Waka is a form of Japanese poetry also known as Yamato Uta (songs) or '31 letters'.
  
Tanka poetry is one branch of waka. Already in the Nara or early Heian periods, the 'Manyoshu' ('Collection of a Myriad Leaves'), had been compiled consisting of tanka. In the Heian period, nagauta and sedoka poetry lost their popularity and waka came basically to mean tanka.
  
Tanka consist of 5 phrases of 5,7,5,7,7 words each or 31 letters.  This is the only rule for tanka; there are no others. You can choose whatever topics you like, for example, daily life, nature, etc.

Tanka has various forms that enable the expression of a wide variety of feeling. Set epithets may be put in front of some special word; puns may be used using homonyms, words with the same pronunciation, but different meanings.
  
People will continue to compose Waka poems that will change as the use of words change, too.

Fumio Mae was born in Wajima district, Ishikawa Prefecture, in 1940. In 1999, he was designated as an Important Intangible Cultural Property Holder (a Living National Treasure) for his 'chinkin' decoration of lacquerwork.

Chinkin is a form of decoration in which complicated patterns are incised into a plain field of lacquer and filled with gold powder.

After graduating from the Painting Department of Kanazawa College of Arts in 1963, Fumio Mae was apprenticed to his father, Tokuji, who became famous for his mastery of the 'tenbori' (gold-inlay) chinkin decorative technique. In addition to absorbing his father's skills, Fumio Mae added a sense of poetry to tenbori. Within the silence of his craft, a great sense of emotion and profoundness could be felt. The power of theis craft is reflected in the sophistication of the pieces.

Today, Fumio Mae lectures and seeks apprentices to his craft at the Wajima Lacquer Technical Training Institute in Ishikawa Prefecture.