Tanka for Micro Seasons
In preparation of her performances with Expo 2025 Osaka, Tanya explored the Japanese poetry style called Tanka. It’s a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. She wrote about her experience in a substack post, saying
“Speaking of elsewhere, I recently travelled to Japan for work—for art! It was one of those trips of a lifetime trips. I had always wanted to go to Japan and so I was ecstatic to be one of the artists curated by the National Arts Centre for Canada’s cultural programming at Expo 2025 Osaka. I brought my poems, my guitar, and my bassist—and partner—Carlie Howell, and together we played 6 lovely shows for the people at Expo. People from Japan and all over the world. We saw some sights, we ate Takoyaki, we used a lot of Google Translate.
I also employed a human translator to translate into Japanese a new poem I wrote specifically for the occasion. Thank you to Kotoha Nonohara for their beautiful work and to Innovation PEI for helping to support that. The poem is an exploration of the concept of microseasons, something more common in Japan than Canada. I set it to music and performed the English version at Expo, and our new friend Christian Burdziak also read the Japanese translation on stage…”
Excerpted from On the Wonders of Other Places and Art as Vehicle of Transportation.
