THE TANKA PSALTER

Revised May 26 2005

This is the Hypertext version of the Tanka Psalter. One hundred and fifty psalms have been paraphrased in the form of the Japanese Tanka.

The psalms are not presented in Biblical order but have been grouped according to the major emotional themes of life as follows:

  • Songs of Nobility
  • Songs of Home Sweet Home
  • Songs of Law and Equity
  • Songs of Emotion and Stress
  • Songs of Battle
  • Songs of Midlife Stress
  • Songs of Joy and Praise
  • Songs of Geriatric Stress
  • Songs of Love

    • The object has been to distill in a Psalter of relevance for our time the essential emotions contained in these timeless songs. Most, but not all of the verses have been motivated by some interaction with family, friends, associates, tribes and nations. I intended to make them available in special personalized editions

    For that special occasion there was to be a special edition of the Tanka Psalter suitably inscribed on the cover and in the prologue. They are, of course Copyright. They would have been for weddings, memorials, anniversaries, (special inscriptions or editing could have been easily and effectively accomplished)
    Soft White Cover 'homespun' editions were to be $25.00 Hard Cover parchment and professional binding editions $50.00 If there is sufficient demand this offer will be reinstituted. Tell me that you have browsed the web and send me an email. I will read them and respond as

    Common Heritage Enterprises.
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    PROLOGUE


    Why another Psalter and why should it be cast in the Tanka form. The Psalms were, after all, the anguished or joyful cry of the leader of the world's most unique tribe and were directed to his special God. This God who, having created man in his image, was thereby created in the image of man. As such, Jehovah could be, and was, surrogate for father, friend, lover, brother and sister, advocate, judge, leader or any individual within the ken of the psalmist toward whom emotion could be directed. If such was the case then it should be possible to strip the 'protein coat' of a specific Deity from these songs of emotion and thereby lay bare the fundamental corpus of the human spirit.

    Such was the motivation, but the paraphrases chosen were not always unique. The Psalms have formed the basis for the hymns and anthems of the Judeo-Christian culture throughout the ages in the many and varied Psalters of the Protestant Church and in the Oratorios and Liturgies of the Judeo-Christian religions. The New Testament borrows much from the Psalms and suggests that they contain prophecy.
    This is the basic thesis of Handel's Messiah: . Why do the nations so furiously rage together (Psalm 2) - Thou dids't not leave his soul in hell (Psalm 16) - Thy rebuke has broken his heart (Psalm 69). Shorn of new testament theology, Brahms found the most eloquent passages for his Requiem in that same book - How lovely is thy dwelling place (Psalm 84) - Lord make me to know the measure of my days on earth (Psalm 8) - They that sow in tears reap in joy (Psalm 126). If the changing generations found these songs to be timeless, then the modern person ought equally to find in them the utterances of his soul.

    The distillation is a form of poetic précis. Why then the use of an ancient Japanese poetic form - the Tanka? Before the days of writing, history and literature were perforce oral and most often recalled in the form of poetry. The human mind appears to store information in the form of scenarios and schema or in the form of dissociated strings of memory (ta ra ra boom de ay- boop boop did'm dad'm wad'm choo - Pennsylvania 6-5000) The memory string for humans is limited to about five or seven syllables in cadences of the same length. It is no surprise that the fundamental poetry forms of quite independent cultures are in five and seven syllable lines.

    Sh'ma Yisroel


    Adonoy elohenu


    Adonoy echod

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