ATLAS
POETICA
A Journal of Poetry of Place
in Contemporary Tanka
Number 18
Summer, 2014
M. Kei, editor
Amora Johnson, technical director
Yancy Carpentier, editorial assistant
2014
Keibooks, Perryville, Maryland, USA
KEIBOOKS
P O Box 516
Perryville, Maryland, USA 21903
AtlasPoetica.org
[email protected]
Atlas Poetica
A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka
Copyright © 2014 by Keibooks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by reviewers and scholars who may quote brief passages.
See our EDUCATIONAL USE NOTICE.
Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka, a triannual print and e-journal, is dedicated
to publishing and promoting fine poetry of place in modern English tanka (including variant forms).
Atlas Poetica is interested in both traditional and innovative verse of high quality and in all serious
attempts to assimilate the best of the Japanese waka/tanka/kyoka/gogyoshi genres into a continuously
developing English short verse tradition. In addition to verse, Atlas Poetica publishes articles, essays,
reviews, interviews, letters to the editor, etc., related to tanka poetry of place. Tanka in translation from
around the world are welcome in the journal.
ISBN 978-0615985374 (Print)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial
Educational Use Notice...............................4
Numinous Tanka, M. Kei................................5
Tanka in Sets and Sequences
Going to Gore Orphanage, Tish Davis...............7
Abyss, Alexander Jankiewicz.........................7
Memorial Day: The Ghost of Charlie Miller, M.
Kei........................................................8
Tombland, Joy McCall...................................9
Elemental, Kath Abela Wilson & Brian
Zimmer...............................................10
the child had to play, Joy McCall...................11
The Song of the Sea and Mountain, Sonam
Chhoki & Sergio Ortiz.......................12
A Book of Houses, Leslie Ihde......................14
the fate of the yoxie, Joy McCall &
Kate Franks ........................................15
Eleven Stones, Debbie Strange.....................16
Selkie Sisters, Debbie Strange......................17
Trees, Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton..........17
Skeletons in a Pantry, Genie Nakano.............17
Feeling Paris, Natsuko Wilson......................18
Knocknarea, Autumn Noelle Hall & Claire
Everett.................................................19
Camino, Carole Harrison...........................20
a penny for the guy, Joy McCall......................21
the morphing garden, Michael Dunwoody......22
Earthly Carapace, Sonam Chhoki................23
shall we gather, Joy McCall..........................24
ghosts, Joy McCall......................................24
ancestors, Joy McCall...................................25
over the rail, Joy McCall...............................25
traces of light, Tim Lenton & Joy McCall...26
holding the shape, Joy McCall & Tim Lenton26
a stirring of belief, Joy McCall & Tim Lenton27
erosion, Tim Lenton & Joy McCall.............27
the scent of ancestors, Matsukaze &
Murasame.......................................... 28
asylum, Murasame & Matsukaze................28
Nevada Hills, Matsukaze & Murasame.......29
the burning day, Matsukaze & Murasame....29
charred remains, Matsukaze & Murasame....30
The Morrigan Returns, Carole Johnston.......30
Siren, Bernice Yap......................................31
The Birthday Party, Sergio Ortiz..................31
Striding Eagle, Brian Zimmer......................32
Agitator, Marilyn Humbert.........................32
Unnamed Road, Marilyn Humbert..............33
Katsura Rikyū, Marilyn Humbert...............33
Sky Blue, Genie Nakano.............................34
Reasons to Not Return, Geoffrey Winch........34
Lost Worlds, Jenny Ward Angyal.................35
Childhood of Christ, Gerry Jacobson............35
Crossroads, Charles Tarlton.........................36
Shading, Charles Tarlton.............................37
Calliope/My Ex: Love/Trouble Maker, Chen-ou
Liu.......................................................38
Individual Tanka..............................................40
Articles
Review: Poetry and Melancholy: Jeffrey Woodward’s
Another Garden, reviewed by Charles Tarlton63
Review: January, A Tanka Diary by M. Kei,
reviewed by Patricia Prime.........................69
Review: A Rumination on M. Kei’s January, A Tanka
Diary, reviewed by Jeffrey Harpeng............71
Review: This Short Life : Minimalist Tanka, by
Sanford Goldstein, reviewed by Joy McCall73
Mini-Review: circling smoke, scattered bones, by Joy
McCall, reviewed by Steve Wilkinson........73
Tanka in Three Lines?, Matsukaze.......................74
The Problem of Tanka : Definition and Differentiation,
M. Kei .......................................................77
Announcements...............................................95
Biographies ......................................................98
Educational Use Notice
Keibooks of Perryville, Maryland, USA, publisher of the journal, Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of
Place in Contemporary Tanka, is dedicated to tanka education in schools and colleges, at every level. It is our
intention and our policy to facilitate the use of Atlas Poetica and related materials to the maximum extent
feasible by educators at every level of school and university studies.
Educators, without individually seeking permission from the publisher, may use Atlas Poetica : A
Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka’s online digital editions and print editions as primary or
ancillary teaching resources. Copyright law “Fair Use” guidelines and doctrine should be interpreted
very liberally with respect to Atlas Poetica precisely on the basis of our explicitly stated intention herein.
This statement may be cited as an effective permission to use Atlas Poetica as a text or resource for studies.
Proper attribution of any excerpt to Atlas Poetica is required. This statement applies equally to digital
resources and print copies of the journal.
Individual copyrights of poets, authors, artists, etc., published in Atlas Poetica are their own property
and are not meant to be compromised in any way by the journal’s liberal policy on “Fair Use.” Any
educator seeking clarification of our policy for a particular use may email the Editor of Atlas Poetica at
[email protected]. We welcome innovative uses of our resources for tanka education.
Atlas Poetica
Keibooks
P O Box 516
Perryville, MD 21903
<http://AtlasPoetica.org>
Numinous Tanka
Last fall, I edited two special features that
received an overflow of submissions. The
Garage, Not the Garden : Tanka of Urban
Life filled the double-sized special feature,
plus issue 17 of Atlas Poetica, while All
Hallow’s Evening : Supernatural Tanka has
nearly taken over issue 18. That these two
‘unconventional’ themes (by tanka standards)
saw such a large response advertises tanka’s
untapped potential—this small form really
can handle any content that the poet cares to
pour into it.
This is not surprising given the divine
origin of the form; it was invented by the
goddess Wakahime (“Poetry Princess”) who
t a u g h t h u m a n s h ow t o m a k e b o t h
incantations and ordinary songs in the tanka
form. For several centuries thereafter, it was
not unusual for the gods themselves to
contribute tanka to anthologies. The human
poet through whom they spoke was merely
the channel. The numinous nature of tanka
is amply illustrated by the plethora of tanka
in this issue that tap into mythology, religion,
legend, fantasy, magic, horror, and the most
mysterious topic of all, Death.
In these pages you will find urban
legends, headless horsemen, wendigos, aliens,
curses, wishes, myths, magic, Gothic tales,
and much more. Our poets draw upon the
collective psyches of cultures around the
world: from the tomb of Baudelaire to the
neolithic stones of Ireland, from the wilds of
New Jersey to the tremulous heights of the
Himalayas, from the musket fire of the
American Revolution to the coco leaves of
the Andes, we find ourselves keeping
company with travelers, ghosts, rabbis,
psychopomps, and madwomen. If we are
lucky, we will meet the angel with the orange
in his hand; if not, it’s a dizzy leap from the
cliffs above a thrashing sea.
Magic is very much in the eye of the
beholder, but whether the spooks herein
frighten you or make you laugh, we are
certain that you have never met anything like
the cavalcade of spirits unleashed within
these pages.
In addition, our expansion from eightyfour pages to one hundred and four pages
enables us to publish tanka in translation
from around the world, book reviews, and
non-fiction on a variety of subjects of interest
to readers and writers of tanka in every issue.
Next issue we will have a focus on poets
from India and South Asia wherever they
may be. We invite submissions by poets of
and writers upon the Indian/South Asian
theme. We will also focus on responsive and
collaborative tanka, and are open to
submissions of nonfiction articles and book
reviews relating to either focus.
As always, we will consider tanka, waka,
kyoka, gogyoshi, tanka prose and tanka
sequences of any sort, but will choose
thematic items first. However much space
remains will be filled with other works.
~K~
M. Kei
Editor, Atlas Poetica
The Betsiboka River empties into Bombetoka Bay in
northwest Madagascar.
Cover Image courtesy of Earth Observatory, NASA.
