W is for waka poetry

 Today, I had the opportunity to get blogging training, in advance of my next blogging challenge, the quarterly  Ultimate Blogging Challenge. That is set to start on the first of May. The person running the training, Paul Taubman, has a website called Digital Maestro, and he is an expert in all things on line, which includes blogging, marketing, and things that are too technical for me to describe.

Part of the training included a demonstration in writing an entire blog post in five minutes. Before Paul actually did the demonstration, I thought that it was impossible. But I was wrong (hey! it happens!). The first part of the demonstration was finding a topic, so he asked those of us watching the demonstration. And he used my suggestion of “chocolate chip cookies” as the topic. And now, all of a sudden, I want chocolate chip cookies. Plus I have all of the ingredients to make a batch. But I digress (nothing unusual).

Back to the topic at hand. Writing a blog post in five minutes. Well, it’s probably not happening today, just because of the length of the introduction to this topic. But that’s all right. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes? Some of my blog posts take hours to write. Today, however, I will be more concise. Paul used a video to get content without having to spend a massive amount of time on the blog post. 

My topic will be poetry. Since my letter is W, I will write a waka poem. The waka poem has five lines with different numbers of syllables prescribed to each line. It is similar in form to the tanka poem. The first line has five syllables, the second has seven, the third has five, and the remaining two have seven syllables. There are some variations on a theme, such as 5-7-7-5-7-7 (six lines)

Rhyming is unnecessary. 

Version one: (5-7-5-7-7)

Books are my dear friends

that show me shining cities,

well-hidden gardens,

and maybe a dinosaur

while I sit on my soft chair.

A variation: (5-7-7-5-7-7)

If I get reborn,

can I be a well-loved cat

who sharpens her claws

on the sofa back

just because it feels so good

plus I get tasty cat treats.

Second variation: (5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7-5)

Tell me a story

where a hero fights a villain

under the bright moon.

And when the fighters depart,

they like each other

because no one is all good

or all rottenness

We are all just pure star dust

even if we fight.

I am guessing that I took longer than five minutes or even ten minutes but I didn’t time myself so I don’t know.

The blog post is supposed to end with a “call to action,” which basically means that I ask a question and (I hope) motivate you to comment in the comment section below. 

My question will be: Would you like to write your own waka poem? What would the subject of your poems be?