The Power of Nine
The Birth of Nonaku
The writing rule for nonaku is as follows.
(1) There should be two parts in a nonaku, the main part and the attachment. The main part has 7 lines, consisted of 1 word for line 1, 2 words for line 2, 3 words for line 3, 4 words for line 4, and then the number of words go back down, 3 words for line 5, 2 words for line 6 and 1 word for line 7. After the line break, the attachment has 2 lines with combined syllables of 2 to 9 word.
(2) A nonaku should be written all in the lowercase,
(3) The prefix “nona-” means nine. You can see that the total line of a nonaku is 9, and in the attachment the maximum number of words is also 9. We’ve given nonaku “the power of nine”!
(4) You can swap the order of the main part and attachment, so that 2 lines go before 7 lines. There must be a line break separating the two parts.
(5) nonaku does NOT need a title, but it would be good for the poem to be CENTRED so it makes nice shape. See the two examples below:
when
little boy
late at night
not wanting to sleep
he watched TV
mother came
shouted
instead of feeling grumpy
she turned into old grampy!
©️ Sherry Grant, Auckland, 2020-10-03, Op.754 (from “Bat Girl” book)
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emerging
over horizon
swallow
perfect tailor
with sharp tail
cuts out soft clouds
making ready for
return of
spring
©️ Sherry Grant, Auckland, 2020-10-01, Op.705
All content on this page is ©Sherry Grant, Auckland 2020-10-01 and many thanks for this great new form. ❌❌❌
VIXEN of VERSE 