<http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/
43000/43240/betsiboka_ali_2010082_lrg.jpg>
A t l a s Po e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • Pa g e 5
Going to Gore Orphanage
Tish Davis
orphans
in their wooden beds
in their wood-walled dorms;
outside, a rabbit
eyes gleaming red
it passes
through our mood rings
that steady burn . . .
windows rolled up
hands in the air
~Vermilion, Ohio
After the séance, we gather under the street
light and pass a soft cloth. We must make sure my
Rambler Rebel is handprint-free. We’re heading
to the hollow where the orphanage burned,
where the ghosts still scream and sometimes even
leave a print on a passerby’s car.
a mailbox
far from tract housing
left to die
with its red flag up . . .
cicadas, nothing but cicadas
transparent wings—
after two sharp turns
teetering at the top
without the moon
a fresh struck match
abandoned
after two sharp turns
and overlooking
the hollow
where even the light won’t go
something
no one wants to say
the cicadas’
golden shells
are also abandoned
Abyss
Alexander Jankiewicz
I can’t explain it in any other way than this:
I’m lying in bed alone as a young child. A tunnel
of light appears near the ceiling in the corner of
my room. It doesn’t speak with words, but I know
that it wants me to enter. I try to ignore it at first,
but it won’t go away. I can sense it wanting me to
enter more and more strongly. I hide under my
blanket, too afraid to call out to my parents for
help. I can only hope that the light will go away.
sometimes
my mother’s whisper
saying good night
echoes through the years
alone in the dark
~Chicago, Illinois, USA
A t l a s Po e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • Pa g e 7
Memorial Day : The Ghost of Charlie Miller
M. Kei
You never expect to meet a ghost on an
autumn day as blue and gold as George
Washington’s uniform, but there he was, Charlie
Miller, the Headless Horseman of Cooch’s
Bridge, bent over his horse’s neck, galloping
along the shoulder of the road.
O, youth,
so bold and brave,
you served your country
with all your heart—
and your precious head
your father mourns you, laddie,
your friends weep for you
and we tell your tale to this day—
you never died, lad, even though
they laid your body low
He was there, and then he wasn’t. He was a
flicker in the corner of my eye, and just like that,
he was a bloody flicker seen from the corner of
his friends’ eyes as the British cannonball took off
his head. The wound remains in the church’s
wall, but Charlie doesn’t seem to know it.
just sixteen,
you answered Washington’s call,
fought the Redcoats,
defended your native land,
and left your immortal legend
His father didn’t want him to join up, but
Charlie, half-grown, was sure he was a man, and
his country was at stake. He mounted up and
rode to meet the British. Every soldier who goes
to war leaves behind an unhappy father, but
young men never look back. If they did, they’d
see old men weeping. Old men know what death
is.
such a likely lad,
with a body as sweet
as grass
in the autumn sun,
and in the grass you died
Charlie doesn’t know he’s dead. I saw him
two miles south of the church, galloping north,
just around the corner from Cooch’s Bridge. Was
he riding to warn his friends of the approach of
the enemy? The Redcoats were swarming and
Washington was fighting a slow retreat in defense
of Philadelphia.
Charlie Miller is still riding that last ride,
crouched over his horse’s neck, young body
supple and strong as he races north to fate and
eternal fame. He was just a boy like so many
others, a boy who thought he was a man and
paid a man’s price for the liberty of his country.
O, Charlie!
you’ve lost your head,
but never your heart,
we’ll lift a cup to you
and your eternal fame
Charlie Miller really existed, and his story is
what I’ve said. Legends abounded after Charlie’s
death. They say he went on fighting the British,
and the redcoats fled at the sight of the Headless
Horseman brandishing his sword. Others say a
ghost passed through George Washington and
saved him from a sniper’s ball as he watched the
battle. Still others say men were found butchered
on sentry duty, their hair as white as if they’d
seen a ghost.
I didn’t know his story when I saw him. All I
saw was a teenage boy hunched low over his
horse’s neck, riding north, forever north.
~Cooch’s Bridge, south of Newark, Delaware, USA
A t l a s Po e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • Pa g e 8
Tombland
Joy McCall
It is not just the living that are frequent visitors to the
cobbled streets of old Norwich . . .
Situated at one end of Tombland are The
Maids Head Hotel and Samson & Hercules
House. Both have ghost stories associated with
them, and when you explore their heritage a little
further it is perhaps easy to understand why. The
Maids Head dates back to the 13th century, when
it was called the ‘Murtle Fish’. The name was
changed following a visit by Queen Elizabeth I to
Norwich in 1578. Like most places visited by the
Royal Party in 1578, the Black Death or Plague
was destined to follow in its wake. A member of
the large party spread the plague as they travelled
from place to place and Norwich was no
exception.
From August 1578 to February 1579 almost
5000 victims of the plague were recorded in the
city. In total almost half the entire population of
Norwich perished from the Plague during this
time. While rats thrived in the narrow alleyways,
the grim cry of ‘bring out your dead’ rang
throughout the city. As the number of bodies
grew in colossal number, formal burials were
abandoned in favour of mass-graves or ‘plague
pits’. Cartloads of bodies were taken to the
Cathedral Close, which became a large burial
area. The graveyards behind St. George’s church
are so high as they were raised to accommodate
the huge number of bodies.
The church played an even more sinister role
during this time, being the site where
opportunistic looters of the dead and dying were
taken if caught. After being bound at the ankles
and wrists, they would be dropped headfirst from
St. George’s church onto the unforgiving ground
below. Their bodies, whether dead or still alive,
would then join the plague victims in the limefilled pits.
One of the largest plague pits in Norwich
was dug below the Tombland church of St.
George. This grim feature, along with the close
proximity to the Cathedral, may be the root
cause of numerous tales of hauntings and
disturbances in the building throughout the years.
These include the ghost of a young girl who
apparently starved to death in Augustine Steward
House next door after it was boarded up during
the plague, as well as spectral monks, shadowy
figures, and recurring nightmares for worshippers
of being buried alive in a huge pit full of dead
bodies.
lost
around the corner
from the all-night bars,
an old church—
cobblestones pave the way
to untended graves
damp and cool
and musty, inside
a woman sits—
dim light filters
through grimy windows
distant thump
of music, and clubbers
shouting and singing—
the woman lifts her head,
her prayers disturbed
on the hard pew
she settles to sleep,
shivering—
rain begins to fall
rats scratch behind the altar
below the nave
thick lime in the pit
shifts a little—
then closes again
over nameless small corpses
~St Georges, Tombland, Norwich, UK
A t l a s Po e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • Pa g e 9
Elemental
Brian Zimmer & Kath Abela Wilson
from her bike
she tells him what lives
under the bridge
a secret tamed by flowers
certain he knows
enchanted
eyes meet
you and I she says
and a giant turtle
covered with trap doors
a stick wand
summons the muskrat
upstream
a spell of waiting
as things take their course
fallen stars burnt bread
that overstuffs the sky
dark swarms along our trail
we mock a figurehead
that murders innocence
retain
a sense of place
solo ended
trust the wind
to turn the page
we are the arrow
sky-spent skein
a bloom unwound
symmetry of flight
from set to rise
out of camouflage burst
from my creek-loud night
downstream
feeling the wake
of transformation
in dream
he recalls
how in ‘64
no one had seen
a boy step into sky
a raven leads
the Morning Prayer:
“she is in heaven” . . .
after fighting-back
left two days in the snow
awake no dream
she floated off
started over
suitcase bulging
with dandelions
we doves mourn time
its mangled nest
our winged words
a soothing song to sculpt
a new earth’s core
wheels spin
our bikes past
swollen cornfields
the king is dead
long live the king
flames leap
bite and devour
not a word
from the silent man
become torch
flint sparks
our crumpled paper
a couple’s passion
leaves the scent of birth
in beach fires
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 10
gather wood
sit close together
there are stories
too cold to tell
beyond the blaze
the child had to play
Joy McCall
stalagmite me
bolt upright in bed
you cannot sleep until . . .
no quenching
his irrational anger
from the tree roots
the wild tribe emerge
one by one—
circling the tree, they dance
on the hill until dawn
candlelight
softens the room
my face
the lost face
of the past
hand in hand
these strange small people
dance and sing—
their fingers white as roots,
their skin rough as bark
fireworks
in the air
a finale
that belongs
out of reach
their voices
are the creaking of trees
in the dark wind—
their footsteps like dry nuts
falling on soft ground
as it trembles
a great fissure opens
before him
he turns off the plow
removes his cap
how they smile,
with teeth like the little bones
of harvest mice—
their hair prickles
like chestnut spikes
underground streams
in the great cave
waterfalls
unheard unseen
they know are there
~Kettering, Ohio / Staten Island, New York,
USA
when they laugh
it is the stream flowing,
the spring bubbling—
they slip away to sleep at noon,
drunk on rain
~Norwich, UK
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 11
The Song of the Sea and Mountain
Sonam Chhoki & Sergio Ortiz
we
hold hands and smile—
old photograph
I trace the sandalwood frame
hold our moment for a while
why do you hesitate,
what do you see in my face
if not reflex
of the earth, a bed
of golden saffron
pale gold foxglove heads
open to speckled violet throats . . .
it seems
I’m not the only one
with hidden intent
our bodies,
seagulls surrendering
to the wind . . .
time brings us into bloom—
is it for miracles we live?
