Word: tanka
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Biggest poetic outpouring of Japan is the annual Imperial poetry contest, the winners of which were announced last week by the Poetry Bureau of the Imperial Household. Any Japanese subject may submit a poem of 31 syllables (called a tanka) on a given subject. This year's subject: ''The Morning Sun Shines on the Island." Normally about 17,000 subjects of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Hirohito submit a tanka, but the wartime verse boom more than doubled the usual number of contestants. This year's contestants numbered...
...Front." Sample caption: "Larry (Tarzan) Crabbe holds Betty Grable up on the Paramount lot so the cameraman can see what made Tarzan wild." Other features: "Peek-uliar Fishing," "Peek at a (Animal) Party," "Peeking at Pictures" which features a "distortograph" of Stuart Erwin. Peek's "advertising" pages burlesque Tanka Coffee and Giraffe cigarets which "never get off your nerves...
...fortnight, the exceedingly quick-minded and bold Emperor issued on Jan. 12, 1874 the Imperial Ordinance upon which is based today the treasured right of every Japanese, without distinction of race, creed or sex, to submit each year to the Poetry Bureau of the Imperial Household Ministry a tanka of 31 syllables. The subject of the nationwide competition this year was Kaijo Kumo Tooshi or "Clouds Far Over...
...English Coronation. The great Princes Tokugawa and Yamagata- names ringing in Japanese ears like Gladstone and Wellington-were in attendance with Princes of the Blood and members of the Imperial Family. The appropriate choral performers and their leader, all schooled to emit the 31 syllables of the incredibly stylized tanka in exactly so many breaths, were at hand...
...Year's honor that can befall a Japanese is to have his poem recited to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Hirohito. Less than ten poems are recited. All must be on the same subject (chosen in advance by the Imperial Household Ministry). All must be in the requisite tanka form of 31 syllables in lines of five, seven, five, seven and seven syllables. Each year at least 30,000 Japanese poets strive for the honor. U. S. cable companies are grateful for the fact that Japanese living abroad usually wire their contributions. Those who do not win have another...