Notes: 1,000 years old Brief and lyrical poems Exactly thirty-one syllables divided among five lines Three have seven syllables and the other two have five Compress world of beauty and emotion Developed into haiku, a three line poem of seventeen syllables Earliest tanka appeared in a collection of poems written in 8th century called Manyoshu, or Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves Earliest poems written in Chinese. Japanese developed, adapting Chinese characters to describe Japanese sounds; phonetic characters came to be known as kana, meaning ?borrowed names?. Many tanka describe nature, the impermanence of life, solitude, and love, loneliness or quiet reflection themes Thrived throughout medieval period Heian period - common ritual of court life