In November students who were in Marres for Kommetje Kunst and students from Stella Maris College in Meerssen made tankas on the occasion of the exhibition Superstition. The students of Stella Maris did not see the exhibition live and used a video clip of Keren Cytter as inspiration.
All pupils had the freedom to choose their own subject, if that appealed to them more. So many beautiful, touching, profound and funny tankas were written in the short (ten minutes!!!) workshop, that we are happy to share them. The tanka is the forerunner of the haiku, a Japanese poetry form with a fixed syllable scheme.
Where the haiku is based on nature, the tanka focuses on sensory perception. The tanka consists of five lines, divided over two strophes.
The first strophe (first three lines): your sensory perception. What do you see / feel / smell / hear / taste?
The second strophe (last two lines): your opinion / feel / emotion / conclusion in your perception.
Each line has a fixed number of syllables.
The scheme is as follows:
1st strophe: 5, 7, 5
2nd strophe: 7, 7
Enjoy the tankas and who knows, maybe you want to try to make one yourself!
