Waka — What Rises Between Words and Silence
Waka is a poetic form that has been composed in Japan for more than a thousand years. It is extremely short. The well-known pattern of five, seven, five, seven, and seven sounds—thirty-one in total—gives it a clear shape. Yet the essence of waka does not lie in this structure alone. Rather, it lies in an attitude: a way of receiving the relationship that arises between a person and the world, using as few words as possible. This text does not seek to explain waka as something to be understood. Instead, it is an attempt to see waka as a place where meaning quietly comes into being.
In ancient Japan, words were not seen as simple tools for conveying information. They were believed to carry the power to bring things into being, to act upon reality itself. Changes in nature, the turning of the seasons, human emotions, and social events were not experienced as clearly separated objects. They influenced one another and appeared in the human heart as subtle presences—felt rather than defined. Waka does not try to explain these presences directly. Instead, it offers concrete images—wind, moon, flowers, birds, dew—and through them, gently presents sensations that cannot be fully captured by language. What matters here is not declaring “this is what I felt,” but leaving space for the reader to stand within the scene and layer their own perception upon it.
What is essential is that waka does not close meaning. The words of a waka poem are not used to state emotions or ideas clearly and completely. They are offered while still holding silence and blank space within them. For this reason, a single poem resonates differently depending on who reads it, and when. Meaning that is not fixed is not a weakness or vagueness; it is a state in which relationships remain open. A waka is not completed at the moment it is written. It rises again each time it is read, forming anew within the reader.
In the age of the Man’yōshū—the oldest surviving collection of Japanese poetry, compiled in the 8th century—waka was closely tied to daily life, rituals, politics, and prayer. A poem was less an expression of private inner feelings than an act exchanged between people, or between humans and nature. Over time, especially in the Heian period, waka came to occupy the center of a refined sense of beauty, as symbolized by the Kokin Wakashū, an imperial anthology compiled in the early 10th century. This shift did not mean competing over emotional intensity. Rather, it marked the emergence of a value system that asked how shared words and themes might be made to resonate quietly and deeply.
In Heian waka, surrendering to established forms was valued more than pursuing novelty. By placing oneself within layers of words accumulated by earlier poets, individual feeling was thought to emerge more clearly. Here lies a belief that depth resides not in saying everything, but in restraint—in what is held back. As with the idea of “hide it, and it becomes a flower” in Noh theatre, waka understands that beauty endures when it does not reveal itself all at once.
Waka also holds a distinctive sense of time. A poem does not seal away a single moment’s emotion or scenery. It assumes that it will be read again in later generations, in different places, and rise once more. Through practices such as honkadori—a poetic technique in which lines or images from earlier poems are deliberately echoed—past waka are quoted, layered, and brought to life within new contexts. Time here is not linear, but folded into overlapping layers. The past is not lost; it is repeatedly called back and renewed through present sensibility.
To read waka is not to grasp a completed meaning. It is closer to placing oneself between words and silence, and noticing the faint movement that arises within. It may resist logical explanation, but when one gazes quietly and turns the poem over in the mind, something remains. This manner of remaining—subtle yet persistent—is the heart of waka, and the reason it has endured across centuries.
Waka is not poetry meant to assert something strongly. It is a vessel that holds the moment when the distance between oneself and the world gently shifts. What it contains is not meaning itself, but a quiet state before meaning takes form—the open space that extends beyond words. When reading waka, try not to understand it too quickly. Pause, even briefly, and listen to what lingers after the words have faded. In that moment, waka ceases to be a culture of the past, and rises again as a living place where relationships are quietly re-made, here and now.
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