Course Description: This course, looking at the five-line Japanese poetry form tanka is suitable for those looking to begin or to build their tanka experience and is led by our lead tutor Alan Summers. The course includes an optional exercise process to help with your tanka structure and content, but more confident writers can work directly with the prompts for new work. If you already write longform poetry, then tanka is a good introduction to the Japanese forms, as there is room for a little more lyricism here than there is in haiku. The course feedback is sent by email, with participants reading Alan's commentary on each others' poems as well as their own in a group learning process.
Introductory materials, including a first writing prompt, are accessed on the start date. Participants submit two poems three times over each course (total 6 poems per course) and can also add a couple of rewritten poems for final comments during that time.
Level: Beginners/Intermediate.
Format: Asynchronous, writing in your own time - no fixed time video elements.
Lead Tutor for haiku; tanka; haibun; senryu; and tanka stories.
Alan is a Japan Times award-winning writer, and multi-award winning poet for haiku, plus a Pushcart Prize, and Best Small Fictions nominated poet for haibun.
He’s been President of the United Haiku & Tanka Society (2017 to 2021), and General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000).
Alan holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University (U.K. 2007-2008), and a Diploma for Creative Writing from the University of Bristol (U.K. 2000-2001).
Alan’s work regularly appears in haikai genre journals, and prominent anthologies, including Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton 2013).
He has extensive experience as a tutor and workshop facilitator in both live and online settings. Alongside this he’s also an experienced editor for anthologies and journals. Alan’s been an essayist, article writer, critic, book reviewer, international competition judge, co-founder, and founder of various haiku & haibun journals.
Alan is currently editor-in-chief for The Haiku Reader anthology series, and opened with the first presentation at the Haiku Society of America’s 2022 National Virtual Conference (Saturday, June 4, 2022) taking questions about the anthology.
Full details and booking at the link below.
Full Cost: £137 (approximately US$166)
Early Bird Rate: £129 (approximately US$156) if booking by end of 25th January 2023
Group size up to 5. Number of tickets available shows spaces available at time of listing on this website.