I cling to a hope
thinner than wisps
of incense swirls
that we’ll meet again
in a new rebirth
a swarm of bees
awakens the stars . . .
I have a lump
in my throat, a sense
of wrong, a homesickness
wind chimes
break the echoes
of our absence . . .
but the world is filled with music,
and in between the music, silence
the sun backlights
yellow aconite slopes
what the gods won’t tell us:
hope
is a poison-tipped arrow
a plane blinks
through a star-strewn sky
late in the night
you trail through my thoughts
leave all these question marks
my mouth
closed behind a sigh . . .
I walked
through Shangri-la
in spring showers
a poisonous sea
rises on the night
of our pain . . .
and we wait for the unforced flow
of words and sleep and dreams
the memory
of a writing hand won’t do
for the grief of naming things . . .
the sun inks the dawn sky
with etchings of blood
reading Marquez
through a rain-laden night
I leave my sleepless room
for the almond and oregano heat
of Macondo
it was inevitable:
the smell of bitter almonds
reminds
me of the fate
of disgruntled love affairs
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 12
wings in full span
two moths circle a butter lamp
round and round
they dance to a rhythm
set in the chrysalis of karma
the moonflowers
surprise me,
shining in the night
to soften their plaintive
howling
the stars
are too fixed in their orbits
to care . .
hope is now whimsical notes
of a knowing flute
so fearfully pale,
a rose that bends to the breath
of the gale,
and stands adrift
in the ruins of her sorrow
invariably
words scatter like cloud wisps
when I try to speak . . .
the blaze of peonies
in the morning sun
the mountain stream
carves stones in its headlong flight
down the valley . . .
this ancient pulse of endless flow
empties all memories
soft I go
to gather sun and wind,
my speech
the speed of darkness—
I am the tree that trembles
the dead
gather white shadows
from the past . . .
real marionettes
have no strings
the night is swollen with words
but the disheveled goddess
gifts me
only the dross of dreams—
I unremember our love
watching
you on the bed . . .
I mine each moment
for the ore that holds
an antidote for endings
split portal of lightning—
dark clouds shadow-play at dawn
blind fingers of rain
touch my face
burnt in the fire of lies
a certain kind of Eden
holds me enthralled . . .
your eyes
are a green twine,
the saddest of rope
ancient grief of the moon
forgotten by the sun at dawn . . .
a crab quarries
amongst the empty shells
for the salt of memory
~Bhutan / Puerto Rico, USA
no one believes
in their own life anymore
that’s why
they’re lonely, and unable
to find their own nakedness
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 13
A Book of Houses
Leslie Ihde
the first house
walls and rooms
I was still
inside hidden
and away
I watched your body
sleek muscles under wind
parting water
with breath and
joyous movement
later I built walls
with fabric
draped on chairs
you couldn’t come in
unless I let you
my dream house
with courtyard and cats
a little fountain
places to play again
only room for me
but you did
worse than a rape
your three year old laughter
a terrible truth dawns
—permeable walls
my married home
come too late
catching up on lost time
timeless afternoon sun
lengthened tree shadows alarm
then stream house island
the gushing water moat
split by boulders
around and around
me pretending I was the world
alarm
no walls to the house that I am in
others aren’t outside
my body is with yours
we grow together old
the house you made
with your arms
your skin and your mind
the others kept out
by judgement alone
wind blew my third house
down the vacation
we planned together
not sure the years
or the season tomorrow
I was a mermaid
you pushed my raft
squirting water from your mouth
a roman cherub
steering me
the fourth house
has ocean as foundation
fishes for its walls
no space not filled with water
—it was illusion, anyway
~Psychotherapy & Self-Discovery using Art
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 14
the fate of the yoxie*
Joy McCall & Kate Franks
We sat, my Canadian daughter and I, in the
old beer garden, playing Scrabble over a tee-total
lunch. The patched-up pub is in the shadow of
the ancient church and was once the priests’ ale
store. Parishioners used to come for their pints,
after the service, since the river water was not
safe to drink, being polluted by sewage, cows . . .
and bodies. The servants were paid in ale then,
not coins.
Three old regulars at the next table were
getting slowly drunk on local ale, as usual. They
became more and more drunk, more garrulous
and loud.
“Let us play the game with you,” one said.
And so it began, the maddest game of Scrabble I
ever played. We gave up on sense and spelling
and reason. The rule became: only nonsense
words, but a meaning must be supplied.
the yoxie’s lot
is hard and with no sefting
harder still
the cruel defungs await her
once jorp-justice is viwalt
but look! she is saved!
the dinsa vedds approach,
their zirmt music
sounds across the quahns,
and the wrepis sleeps, in ruteo
~The Buck Inn, Norwich, UK
*yoxie, a maid of old, dim and unschooled
the Beymar
spoke thus to her Gom:
“befok the yoxie!
I will swear a plinote
against her; bring the Jorp!”
he comes!
the rog he wields and gooman wears,
a bazlat slung
across his back to play
in case a bright elade can mend
alas!
the twavib lot is cast
upon the casha—
she will seft no more
nor tace the cri-ped gniteo
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 15
Eleven Stones
Debbie Strange
Mother lies in a curtained hospital cell, a bloodstone on her tongue.
(she cradles the stone angel face of her infant daughter)
No one has time to feed her, and her gruel congeals into limestone.
(she carries fieldstones from dawning to dimming day)
She is intubated, tied to the bed, and my heavy heartstone sinks.
(she keens as hailstones grind the crops into dust)
Her tumbled thoughts are skipping stones, with neither echo nor ripple.
(she polishes the worrystone in her heart’s torn pocket)
The cornerstone of her life has crumbled, but I am the one who falls.
(she is the hearthstone and the headstone)
she is 35
when her mother dies
and I am born
I am 35 when my mother dies
it takes 35 days for her to let go
~Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 16
Selkie Sisters
Skeletons in a Pantry
Debbie Strange
Genie Nakano
Three full maiden moons slipped into the
darkling water—selkie sisters astride galloping sea
horses, their hands tangled in spindrift manes . . .
Round 2 AM, I need a shot of whiskey—
drag to the kitchen—open the pantry room door
to see a small rat on top of a box of cornmeal
staring down at me. I scream, close door—run
back to bed.
skinny-dipping
with my sisters
washing moondust
from our hair
then braiding it with stars
~Wallace Lake, Manitoba, Canada
For the next few nights, I hear noises from
the pantry—pots and pans sliding, the dogs bark
courageously. So I buy and set out traps. But I
really don’t want to kill him. I just want him out
of the house. After all, I was born in the year of
the rat.
I spend Saturday taking everything out of the
pantry. He is gone. The only evidence of
existence is a half-eaten box of corn meal and a
few droppings.
On Sunday, I spend the day throwing things
out, cleaning, rearranging, organizing the pantry
room—it’s never looked better.
Trees
Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton
mixed feelings
scamper away like a rat
in the night
those hidden dark demons
prayers for a no return
~California, USA
Trees of every kind hold a spark of the
sacred for me. They steady this world. In winter,
I rest my hand against their trunks to feel the
heat within. so quietly
the roots of trees
cultivate
their secret knowledge
of time, of space, of wonder
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 17
Feeling Paris
Natsuko Wilson
at dawn
beneath the airplane
Paris wakes up
as if a lotus flower begins to open
its petals in the dark pond
on the tomb of Baudelaire
several notes are left carefully
pinned with little stones
as if people desperately wait for
messages from the poet
pushing a blue door
of a small hotel on a small street
i might pass Andre Breton
in the lobby who has just come down
from the upstairs
far in the distance
through the ancient graves in the cemetery
the tower of Montparnasse
stands tall, singing
the tune of modern life
passing
a flower shop, a key shop, and la creperie
of sweet Paris
i happen to meet a Gypsy woman
sitting at the end of the street
breathing out
the scent of Bordeaux wine
a lotus flower
peacefully closes her petals
until the dawn
~France
the tune of Swan Lake
played by a cellist on the platform
of the métro
is swallowed by the screeching sounds
of an incoming train
a man on the subway
tells about his sad life
to strangers
who pretend not listen
but pay curious attention
over a chocolate box
i bought as a gift for Basha
a sales girl scatters
playfully
fresh petals of red roses
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 18
Knocknarea
Autumn Noelle Hall & Claire Everett
on its limestone mount,
Connacht’s Queen Maeve stands against
her Ulster foe . . .
no longer can her fair face
feel the breeze from Sligo Bay
cloak and spear aflame
every inch the warrior
each man
in another man’s shadow . . .
all who loved her
“in her young age
She had been beautiful
in that old way . . .”
golden ode poured out in ink—
Yeats crowns her once again
on the breeze
the sighs of the dead who sleep
in her shadow . . .
the chill when she turns eastward
to face Dagda’s Cairns Hill tomb
to each, but a sip
of ‘she who intoxicates’
that he might thirst . . .
she fills twin drinking horns from
the head of the King’s prize bull
leave to Maeve her
cairn of stones on the summit
of Knocknarea
for luck, this offering, as well:
a sea-smoothed pocket stone
~Ireland
feet on the scree
of scraper and arrowhead,
flint and chert,
wild as the wind in her hair
she guards the Hill of the Moon
hip high, the wall
circumscribing its rim
and hip-to-hip
laid North to South, the graves of
those who danced in her footsteps
Faery Queen
treading the rings of time
sun and moon still
gild the Lake of Brightness
rising first, in her eyes
).
