Unlike tanka (57577 syllables), Gogyohka has no restrictions on line length.
Poets such as Kenji Miyazawa, Jun Ishiwara, Yūgure Maeda, Hakushu Kitahara, Toson Yashiro and Shinobu Orikuchi have written five-line poetry as free-style tankas since the Taishō period around the 1910s.
In 1983, Enta Kusakabe named it Gogyohka (五行歌) and for the first time laid out the five rules of five-line poetry.
The form of English Gogyohka is the same as that of free English tanka because both are untitled and are written in five free lines.
As of 2018, at least five Gogyohka magazines existed: Gogyohka,[5] Hamakaze,[6] Minami no kaze,[7] Sai[8] and Kojimachi club.