What is Choka?
Choka* is a form of Japanese long poetry pre-dating, but related to, haiku. You can think of it as haiku’s super-fun great-great-grandfather. As with haiku, the lines of a choka should not rhyme but should follow a syllabic pattern (onji), namely 5-7-5, 7-5, 7-5, 7-5 ... 7-7.
With your help, we’re out to write the longest choka in the history of the universe. No, we don’t know what the current record is, and honestly we don’t care, we’re going to beat it anyway.
Choka are traditionally written by a single author, but in order to go huge we’re borrowing an idea from a later Japanese poetry form, known as renga, by having multiple authors write two lines each. And that’s where you come in ...
On the choka main page, you can (and should) add to the poem by typing two lines: one seven syllables, and one five syllables. Please abide by our two grand guidelines, or risk deletion:
In your addition to the choka, the first line should be seven syllables, the second line should be five syllables. We won’t strictly enforce this, but have a strong preference for 7-5. The one thing we will strictly enforce is that you write long-short.
You should write in English only.
It really is that simple.
You’re welcome to write as many additions as you’d like. People who write an outstanding pair will appear on the Choka Wall of Fame and be entitled to use our coveted "Choka Wall of Fame" badge on their Web page. Everyone is welcome to use our "I Choka’d" banner.
We’ll allow additions to "Choka On It" until we feel like we’re suitably huge. Then we may-or-may-not stop and may-or-may-not do it all again.
Have fun. If you want to add two lines, but are having trouble with inspiration, come back in a day – the poem will have changed and may give you a new perspective on what you can say.
If you have added two lines, and they have not yet appeared on the poem, be patient, they will. Please do not post your couplet multiple times. Many Web browsers do not quickly show you updates to the page (Explorer is the worst about this).
- Choka, technically, should be written with a "long-o" ("o" with a macron). Unfortunately search engines don't match "choka" and "choka." So we use use choka (plain "o") in our text to garner more search hits -- we use "choka" in our graphics because it looks cooler.