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 19
Camino
Carole Harrison
this fast train
across morphing landscapes
an alien
I long to walk, to feel
the mud between my toes
a stork
on a steeple
‘S’ shaped
clattering . . .
wins the argument
screaming
I am here, I am—
graffiti
my need to be known
the script of my soul
a patch work
of red soil and spring grasses
stitched with poppies
ever cheerful—your smile
threading the years
Early days, our first camino in Spain, one
hiking stick each. My idea. He thought it silly.
Left his firmly attached to his back pack . . . .
Without warning, two maneaters, straight from
hell . . . held off by just one thin hiking stick.
Keep walking! Don’t look at them! Keep walking!
Be strong! He tries to get his stick. Can’t! Keep
with me! Keep walking! An eternity, probably
only 100m, the fangs of Hades disappear back to
their flocks of sheep. I collapse on the
ground . . . .
he takes my hand
carries me up hills
balancing
my downhill journey . . .
together we walk through fear
hiking shadows
stir the thick Iberian air
of empty streets . . .
by magic a door opens—
dos café con leche
an adobe house
returns to the earth
a crumbling heap
melting memories—
what will remain of us?
In southern Spain, days of walking, forests of
encina oaks, thousand year old trees. Fascinating
aged shapes. What tales could they tell? What
shepherds with their flocks passed by . . . pilgrims
on their way to Santiago?
ancient oak
silver topped soldier
saluting the years—
scars on twisted trunks
badges of a life well fought
way below us
the white village growing
smaller . . .
funny how a welcome smile
outweighed shattered glass
the castle locked
storm the door, he says,
waiting for a key . . .
so easy to bridge gaps
than surround ourselves with walls
between stone walls
memories and wild flowers
a song of colour—
when did you last dance so freely
not afraid of anything?
~Spain and Australia
Previously appeared on Poets on Site, Facebook.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 20
a penny for the guy *
Joy McCall
staunch in their faith
the Catholic men
hatch the plot
over cheap ale
in the Dog and Duck tavern
he is thrown
into the dark jail
mocked and beaten
tortured on the cruel rack
he confesses
the young man
in a filthy airless
undercroft
makes the sign of the cross
blessing the martyrs of his faith
tied by his feet
behind the horse
he is dragged
through the streets of London
past jeering crowds
he sweats
hiding gunpowder
under wood and coal
checking his watch
waiting for the signal
broken
and bloody on the scaffold
still he prays
the god of the Romans
does not deign to save him
English Lords
wigged and robed, in the great hall
above his head
gather in solemn state
passing the laws of the land
his hacked limbs
are scattered north, south
east and west
that he may find no rest
between heaven and hell
heavy footsteps
the priest-betrayer
approaches
the conspirator is sold
for a few pennies
again November
and English children laugh
around the bonfires
Roman candles, sparklers
a penny for the guy
~England
* Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th, remembers Guy Fawkes and the
Gunpowder Plot, by recusant Roman Catholics, to blow up the Houses
of Parliament and kill the new Church of England King.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 21
the morphing garden
Michael Dunwoody
i took measured sips
of intoxicating air
carefully careful
not to interrupt the thrill
of his hand still on my thigh
in the mothy dusk
whenever i’d regret him
the summer garden
necrotic with white lilies
recalled all his flourishes
we soared high, higher
eye level with the blue moon
set in a sky quick
with fleeting wished-upon stars
when i kissed him that first time
this crafty autumn
a few trees pretend at green
roses set frail buds
flies mate in the cooling sun
while i wait as i promised
madcap butterflies
shocked my heart to a frenzy
of zig-zaggery
whenever he read my eyes
set his warm red mouth on mine
despite promises
i have become a frail dream
more space than substance
undifferentiated
in fables of his lost loves
just a glance askance
and like a cat my lover
madness in his eyes
searching what shadows allow
was gone at my looking back
in his diary
is our past too everyday
to be wept over?
please no, i believed in love
earned a name incised in stone
~Canada
the grid of burlap
binding the frail hydrangea
was creased with blue snow
when he chose to walk away
from my promise of summer
near the shaded bench
where we dreamed as lovers
ornamental grass
hacks the sanguine azalea
into joints of memory
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 22
Earthly Carapace
Sonam Chhoki
into the lichened-cave
She arrives astride a tiger
eyes and nostrils aflame
it singes the moss—
a talisman to this day
it fills
the ancient cavern,
and shakes the oaks
Mara closes his ears
writhing on the jungle floor
Mara
slithers in a haze of myrrh
swinging his hips
to a deep-throated song
of eternal knowledge and pleasure
“This noise you make,
churns me inside out.
But I will not be quelled,
this battle has just begun
and is yet to be won!”
in a swathe
of deepest red brocade
he intones:
“Walk my path of love,
Become be the One forever!”
She replies:
“My tiger of compassion
awaits you,
let us soar the Garuda’s heights
to the Rainbow of Bliss.”
the Sage utters no words
will her years of solitary
meditation
by glacier lakes and peaks
douse the flames of such passion?
Mara spits, Mara swears
he swivels his head
and shrieks
tearing birds off their flight,
startling the nagas in their sleep
images rise
in fevered succession:
Mara sighs, Mara cries,
he dimples, he dances,
he lunges at her
the Sage
opens her Third Eye
of Crystal Light—
in a whorl of ululation
Mara swirls and dissolves
the Sage
closes her eyes and summons
from her depths
a lightning swell
of the cosmic OM
In Tibetan Buddhist iconography Mara is the god who creates
cosmic illusions. He is famously depicted as the one who tempted
the historical Buddha with visions of carnal pleasure. I’ve used
this template to portray a female Buddha who is confronted by
Mara’s illusionary promises. She is inspired by the eleventh
century Tibetan Yogini Machig Labdrön (1055–1149).
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 23
shall we gather
ghosts
Joy McCall
Joy McCall
the bank slopes down
to where the stream runs
under the bridge—
the priest comes dripping
up from the baptising
there’s a spirit
in the Main Street bookshop
in Tipp, Ohio—
a small child humming
an old settlers’ hymn
eight motorbikes
in a row alongside
the river inn—
ale and pork scatchings
the bikers’ communion
on a cliff
above a Welsh cove,
an old cottage—
a gentle ghost
neatly folds back the quilts
my long-haired friend
chilled from the immersing
huddles by the fire—
he says nothing, deep
in his own holy space
on friday nights,
the sound of a hammer
on an anvil—
a blacksmith singing
low by the old forge wall
in the gloom
the priest shares our table
our rough altar—
he gets drunk and sings hymns
as the day wears down
on the cliff edge
walks a bent old woman,
talking to herself—
through her grey body
I see the waves breaking
we pitch a tent
under the willows
in darkness—
my friend sleeps in leathers,
the priest lies naked, snoring
in the old hall
where the strangers dwelt
a robed rabbi walks—
he repeats the sacred words;
there is no flesh on his white bones
~The King’s Head Inn, Barton Broom. Norfolk, England
~Strangers’ Hall, Norwich, England
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 24
ancestors
over the rail
Joy McCall
Joy McCall
for the Gypsy
the stout landlady
of the Sea and Shore pub
leans against the bar—
and steel in her voice, calls
‘time gentlemen, please’
a cold wind blows
in the walled garden
he talks to me
of the visionary
and the persian woman
a small bird sits
on her bare shoulder
whispering
carrying a message
from a man she does not know
peasants all,
the sour-faced villagers
down their ale—
and smoking rank roll-ups
they stagger home
a small group
of drunken sailors
call for more ale—
the old one stands sniffing,
swaying on his feet
eyes are watching
my fingers need to touch
the stone face
it is cool and smooth
and calls me to stay
a small child
appears in the doorway
crying ‘father’—
the old drunkard, white-faced,
lays the tankard down
the sculptor
smells of cedar chippings
and cat mint
he speaks of poetry
and unrequited love
back on the ship
the seamen gather
around their captain—
he stares at the dark sea,
calling ‘my son, my son’
I ask the names
of all these old ones
of stone and wood—
he does not know, and they
stand silent among the herbs
~Orford Ness, Suffolk, England
~The Old Bungay Road, Norfolk, England
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 25
traces of light
holding the shape
Tim Lenton & Joy McCall
Joy McCall & Tim Lenton
between the fields
a path stretches outwards
through mud and dust:
I reach for distant forests,
my intentions unclear
I dream now
with my back against
the ruined wall—
of spinners, weavers
and the smell of damp wool
defiant flint
in unsuspecting fields
stands facing out
shrugging off my pale lost years
and intercepted light
what waits there
among the bare trees,
calling to him?
