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Mountain-Home · A Modern Waka Workshop

Group Information

  • Members: 50
  • Category: Poetry
  • Founded: May 15, 2000
  • Language: English
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Description

Mountain-Home is an online community for the discussion and composition of modern waka.

Classical waka is the native poetry of Japan. For a thousand years, waka was the heart song of the Japanese people. Its spirituality was shaped by the twin currents of Buddhism and Taoism. Its rhythms flowed with the changing season.

Today, this aesthetic is not bounded by language or geography. Modern waka looks to the best of the Court tradition for example of form and spirit, and to our own experience for authenticity of expression.

Just as classical waka came to be defined by the uta, or "short poem," modern waka is primarily expressed in the five-line form familiar to readers of contemporary tanka. Modern waka features a grammatical "pivot" similar to that of classical poetry.

At Mountain-Home, we embrace the full range of styles developed during the classical period. But we confess a particular fondness for the understated refinement of Saigyo and the other poets of the Shin-Kokinshu era. Our school takes its name from the Sanka-Shu, the largest collection of Saigyo's work.

Keywords: WAKA, TANKA, HAIKU, HOKKU, JAPAN, POETRY, NATURE, BUDDHISM, TAOISM, SHINTO, MEDITATION

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Late summer nightfall
Shorter days are bringing cooler evenings; crickets chirp, and with dwindling sunlight my eyelids grow heavy. Rick [Non-text portions of this message have been
Posted - Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:07 pm
Shin02143@...
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Re: Frail Not Old - Two Poets
A very enlightened response, poet friend.
Posted - Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:34 am
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Re: Frail Not Old - Two Poets
Thank you, Kigen. I was more thinking of the Pure Land in the West when I wrote the last line. I am not familiar with the koan tradition except at a
Posted - Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:15 am
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Re: Summer heat
Thank you, Donna, "flicker" works better than "flickering." Rick Fanning myself in the crushing evening heat; fireflies flicker as the full moon rises and my
Posted - Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:11 am
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Frail Not Old - Two Poets
I came across two Japanese tanka about things frail but not old, and I thought it was a nice counterpoint to the theme of aging. The first by a man, the second
Posted - Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:27 am
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Message History

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2009 1 145 2 34 12 37
2006 137 102 15 192 133 171 23
2005 195 58 53 100 62 44 93 130 293 254 159 98
2004 63 75 75 180 63 210 80 79 132 84 76 58
2003 224 181 163 125 110 187 52 71 71 130 85 45
2002 102 52 116 186 102 94 117 272 248 197 203 274
2001 107 110 131 226 236 218 207 217 168 93 120 273
2000 1 17 7 65
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