki is Japanese for "Travel Writing" or "Journal of my Travels."

This is a seres of tanka that I will add to as the days go by. It is a set which I took notes for while on holiday. There will be a series of notes to go with it sometimes explaining the circumstances, sometimes talking about the approach to tanka I took (largely influenced by the modern experimental tanka poet Takuboku - he has some amazing work).

Tanka is a five-line form of Japanese poetry, a distant cousin of Haiku (a three-line form). Traditionally in tanka the syllable count follows a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern, but as a modern English experimental poet I don't tend to obey syllable counts (and modern Japanese poets, as far as I know, don't stick to syllables anymore either).

These tanka are linked, and form a story together, a complete narrative, or at least I have tried to arrange them in such a way that a narrative (and mini-narratives) emerge. The over-all narrative is going on holiday, but many little mini-narratives exist within it. For instance, in Part Three there are three poems linked about sex, and then three poems about me awake at night while Robyn slept. Hopefully the poems can, 1) stand alone, 2) link into chapters, and 3) resolve into micro-narratives within the chapters. Lines within lines within lines. Poems within poems. Let me know what you think.

Notes:

Part One: My partner, Robyn, leaves for Hamilton and I am left home alone. Tanka, as far as I understand it, was traditionally a form of poetry which took desire, longing, lust and love as its main themes (while haiku took the love of nature and senryu took human-nature, although I am never a stickler for strict definitions - Takuboku argued that any subject is fine for a tanka, and I agree). I initially decided to write these poems as tanka (rather than haiku or senryu) in order to explore the traditions before I move on to experimentation with the form. These are the first tanka I have ever written. My last name is "Whyte," by the way, and my partners name, as I have said, is "Robyn" (hence the second poem's relevance to the series - though I like it as a pure "nature" poem too).

Part Two: I board a plane at night to go to where my loved one is. On the plane I read Takuboku and write tanka the whole way. I found great inspiration in Takuboku's style of tanka, what he called his "sad toys."

Part Three: The lovers reunite. Staying in a hotel with Robyn. We never get the chance to stay in hotels, but this was payment for a lecture Robyn gave in Hamilton (I missed it unfortunately as I had work - that's why she left a few days before me.

Part Four: These were the hardest of the set to write. Fights do not make for good poetry, but I didn't want to leave it out. Part of being together, part of growing together is working through these moments and so often "holiday snaps" leave these things out. People hardly ever keep memories of the bad times - but I wanted to keep a memory of us going through this. What keeps us together is not that we never fight, but that we always try to eventually understand the other (I am sorry honey - I will learn to let go of my pride one day). This may have been particularly hard because tanka is traditionally used for love poetry, not fight poetry. It took a lot of bending to turn the words to the service of arguments, rather than longing. I hope they came out okay for other readers, as I said, they were the hardest for me to write, and the toughest for me to know if they were any good. In the first poem - we both got colds (cabin fever) and we began to fight (cabin fever). This poem can be read both ways (and should be).

Part Five: Coming home on the plane with Robyn. We spent the whole time looking out the window and talking with each other. It was lovely. We sorted all the problems we had been having out and realised many things about ourselves and each other. We are always learning and that's what I love about her. Relationships are hard, but when you really love someone they are worth the effort!!

The chapter-titles are all pop-culture references:

1. "Home Alone" is a movie with Macaulay Culkin in it.
2. "Night Flight" was a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. "Night Flight" is also a song by Led Zeppelin from the album Physical Graffiti, and an American TV show from the 1980s (which popularized the music video as an art form and showed non-mainstream music films).
3. "Hotel Lives" is a an album by Simon Joyner.
4. "Hang On To Your Ego" is a song originally written by Brian Wilson and performed by The Beach Boys. Later it was covered by Frank Black (aka Black Francis of the Pixies).
5. "Homeward Bound" is a song by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey" is the name of a Disney movie with talking animals in it. I saw it with my Nana many years ago.





*experimental tanka poetry*