Introduction to Writing Poetry

Lesson 1

Write Your Own Haiku & Tanka

According to our lesson this week, these two poetry forms are described as follows:

Traditional Haiku is a three-line poem with the syllables of 5-7-5.
The tanka is five lines long, and has syllables of 5-7-5-7-7.
Excerpted from "Introduction to Poetry," an online course by Dawn Coder. Copyright 2005 Virtual University http://vu.org/

Our assignment this week was to write a haiku & a tanka. I chose to write about my pets. Hence, I did the multiple poems, tho' I didn't write one for each of my pets. Still missing the finches and the outdoor critters that we feed, but this was a good start, I think.

I'd forgotten how much fun these could be....They're rather addicting...

Haiku	Tanka
Small, smart, long of tail Ratties are the perfect pet Full of affection	Rescued from the streets My pretty Anastasia Spooks easily still Eats like there's no tomorrow Roly-poly tuxedo
Beautiful betta Colorful, graceful, filmy fins Two males are deadly	Charcoal squirrel cat Predator lurks very close To the surface still Feral mother taught him well Birds all scatter when he's near
Lonely Lizzie mouse All her cagemates have passed away And yet she thrives on	Solid white, grey patch Eye of blue, eye of yellow Tiny voice, body of brick Clumsy, thought he was a dog Toby was my stupid cat