I hear the small voice
of the east wind, crying
this far north of
summer, shades of green fade
into the mist
and skeletons wave to me
in a persistent dream
my own light
scattered these damp days
into shadows—
my spirits falling,
rain on the shallow moat
holding the shape
the old builder mapped out,
fierce stone grips sky:
even the fallen windows
open my watering eyes
unsettled
by this rutted path
I turn away—
these furrowed fields hide
old bones and dark secrets
traces of light
in the turn of the land
uncovered here:
nervous deer dance at the edge,
balanced on history
roofless walls
once whole, this great hall
fallen, silent—
I stare into the face
of my own ruin
~Suffield, England
~Baconsthorpe Castle, Norfolk, England
Inspired by <http://www.flickr.com/photos/
yoss22/9476270297/>
Inspired by <http://www.flickr.com/photos/
yoss22/9476276961/lightbox/>
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 26
a stirring of belief
erosion
Joy McCall & Tim Lenton
Tim Lenton & Joy McCall
where a road falls
into the sudden sea,
storm skies looming,
hidden waves nibble away
at the ground I stand on
I need now
the clear sacredness
of these old bells—
the kind call to prayer,
the slow passing of time
with the promise
of wine, a new world and
living water:
I bathe in familiar sounds,
and unexpected light
how fragile
are the crumbling cliffs
of our island—
and deep in my bones
the same slow eroding
surface tension
disguises solid roots
beneath my feet:
buried too far down for
oceans to uncover
on the wind
Sunday morning bells
across the field—
a distant old church,
a stirring of belief
strange dreams break through
into my pale green world
of fading life,
and I reach out for slivers
of sharp reality
mammoth tusks
caught in the layers,
exposed by tides—
in all dark crevices
some old light remains
fresh water flows down,
hidden between bleak hill
and bright valley:
I catch a glimpse from my old
and glistening cavern
splinters, shards,
the breaking of things,
a silent bell—
broken voices sing
a deeper, lasting song
~Shotesham St. Mary, Norfolk, England
Inspired by <http://www.flickr.com/photos/
yoss22/3066081425/>
~Happisburgh, Norfolk, England
Inspired by <http://www.flickr.com/photos/
yoss22/9479061884/>
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 27
the scent of ancestors
asylum
Murasame & Matsukaze
Murasame & Matsukaze
do they haunt you
these many women?
the mad streets
are not the place
for a sleepless poet
dark nights
a storm calls the voice
from the deep—
I cannot sing
without wind and rain
these women
move around me sideways
many eyes behold
me
in silent derision
in this padded house
a broad voice
walks the length
of these old floor boards—
outside wind and fury
do they deride
or are they dancing
around you?
a moth will always
burn in the flame
mice run
under my worn oak floors
in the night—
these small quiet things
bring me strange comfort
in the madhouse
these women nod in passing
shedding
commonplace tears
for something i’ve lost
yesterday i was remembering
the scent of our ancestors
that i dropped
somewhere in the
cold underbrush
ask them then
to give you what they find
on the madhouse floor
even a bowlful of tears
can clean a deep wound
the cracked bones
of my kinfolk
litter this land—
from every small green field
their voices call to me
~Louisiana, USA/ Norfolk, England
~Louisiana, USA / Norfolk, England
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 28
Nevada Hills
the burning day
Matsukaze & Murasame
Matsukaze & Murasame
beneath
a persimmon sky
in an old
thatched cottage at a
teak desk writing tanka
knitting galaxies
a fresh bowl
of chokeberry blooms
where is your fire
i say where is your fire?
a young man
resting his chin
on brown hands
his head filled with music
and dreams and old waka
the hayfield
catches fire and burns
on and on
my wild spirit aches
with loss after loss
an aged wife
stirring noodles
after a long day
when all is quiet seated
in her room, one with darkness
brown poet
following his faith
across the land
noise all around him
his soul patiently waiting
in this penitent morning
rushing to the courtyard
can i help but
inhale the smoke and ashes
of the burning day over the horizon?
sins circling
in the hot winds, torment
my weary head
I fall to my knees
not expecting mercy
from the picture window
an overcast sky
these little
storms coming from
Nevada hills
am i branded
with a scarlet letter
do i move Hawthorne-like
in the heat of day
muttering my prayers?
~Las Vegas, Nevada, USA / Norfolk, England
~Louisiana, USA / Norfolk, England
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 29
charred remains
The Morrigan Returns
Matsukaze & Murasame
Carole Johnston
in these eyes
sometimes light
sometimes darkened clouds
and on some occasions
the color of rain
she stalks me
in the shadows
of morning
I find black feathers
in front of Starbucks
I ignore
the first sign
shoving
the feathers
in my pocket
in brown eyes
sometimes storms
thunderclouds
then the sun
breaking through
I ignore
the second sign
crow prints
on my windshield
every morning
at other times
in my eyes
tsunamis
hurricane force winds
the crack of a cool wind
the sun pops
orange on the city
fills the sky
with copper light
as feathers fall
the flash
of a light’ning strike
hits the walls
I smell the burning
of many dreams
on some cold morning
taking the steps two at a time
down into my soul
trying to salvage
the charred remains of dreams
~Louisiana, USA / Norfolk, England
I ignore
the third sign
black wings
stretched across
the russet dawn
a thousand
feathers follow me
my black wings
beat with the hearts
of a thousand crows
~Ireland
The Morrigan is an ancient Irish trinity of goddesses,
known to foreshadow death in the form of a crow.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 30
Siren
The Birthday Party
Bernice Yap
Sergio Ortiz
That figure
by the lonely shore
a love song
calling to the sea
white foam on her shoulders
Stumble on
dried grass, old sand
grits your toes
dragging over each wave
as they cut into your feet
The moon
a cool pearl, ignoring
her shadow
the dark edge a cut
hiding in her gaze
She grins
a mouth full of glass
snags against
your palm, your hand
they tear the flesh out
Gambia. Alhaji, twenty-one and gay, had been
planning his birthday for months. The guest list
carefully locked away; there was that real threat
of decapitation to consider. However, he could
no longer find peace by avoiding life.
how old is need,
how knotted are the corridors
of loneliness?
Imam, there is no angel
with an orange by my bed
His friends gathered by the poolside, each with
his past shut in him like the leaves of a book,
eyeing the uninvited guest snapping photographs.
freedom is a fire
that runs like a staircase
up then down—
my lover’s lips the color
of soft-skin mangoes
~Gambia
~Australia
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 31
Striding Eagle
Agitator
Brian Zimmer
Marilyn Humbert
for Joy
My youngest brother is untamed. More than a
rebel, he is an anarchist. I don’t understand his
choices, but he’s my brother and I love him.
as if I were
a mirror to shatter
the stone eagle
steps forth unchained
from its common plinth
I wait
with my brother
in this small room
without windows
only a cold metal seat
psychopomp
guardian of the dead
do you miss
the corner burden
that kept you flightless?
My father chose to turn his back and walk away.
while his son
waits for trial—
he weeds
dandelions heads
from his manicured lawn
see what I see
and the artist saw
predation
of every stone eye
follows sepia and song
My brother chatters away to me about this and
that—does he not realise . . .
bow of wings
does not portend escape
flex of strength
is not the curve of flight
your bones never hollow
stifled
by the air inside
I walk outside
to the endless roar
of freeway traffic
ave, ave,
the despair of the body
parted
from its destiny
meets fate head-on
~Mt Druitt Courthouse cells, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
Striding Eagle, 16th-century, Venetian marble; Artist:
Unknown; Saint Louis Art Museum. Originally a
funerary object supporting a sarcophagus, eagles
symbolic of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven & the
Resurrection of the Dead. Working in Italy, sketches
of this sculpture were made by Flemish painter, Peter
Paul Rubens, in the 17th century.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 32
Unnamed Road
Katsura Rikyū
Marilyn Humbert
Marilyn Humbert
our bike
paws the tar band
hungrily—
the thrum
of pulsing hearts
strolling
through Katsura gardens
I spy the moon
in the lotus pond
washing his round face
my arms encircle
his leather-clad waist
windblown hair
tangled days
drift into days
weeping boughs
over Miyuka pathway
Heian feet
on worn river stones
beneath my steps
trees snap by
birds rise, wheel
and swoop
we attack the curves
of this untamed road
Gepparo Teahouse
snug among pines—
I sip
warmed water
fragrant with leaves
stopped, roadside—
leaves on sprawling trees
brush my face
fingers unknot
twisted curls
a path
of white stone
framed by blossom
on tangled wood,
whisper of distant voices
the smell
of leather and fuel
on we plunder
bitumen and back roads
to the dimness of night
wooded islands
in Katsura grounds
in the shadows
sighs of a prince
and his lady
~Outback, NT, Australia
~Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto Japan
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 33
Sky Blue
Reasons to Not Return
Genie Nakano
Geoffrey Winch
a woman
inside a sky blue room
she waits for
emptiness
to be filled
old friends’ homes
where we drew real ale
straight from the barrel
long-buried beneath this junction:
that taste travelled with me
it’s been weeks now
how long will it take
the hours turn into days,
nights into weeks
weeks into another day
brewers, biscuit-bakers,
dignified people digging
the vistas of bulb fields:
those traditional trades
smothered by the new
seagulls screech
fly into grey clouds
piercing their birth sacs
rain begins to fall
and she waits
once again
we return to the crem:
how many more
dreams to ashes
memories to dust?
