With the New Year, comes new beginnings, new experiences, and new challenges. Let’s welcome them with open arms, and with the passing of each challenge, grow to be better and wiser, as well as more resourceful and resilient. Wishing everybody an exciting year ahead.
Fresh aspirations
Fresh aspirations
Blossoming new hopes and dreams
The story unfolds
Khor Hui Min
13 January 2016
Here’s a Japanese poem to herald the beginning of 2015. May the year bring happiness and peace, not tears and suffering. May the spirit of humanity successfully rise above the afflictions of disasters, disease and war.
New Beginnings
Whispers in the wind
Bidding farewell and goodbye
Memories of days
People, places, occasions
New horizons beckoning
An original Tanka by
Khor Hui Min
1 Jan 2014
Poetic style
This poem was written in the style of a tanka. A tanka is a Japanese poem (also known as a waka or uta). A tanka poem is similar to a haiku poem, but has two additional lines.
A tanka has 5 lines and 31 syllables. The structure is as follows:
Line 1 – 5 syllables
Line 2 – 7 syllables
Line 3 – 5 syllables
Line 4 – 7 syllables
Line 5 – 7 syllables
I’ve shown my poem with the number of syllables per line as below:
New Beginnings
(5) Whispers in the wind
(7) Bidding farewell and goodbye
(5) Memories of days
(7) People, places, occasions
(7) New horizons beckoning
To find out more about tanka poems, visit the Young Writers’ Website.
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