surreale

Photo Courtesy of Blog 57

fairy lights twinkling
paint a pathway to the stars
barkers hawking dreams
step right up, come on inside

costumed carnies everywhere
riding, tumbling, flying high
bears in tutus lions’ dance
sticky sweets galore

wide eyed children gasp
clown car set ablaze
sire’s soothing arms swoop in
all underneath the big top
ah, the good old days

For this week’s Tanka Tuesday we have been asked to create a piece of formed poetry that uses synonyms for the words; Create and Bright. I have chosen a form called a kouta, the explanation of which follows if you are so inclined. Oh, and just an FYI- ‘surreale’ is the photographer’s notation on this photograph, not the title of this poem.

kouta
The kouta is a popular Japanese verse form of the Muromachi Period, 14th thru 16th century. They resurrected the lyrical song as a geisha song in the late 1800s and it’s still popular today. Koutas were originally meant to be sung out loud, like many other old forms of poetry. Techniques like assonance and consonance would fit right in with the form, but they aren’t required.
The kouta has several variations, though always short in only 4 lines a 5th line is sometimes is added. Themes reflect ordinary life and often use colloquialisms and onomatopoeia. The most popular are love songs.
We write kouta in four lines but sometimes five, that tends to celebrate the average person’s everyday life in song. This is a standalone poem, but often it’s accompanied by other kouta with the same theme. Themes can be secular, personal, or themes about ordinary life.
Do try to take advantage of short words that stand alone well, since the lines are a bit short by English standards.
You may want to avoid using too many adverbs and adjectives.
“Each individual kouta is very short, so you’ll find yourself with less and less space if you use flowery, decorative language instead of clear, concise phrasing.” (wordwool.com)
Koutas use odd-numbered syllable lengths, usually as some combination of five-syllable and seven-syllable lines. We write the most common patterns in four lines of alternating 7-5-7-5 syllables or 7-7-7-5 (not to be confused with the mondo form) though these are only two possible variations. No rhyming. No title.

70 thoughts on “surreale”

  11. When I was young, I once thought about running away and joining the circus but, then I thought again and started my own. I like your circus here, and I learned. What a great way to learn.

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  15. You captured the magic of the circus from my childhood, Violet. A beautiful kouta, a new form for me. I love the idea that it was conceived as a song about an ordinary person’s day – at the circus in this case. Lovely.

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  23. I actually remember going to a circus (perhaps in Madison Square Garden)… with so many seats so high up it was amazing to see or focus on any one thing. Wondering how some of those animals thought of those ‘good ole days’ being kept in cramped cages. Alas the circus as it was is no more.

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