A Few Remarks on Tanka, Gogyoyhka, Gogyoshi, and 5Lines

For the last two years, interest in gogyohka and gogyoshi has been increasing among tanka poets and writers of micropoetry. I've attempt to measure this interest with Topsy.com, but failed.

#Gogyohka on Twitter, with 15,000 uses, exceeds #tanka with 13,000 uses. #Gogyoshi is hardly used, with just 19 uses, according to Topsy.com. Strangely, these figures are way down from last year when I did the same searches in May. Then the 'all time' number of #gogyohka was 33,000 and #tanka was 25,000. This severely undermines the credibility of Topsy.com -- if 'all time' means all time, the figure should rise over time, not shrink. Then again, Topsy.com makes references to 'three years' worth of data, which is hardly 'all time,' is it? If only three years are searched, then it would not be surprising that each term might rise or fall depending on the three year period examined. But to call a measly three years' worth of data 'all time' is severely misleading. As a consequence, I cannot offer any hard data on the incidence of tanka, gogyohka, and gogyoshi in social media.

Last year saw a peak of interest as tanka and other poets discovered gogyohka and it was readily adopted. Many tanka poets experimented with gogyohka and found it freeing. Specifically, they felt that gogyohka freed them from the restraints of tanka. These restraints were largely imaginary, but widely perceived. It was thought that tanka only permitted certain kinds of subject matter and certain kinds of treatments; these rules did not apply to gogyohka. In actuality, tanka is as diverse in subject matter and treatment as gogyohka, as an examination of the several volumes of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka will show. Certainly there was a time in tanka during the late 20th century and early 21st century where conventions ruled tanka publication, but the rise of Modern English Tanka and various other small presses and their publications shattered those boundaries. Today the only journal insisting on a restrictive definition of tanka is not even a tanka journal, but a micropoetry journal, Simply Haiku. SH has announced that it will only publish tanka written in a s/l/s/l/l format. No tanka journal has such a restrictive editorial policy.

In addition to tanka poets, many other poets adopted gogyohka. Thus gogyohka garnered a larger share of the social media space than tanka did. Many of the offerings were of an amateur caliber that showed no familiarity with previous gogyohka publications. Enta Kusakabe, the originator of gogyohka in Japan, has translated an anthology into English named simply, Gogyohka. A perusal of this text shows that the aesthetics are very similar to tanka aesthetics. The difference between tanka and gogyohka in Japanese is that the former are written in sanjuichi form, a pattern of syllables of 5/7/5/7/7. Gogyohka are not. Gogyohka are short five line poems, which may or may not be end-stopped; that detail is not clear in Gogyohka. Since tanka in English abandoned syllable counting due to differences between the Japanese and English languages, tanka in English are functionally the same as gogyohka in English. The difference is of great importance in Japanese, but of no significance in English. Tanka in English fulfill the definition given for gogyohka. On the other hand, so do kyoka, waka, Japanese tanka, limericks, cinquains, and other five line forms, yet it is clear that gogyohka does not embrace these as part of its definition and view. The assumption of a lyric Japanese aesthetic is built into the genre without being specified. Thus, we can define five line poems lacking in a Japanese or at least a lyric presentation as not meeting the operational definition of gogyohka, even if they meet the technical definition.

Last year Enta Kusakabe trademarked the word 'gogyohka' in Japan, causing a flap in the English-language micropoetry community. Atlas Poetica adopted the public domain, non-trademarked term 'gogyoshi' in order to avoid violating Enta's trademark, and some other poets have as well. Most poets in the West appeared to be of the opinion that 'gogyohka' was not trademarkable, and continued using it for their works regardless of any authority Enta attempted to exercise over the term or items published under its rubric. Enta said he did not intend to control the term, and that poets were welcome to use it, yet he filed suit in Japan against a gogyohka contest sponsored by a city in Japan. Most poets outside of Japan are unaware of these developments, and the term 'gogyohka' continues in regular usage.