scent of
earth after fallen rain
the air, ground, city streets
she sniffs her hands and arms
she is back again
where I was schooled,
played guitar, began to flower
by miles
evermore distant
even more by years
fall, falling, flow
sorrow flows underground
waves come and go
she embraces the gift
asks no questions
as does the town
this junction keeps growing:
latest gantry signs
tell of parts that never were
never will be part of me
~United States
~Junction 11, M4 Motorway, south of Reading; and the
town of Reading, Berkshire, UK
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 34
Lost Worlds
Childhood of Christ
Jenny Ward Angyal
Gerry Jacobson
snowmelt
from mountain glaciers
blesses
Pachamama’s belly . . .
her rising fever chills me
Back there it’s dark, cold. Melting snow,
slush. What’s it all about? I’m outside it. Why do
they sing carols? Why Christmas trees? It’s all
around me but I am not part of. Ask questions.
The adults deride it, yiddish it as “Crutzmuss” or
something like that. I soon learn it’s not kosher
for a little Jewish boy. Like the bacon smell in the
grocer’s shop.
breathless
at 13,000 feet
I blow softly
across two coca leaves . . .
the ritual of wishes
twilight
in the Temple of Virgins
on Moon Island—
I leave an offering
of blood-red gladiolus
the Uru people
live on islands made of reeds
cut adrift
I reach for the shore
in this river of stars
~Peru & Bolivia
We have our own winter festival, Chanukah.
Huddling together around the candles. Singing
hymns in ancient Hebrew. And “Chanukah gelt”,
gifts of money. A sop to Jewish children living in
an alien world.
Years later, in another life. On stage in
Llewellyn Hall. In the choir for Berlioz’ oratorio
“Childhood of Christ”. A sudden flash of
recognition. “What’s a little Jewish boy doing up
here singing about baby Jesus?” And “Is my
mother turning in her grave?”
belonging
not belonging
longing
now is the dance
of my disconnect
~London, England and Canberra, Australia
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 35
Crossroads
Charles Tarlton
CARMODY: You see that? Fifty cars or more, all with
their headlights on. Some dignitary’s funeral?
BLIGHT: Or some other kind of parade.
lingering rain
now its wildest rhythms
slowed—direct me, Lord
ta-dum, ta-dum—a tedium
at the blackened lychgate
No funeral today, but it’s not like nobody has
died. News circulates from all corners of the
dying world—of murder, accident, disease, and
thousands lost in a flood, gone overboard, or
starved. Life struggles on against the dying,
against the cold statistics of despair.
sad, sad, Columbine
raw combination of dove
and eagle’s talon
delicately blue and white
uncomprehending star
night lay frozen
in a sullen graying hush
thuds and scratching gone
I hoped to talk to the moon
when it finally appeared
The stars are nearly out, flamboyant, lustrous
in a sky made obviously of arched Plexiglas. And
the wind is blowing hard down here against the
slinky yielding trees, the trees glad for the exercise
now their leaves have dropped, and the leaves
skip and swirl, dancing for all the world.
then our rain tires
lets angled sweeps of sunlight
fall overwrought
across strewn muddy puddles
down from the littlest twigs
and again silence
threatens to invade the sad
rhythms of the dead
slowed to stop—direct me, Lord
ta-dum, ta-dum, a tedium
Gratefully, I was walking back from the
grave, sending my thoughts to any other place,
urging them away, when it abruptly ceased to
rain. The tree bark soaked was darker now, and
the lawn sparkled in the wet as if baskets of
shattered glass had spilled, but either no one
noticed or all were so gorged with emotion they
could not muster more.
the plain fact of it
there has to be an end
to death and dying
for the living to get on
with the little that is left
that storm withdrew
while sheets of the yellow sun
snapped over the lawns
like the new-making of a bed
or a table festive set
comes hopeful sunshine
to guy our long sad faces
He bent over there at the edge of the
cemetery and picked something up. “What did
you find,” his brother asked, walking along, “the
end of a string?” “The end of something,” he
answered, “we’ll have to see where it leads.”
I hawk out—direct me, Lord
ta-dum, ta-dum—a tedium
quit at the blackened lychgate
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 36
Shading
Charles Tarlton
CARMODY: They were afraid you were coming. They
were sure you wouldn’t have one nice thing to say.
BLIGHT: But you all look so lovely, I mean, really lovely.
I was a child in southern California and we
had a garden where my mother raised a few
potatoes, green beans, onions, and carrots. The
weather was dry and hot so we had to water the
plants every day from a hose connected to the
house. One day, about when I usually did the
watering, it started to rain. The sky turned gray
and seemed to lean down very close to
everything. I stood in what was suddenly almost
darkness, the unfamiliar rain soaking the
vegetables, and I could have been anywhere—
like France, you know, or China in the movies.
the rain just hisses
so where did you get the idea
it hopes to rinse
away our sins or sadness
—rain mixes its own dish
under a low tree
transfixed in passing headlights
at dark noon
see the lonely boy dream
he’s a wild Apache scout
the air is inky
black and I cannot even see
my eyes blink
this is that fine parchment
where here and gone is written
In a winter apple orchard, amidst the thistle
and broom of the empty branches, here and
there an apple was missed and waits, waits in the
snow. But the shadows are too long now, the days
too short, and ice hangs under the smallest twig,
drops of ice hanging where dew or rain froze one
dark morning. When the leaves come back,
everything seems to suggest, when the leaves
come back . . . .
you could barely breathe
when the orange blossoms were thick
as soap suds
thermal winds pushed fondant
swells up into the mountains
you could arrive
at the airport in sandals
get on the flight
and get off where you needed
a parka and fur-lined boots
peasant hands, thick
fingers, their meatiness belying
concert pianist
but a pencil stuck in there
scratches out feathery verse
From the highway, mountains of the Swiss
Alps, their names unknown to me, rise up like
cataclysms of stone, rocks bigger than you could
ever imagine rocks to get, flat faces of granite a
mile high and two miles wide. People live in
villages tossed like grain for birds or chickens
around their base, around the lowest slopes where
grass still grows. These people must believe in
these mountains, throw themselves down in front
of—what? It’s hard to name it, because
“mountainous” is a word that already indicates
massive (or more).
at Quéribus
where the wind blew us off
the mountain
a hundred weary soldiers
clawing their way up, and in
they cut deep pits
in Malta to get the stone
to build their churches
and the fortress Citadel
they devoured the island
at the airport
waiting to fly home
two months in Europe
are already forgotten
time blown along in the wind
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 37
Calliope/My Ex: Love/Trouble Maker
Chen-ou Liu
Written on October 25th, 2013, 42nd anniversary of the expulsion of Taiwan (Officially the Republic of China) from the
United Nations
I am not
into her anymore
but I promise
to make her live forever
in my love poetry
for a week
writing poems for my blind date
the muse and I
like two mice with our legs
caught in a glue trap
revising
for hours in dim light
the muse and I
straddle the thin line
between pleasure and pain
the chill air
this Easter morning . . .
Miss Lee,
my ex and the muse
morph into one
our laughter
and conversation
penetrate
this winter night’s silence . . .
the shadow and I
Oh, you are
a published writer
Fan Lee
sounds like my ex . . .
alone with the muse
Medusa
on top in the sex scenes
of a movie . . .
my ex does the same
in my winter dreams
trapped for hours
in a labyrinth of words
the muse and I
stand facing each other
under the blazing sun
the red line set
and my credibility
on the line:
every snowy night
just one dream with my ex
awash
in Summertime
and moonlight
Fan Lee whispers
my tanka of longing
first sunrise . . .
