Like the Tanka to tell a story, the 575 and 7,7 lines separated to create the Japanese story form.
Tiger eyes burn bright
in the tall grass of the plain
golden fires watch
Night is their true feeding time
under stars as cold as they
Farmers fear the night
when the striped lords hunt
as do soldiers brave
Humbling it is
to know the prince of night
stalks his dark kingdom
You can run this form a long ways and tell quite a story with surprising ease. Versatile indeed. I was stationed in Japan in the early 60’s, and attended a sword making school. The forge work songs were in this form and the timing worked well for the keeping of time for the hammer blows. Sort of a ‘blacksmith work song’ as it were.
I have been really surprised at how good it is, even in English. Been the dominant poetic form a long, long time there...
I’d gotten rather into one manga series, and then boom, this rekindled my interest in things Japanese lately. I’ve got a whole bunch of poetry written that is basically fan fiction, but is rather good poetry. Some of it’s won awards, but it would be rather difficult to post it here without explanations, I think.
My head is stuck in a fantasy version of approximately 1550ish Japan...but I’ve gotten some good writing out of it, at least. And a whole lot of books.