I'm attending a tanka culture school | Lesson 3

I attend a tanka culture school once every two weeks.

Something the teacher said today that made me newly aware is that
I must cultivate a 'reader' within myself who can objectively interpret what my poems express and what they do not.
that.

I am the only one who can one hundred percent understand what I meant when I wrote something or what meanings I included.
To make others understand that as well, I need to cultivate a reader other than myself within me and re-examine my tanka through that reader's eyes.

I understand that, but it is difficult.

To train this skill, it seems it is good to read books of tanka appreciation written by excellent readers.
For example, works by Sanji Ueda.

Also, I felt a bit relieved to hear that even our instructor, Kimihiko Takano, says that poems rarely just come to him freely in daily life, and that he is often able to write them when there is an external demand, such as a deadline.

He also says he writes poems by noting down words he thinks are nice that someone else said while watching TV or similar.
I'll try doing that too!

As a record, here is the poem I submitted this time:
'The hedge at the shopping mall is cut away, and the walk home becomes one filled with the sound of insects.'

This is unrelated, but the other day, while wandering around town, I found a word that caught my attention.

It's this.
Ramen Bridge.

Ra, ramen?!

I looked it up immediately. On the internet, though...

This alone doesn't explain much, but for now, I learned thatRamen comes from the German word 'Rahmen' which means 'framework',so I found out that it has absolutely nothing to do with those slurpable curly noodles.

It's probably just an architectural term, but I decided to write an article about it because I felt it was a word I had never encountered in nearly 40 years of living.

Especially when written on a solemn brass plate, the cheerful word 'Ramen' looks out of place.

It was an early afternoon that made me feel like searching to see if there are similar inscriptions on bridges in other towns.

If you are interested, please check out my past articles on the tanka culture school as well!

For the top image, I was looking for a photo of a bridge and borrowed an image of the Shimanto River, which is beautiful. The one pictured is a submersible bridge.