The alternate term 'gogyoshi' was coined by Aizu Taro of Japan, a former gogyohka poet who has split from Enta Kusakabe. Aizu defines 'gogyoshi' as simply 'five line poem' with no requirements regarding syllables or content, and expressly welcomes assimilation of Western and Eastern forms. Thus, although he has not gone so far as to say say, it appears that Western forms such as limerick and cinquain can be encompassed under the umbrella of 'gogyoshi.' Aizu has explicitly addressed tanka, although it is not entirely clear what his vision is. That tanka is a subset of gogyoshi? He has stressed the absolute freedom of gogyoshi, so he does not regard tanka and gogyoshi as being the same thing. Since the requirements of tanka include five poetic phrases to replicate the core feature of tanka in Japanese, tanka cannot be any five lines, but must have an internal structure compatible with the Japanese original. There is no such requirement for gogyoshi. On the other hand, although gogyoshi expressly permits any subject matter and treatment, an examination of gogyoshi as it is actually published shows a lyric element and the application of Japanese aesthetics. Nonetheless, given the espoused view of literary freedom, it is reasonable to accept that five line poems not displaying the usage of Japanese aesthetics would qualify as gogyoshi.

Due to the proliferation of #hashtags on Twitter, I invented and advocated the use of the term #5lines to identify five line poetry. So far it has been applied to waka, tanka, kyoka, gogyohka, and gogyoshi, but I envision it encompassing Western five line forms as well, such as the limerick, cinquain, and free verse. My recommended use is #5lines plus one other #hashtag specifying exactly what it is, eg, #5lines #tanka, or #5lines #kyoka, etc. This will reduce clutter in the Twitspace. Too many #hashtags severely reduces the number of characters available for the poem. #5lines is a convenient shorthand for any type of five line poem. However, it is not the same as gogyoshi. At least, not yet. Although Aizu embraces a world view of five line poetry, it has not yet come to fruition.

~K~

Twitter Special Focus for Atlas Poetica 9

Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place, issue 9, Summer, 2011, will be focussing on Twitter. It's been two years (can it really be so long?) since we did our first focus on Twitter. Twitter continues to grow as a micropoetry community with poets publishing tanka, kyoka, and gogyohka via Twitter. There are several Twitter microjournals such as microcosms and 7x20, as well as archives, such as the Dragonfly Archives (now closed), and Jars of Stars.

For ATPO 9 we will relax our rule requiring first English language rights to accept tanka, kyoka, and gogyohka that have been tweeted and not published in regular or tanka journals. We wish to focus attention on Twitter poets, as encourage and support Twitter poets to submit to the regular tanka journals. Twitter is the single largest publisher of tanka, kyoka, and gogyohka in English, publishing approximately two thousand a year. That's as large as Modern English Tanka, the journal that is now defunct, and larger that Atlas Poetica (we published approximately fifteen hundred tanka, kyoka, and gogyoka a year). Atlas Poetica is the most voluminous publisher of tanka, publishing more tanka per year than any other journal in print or on the web.

As a consequence, Twitter is a major force for introducing tanka to readers and writers, and the workshopping and fellowshipping that occurs on Twitter spurs literary development and appreciation. However, the succinct nature of the forum also means that in depth discussions and analysis are very difficult. Since anyone can publish anything, it is an excellent opportunity for novices to try their hand and receive feedback, but it's also an overwhelming and confusing means of reading tanka if one wishes to be a serious reader. Twitter publishes fifteen hundred micropoems a day. Trying to sort out the tanka, kyoka, and gogyohka from that flood requires time and patience, and means that in spite of the efforts of curators and archivists, a complete record of tanka on Twitter is impossible to achieve.

Atlas Poetica hopes to introduce readers to Twitter poets who deserve their attention, and to provide information and a list of resources for the reader who wishes to dip into the fecund stream of micropoetry published on Twitter. We also hope to encourage Twitter poets to submit their poetry for publication in print and online journals and anthologies so that it will be more durable and accessible.

The reading window for ATPO 9 is March 15 – April 30, 2011. It publishes in July. Complete guidelines, free back issues, and free Special Features are available at: AtlasPoetica.org