Like the lithe bowing

Of a maple sapling

My heart turns to you,

Yearns for those nights long ago

When pale skin challenged the moon.

Lady Nyo

Structure

Today the standard form is generally noted to be (in syllables) 5-7-5-7-7.  This is both in English and Japanese.  (Translations of Japanese into English don’t necessarily fit this rule, but usually a reading of the tanka in the original Japanese will be of the 5-7-5, etc. format)

It is said that this format is the most natural length for a lyric poem expressing emotion for the Japanese.

However, earlier tanka, (and tanka as a name didn’t come into being until the 19^th century in the poetry reform movement) was called waka, and the earliest  examples could be 3,4,6, in ‘syllable’ progression from the first line.  But syllable in English doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in Japanese poetry.  Onji is…