I keep rehearsing
Hi! Miss Lee,
nice to meet you
before the old mirror
La petite morte
rolling off her tongue . . .
for me now
there is no separation
between sex and poetry
for Roland Barthes
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 38
artistic
masturbation!
when I remember
my ex’s cutting remark
something shrinks
the muse’s face
in the lake of my mind
I fish for words
rippling
from our ancient past
sex is sex,
nothing more and nothing less . . .
I comb
through Fan’s words
in search of nuance
the past
like a headless ghost . . .
this ache
in my heart
keeps me awake
a tanka
the site of a struggle
for meaning . . .
is my dispute with the muse
cloaked in clichéd images ?
my poetic mind
emptied
by snowy loneliness—
I’m hungry
for passion fruit
Madame Bovary
divided by Fan’s bookmark
will our dreams
be overlapping
on this midsummer night?
a purple rose
tattooed on my ex’s bosom
we used to sing
California dreamin’
on such a winter’s day
Fan and my ex
carve out their spaces
in my thoughts
the harvest moon hangs high
over the Taiwan Strait
walking alone
with my old shepherd
on Christmas day
the tumultuous crowding
of memories
the muse rising
from a sea of words
covers her breasts . . .
I am pregnant
with verses of longing
first sunlight
slanting through the window . . .
I realize
my ex’s shadow and my own
will never meet again
Fan cries out,
Your ex stands between us . . .
water stains
on my first chapbook,
The Border as Fiction
my New Year poem,
writing is making love
to the muse . . .
a raw primal pleasure
coming in wave after wave
Fan Lee’s face
blurring into my ex . . .
in the attic
the cold air sucked in and out
with my shadows
~Ajax, Canada; Toronto, Canada; Taiwan Strait,
Taiwan
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 39
Brane Grgurovič
Alenka Zorman, Slovenian-English
Translator / slovenska-angleško prevajalka
Odpiram okno
za novoletni pogled
v širjave morja.
Od nekod se spušča galeb.
Ah, streha ni moja!
Po topli plohi
jadralec preleti nebo
v barvi mavrice.
Cvetni list se osuje
s tulipana v vazi.
I open the window
for the new year’s view
of the wide sea.
A gull flies from somewhere.
Ah, the roof isn’t mine!
After a warm shower
a hang glider flies across
the iridescent sky.
A petal falls off the tulip
in my vase.
~Slovenija / Slovenia
Matjaž Tevž Potočnik
Alenka Zorman, Slovenian-English
Translator / slovenska-angleško prevajalka
Še neolistan
se hrast dviguje
v pomladno nebo.
Z bližnje hiše odpade
poslednji kos ometa.
Still leafless
an oak stretches
to the spring sky.
The last piece of plaster
falls off the nearby house.
Pomladni večer.
Prvi krajec potone
v nevihtni oblak.
Siva ženica tarna
v invalidskem vozičku.
In a spring evening
the crescent moon sinks
into a stormy cloud.
A grey-haired woman moans
in her wheelchair.
V tišini jutra
valovijo v soncu
jesenske trave.
Mimo okna gre sklonjena
senca neznanca.
Autumn grasses
wave in the sunshine
of a silent morning.
A bent stranger’s shadow
passes by the window.
V zimskem jutru
spatifil na polici
odpira bel cvet.
Trepet maminih ustnic
govori o bolečini.
In a winter morning
Spathiphyllum on the shelf
opens its white blossom.
My mother’s trembling lips
speak about the pain.
~Slovenija / Slovenia
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 40
Alenka Zorman
Alenka Zorman, Slovenian-English
Translator / slovenska-angleško prevajalka
Daleč vsaksebi
s prijateljem poslušava
isto pesem . . .
V pomladnem večeru
zaustavljava čas.
Sanjam svoj poljub
na njegovi rami
in svojo mamo,
ki nemo blagoslavlja
najino toplo bližino.
I dream about
my kiss on his arm, and
about my mum
who wordlessly blesses
our warm closeness.
~Slovenija / Slovenia
Wide apart
my friend and I listen to
the same music.
In the spring evening
we try to stop time.
Neznani ptič je
na balkonu odložil
puhasto pero.
Sanjarim o tebi, kako
me primeš za roko.
An unknown bird
has left its feather
on my balcony.
I am daydreaming of him
who holds my hand.
Vnuk odpotuje.
Na morskem obrežju
joka babica—
z milnimi mehurčki
v trepetavi roki.
Grandson departs.
His granny cries
on the seashore—
with a bottle of soap bubbles
in her trembling hand.
Ivanka Kostantino
Alenka Zorman, Slovenian-English
Translator / slovenska-angleško prevajalka
Večerno nebo
si v kodrasto pričesko
vpleta žareč trak.
V reki deročih misli
iščem drobce otroštva.
Evening sky
interweaves a red ribbon
in its curly hair.
The rapids of my thoughts search
for the pieces of my childhood.
~Slovenija / Slovenia
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 41
Elizabeth Howard
he comes walking
but how—him sick to death
I wave as I have ever done
he turns, stares unseeing
his eyes, glazed mirrors
after I dump her body
I enter the bedroom
her red wig on the dresser
the eyes white and staring
the echo of her voice
~Tennessee, USA
a treacherous journey
through night snow
to the hidden cabin—
a wiry strand of gray hair
in my old cup
out of emptiness
a broad white wing waving
or is it tail or fin?
who or what the creature
with my message of the day?
winter dusk
wraiths rise out of the smoke
wisp across the hearth
gather in dark corners
whispering hoarsely
flickering streetlight
in the mirror
the old drunk’s shadow
staggers once again
through the empty house
exploring an old graveyard
spider silk and Spanish moss
smother my face
creatures slither through the leaves
I flee, crows calling, caw, caw
dead and gone for three days
it’s Aunt Lucy calling
throughout the night
where is my gold ring?
where my gold teeth?
Diana Teneva
behind the well
you appear
thirsty for love . . .
the kiss you dare not
give to me
the treetops
scribbling in the sky
my name
can you read it
from where you are
a snowman
with a nose shortened
by a sparrow . . .
my daughter wants
an Eskimo kiss
following
Ariadne’s thread
I rummage
my mind
mazes
~Bulgaria
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 42
Margaret Van Every
the dead return
on their day of honor
miss their friends and family
mole and tequila
rancheras at top decibel
Mixtec pueblo—
they greet us barefoot on dirt floors
we buy rugs and candles
and learn to measure progress
by how well we hold back time
~Mexico
despite their efforts
to make them scared of hell
the church will never win:
fearing life more than death
Mexicans embrace the skeleton
*The first Talking Cross is said to have spoken in Chan
Santa Cruz,Yucatán, in 1850. In the Mayan tongue, it
urged the enslaved workers of the sisal haciendas to revolt.
The location became the capital of the Caste War
(1847-1901). The cult of Talking Crosses still exists in
Yucatán.
if only
we donned our mask and cape
rang the bell
and waited for the door to open
invite us in for sweets
this fecund population
bound to the church
not by the promise
of eternal life
but for love of the virgins here and now
Karla Linn Merrifield
Florida titans
half green algae half fungus
lives a double life—
one chloroplast is said to
quench your thirsty giant heart
in Yucatán
the talking crosses*
speak in Maya only
the gospel of revolt
to ears attuned to suffering
día de los muertos
in this ancient Mayan village
the bones are brought to light
scrubbed with remembrance
returned to earth another year
Florida’s airplants
soft starburst spines dripping dew
Spanish moss draping—
one quiet breath is said to
replenish the emptied soul
~Florida, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 43
Vasile Moldovan
Kath Abela Wilson
Coming out majestically
from the veil of mist
Sphinx in the Carpathians . . .
What he can read in the stars
because his silence is so deep?
Waked from sleep
a dizzy child smells
the fresh air
of this pure morn
breathing God himself
I stare at the sky
outstretched on the grass . . .
the scattered clouds
hide for a moment
the Lord’s countenance
purple butterfly
my feathers
a cauldron a mask
sing a potion stirring
insects and birds
a blue bag of bones
inside my backpack
into the night
I “do”
the jailhouse stairs
~Pasadena, California, USA
a grandson runs
back under the bed
scared of himself
staying home spooky night
to trash his costume
~San Diego, California, USA
Maybe this is
the first celestial sign
after the tempest:
the enemy camps
united by the rainbow
macabre white coated
workers in the laboratory
needles and pins
round em up roughnecks from
bad dream moving company
~Santa Barbara, California, USA
Angel voice
or human speaking?
always the same
resounding cymbal
just like a bronze bell
Only an old man
in the empty bedroom
all alone
just like the Lord
in the Garden of Eden
~Romania
on our wedding day
we heard about his fall
my estranged father
my jealous first love
chose that day to die
~Pasadena, California; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
my dad left my mom for her
how sad she confided
after he died
in her dementia he lived
downstairs with another woman
~Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 44
gay bashing attack
the old haunt above the bay
cross country
my dream of you
dying on a stretcher
the night I teased him
by putting beer in his soup
he sent nasty emails to all
our friends about me
and the witch’s brew
~Staten Island, New York; Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
~Pasadena, California, USA
he brought mom cold-cuts
after the affair
his son appalled
at betrayal so when he did
the same he avoided cold cuts
his monstrous shouts
I all night awake afraid
wrapped in a white sheet
if this had been a ghost story
it would have been better
~Brooklyn, New York ; Staten Island, New York, USA
~Santa Barbara, California, USA
sound of a rocker
in grandma’s room
she’d call in the priest
for last rites a prescription
for her daily dose of spirits
since I became pregnant
without intercourse
in the course of pregnancy
I worried I might have a dog
but of course I didn’t
~Bryan, Texas, USA
flying nun 6th grade class
threw everyone’s books
out the window
little old black bonnet head
making the tough guys cry
Kathy Noonan first grade
if you read this you know
it’s true you chased me
heavy clomp red mane
from school all the way home
Toki
I have heard tell
of the ogress Asin:
huckleberries
are hers and hers alone,
and her voice foretells death
high school sweetheart
he worked in a butcher shop
enchanted I gave him entrails
from my biology dissections
he gave me extra organs
youth pastor
says bow down to Christ
or burn in Hell
then strums as we sing
of God’s unconditional love
~Staten Island, New York, USA
~Pacific Northwest, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 45
Patricia Prime
Debbie Johnson
in sultry thunder
an enormous blue moon
hangs in the darkening sky—
this is the day of the dead
when spirits rise from graves
a vulture circles
a bloody rabbit carcass
which reminds me
how much I desire to taste
your blood tonight
like a thriller
in Hitchcock vein
costumed revelers
on Halloween night
chase each other down the street
Shhh—there are vampires
knocking on the door—be quiet!
You can have the money
and sweets—all of it yourselves
I say to my grandchildren
the spook touches me
on my bare forearm
his hand
folded round the haft of a knife
as he demands ‘trick or treat’
the most profound
and deadliest of Bosch’s visions
his own hell
beneath the illusions
based on medieval facts
a left foot wanders
the night in search of body
feels incomplete
just as I feel empty
when you are away
under full moonlight
a tombstone casts its shadow
over fresh grave site
mirrors the darkness I feel
since your untimely demise
heavy fog covers
abandoned cemetery
eerie music plays
as a skeleton’s ribs
are strummed by a ghost
~Iowa, USA
fox-trotting
at the Halloween Ball
dancers dressed
as Satan and an angel
their wings ethereal
Christina Nguyen
round the Ouija board
the marker summons up
letters—
there’s a loud scream when a girl
sees her dead mum’s name
it’s not the fact
we’re selling you short
girls
it’s the fact
we’re selling you
~New Zealand
~Minnesota, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 46
LeRoy Gorman
Medusa had it all
worked out
in vitro & no more men
but then
she lost her head
a new bridge
between nations
trolls on both sides
take up
their positions
no phitter-phatter
of little bigfoot feet
on the forest floor
where we clearcut
our footprint is large
sleep all day
& skip classes at night
teen vampires
are not all
that unusual
puts out the most
candy
the vampire
gussied up
as a vamp
thought it was
your face
I saw in the crowd
but no
it was Halloween
a debutante
but still
a nobody
the lake monster
yet to be named
hard to get into
Bram Stoker
with you dear
masked for Halloween
nibbling at my neck
zombie carollers
do they practice
before groaning
Silent Night
to death
sex with Circe
bangles made from bones
of men who came up
short as animals
do they rattle Odysseus
tourists gone
the Sasquatch
looks a little older
fading into forest
for another winter
a tank battle
lasts fifteen minutes
on the history channel
the reaper has a laugh
that lasts forever
a whir in the dark
the wingbeats
of dragons
the wingbeats
of wind turbines
~Canada
Matthew Caretti
to cross over
the dark river styx
a worn coin
for memories of ghosts
no longer there
curses lost
in tutankhamun’s vault
found again
in the bazaar
my wallet gone
~Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 47
Radhey Shiam
a ghost
in guise of a saint
entered temple
went away singing
with the golden idol
a ghost
recites the Bible
every Sunday morning
sitting near a grave
the watchman is puzzled
chilly night
a lady slipped
into my bed
to my horror
she was a ghost
a group of ghosts
enjoys feast of
bones and wine
near the graveyard
midnight
at her son’s grave
she offered flowers
to her surprise
she found her son
smiling before her
in the graveyard
sounds of a piano
I looked around
a lady in white
laughs at me
ruins of a palace
I still hear
sounds of a piano
ladies laughter
clapping of hands
long line of devotees
struggle to get an early chance
a stampede
fifty devotees injured
forty killed
after a holy dip
I sat on the bank of Ganga
the mother Ganga
appeared and
blessed me
sitting on wings
of a butterfly
an elephant flew in the sky
landed on Everest
and met a snow fairy
an aged lady
on the unique carpet
flew higher and higher
landed at White House
to surprise the President
gamble at Dewali night
is ceremonial blessing
a drunkard
put his wife on bet
and lost her
the priest sacrificed
a buffalo
to goddess Durga
to bless the couple
with a baby
on her way to the temple
she saw a round stone
she worshiped the stone
offered water and flowers
and returned home
a monk with a bowl
stands at the road
a passer by
dropped a dead fish
in the bowl
~India
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 48
Tish Davis
Amada Burgard
allowing us
to tour its lighthouse, it rubs
against my ankles
invisible gray cat
at Fairport Harbor
a young girl sits,
eyes to the fire
awakening spirits,
she speaks
to the trees
in the pumpkin patch
far behind the farmhouse
the wind-up bear
still searching
for his lost boy
in darkest forests,
on darkest nights,
the slendermen gather,
to offer
frights
~Ohio, USA
dark trees,
under moonlight,
the black wolf
stumbles,
becoming man
crows bow,
spirits take refuge,
the wise woman
wanders
amongst the trees
Paul Mercken
Paul Mercken, Dutch-English
Translator
de meester vraagt
waarom dwaal je weg van de school
het visje antwoordt
omdat het vakantie is
the master asks
why do you stray away
from the school
the little fish answers
because it’s a holiday
the raging moon
holds no power
upon
the will
of the trees
the autumn trees
witness
scattered in a field
bones of the sacred,
magic of the wind
~The Black Forest, Germany
~The Netherlands
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 49
Nu Quang
Gerry Jacobson
opening the door . . .
George Bush and Dick Cheney shout
“trick or treat”
I fill their bags
with bowls of Tootsie Rolls
waking at midnight
I feel a hand press my shoulder
lying flat
I hear footsteps
disappearing out of the window
moonless night
walking past a cemetery
she starts to run
hearing sobs
footsteps follow her
~United States
my first pilgrimage
to the Black Lady Mountain
I gaze out
at the dawning sky
a goddess standing on clouds
~Vietnam
moonlight . . .
approaching the Mother
through a field gate . . .
the grizzled kisses
of the ancestors
~Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, England
leaning
against his headstone . . .
two hundred years . . .
closing my eyes
the veil is thin
~Lamas churchyard, Norfolk, England
Finis Terre
where the world ends
I’ll
never get there now . . .
for me there is another
~Cape Finisterre, Galicia, Spain
twenty five
gaunt and dying
how did he feel . . .
never became Shakespeare
never slept with Fanny?
~Keats House, Hampstead, England
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 50
Joy McCall
Susan Burch
all soul’s night
and through the empty park
the shadows creep
and through the long lonely dark
a young woman weeps
down the dark hall
of the old manor
Anne Boleyn
carries her severed head
under her arm
Based on true story of Anna Pappenheimer.
~Blicking Hall, Norfolk, UK
the black dog
howls in the night, haunting
these flatlands—
village children wake screaming,
dark Shuck snarling at the door
~Bungay, Suffolk, UK
midnight
and at the pub door
the hanged priest knocks—
the weary landlord brings
the penitential ale
~The Buck Inn, Norwich, UK
the ferry drifts
down and across the river
on the tides—
night after night, plague souls
leave the doomed village
accused of witchcraft
her breasts were cut off and
force-fed to her sons
the bitter taste
of humiliation
leaving her house
barefoot
in the rain
his bloody footprints
run down the gutter
from my window
I can almost see the hole
in the old oak tree
the cache of panties
the police couldn’t find
sitting
in McDonald’s
depressed
though everything says,
“I’m lovin’ it”
detained for
shoplifting at Macy’s
my teenage daughter
yells, “see! here’s my receipt!”
to the man, face blood red
~Surlingham Ferry, Norfolk, UK
two a.m.
writing dark tanka
I wonder—
is some far-future human
dreaming me?
~United Kingdom
riding the metro
the b.o., perfumes, stronger
as the doors close
a stranger
takes my breath away
~United States
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 51
Autumn Noelle Hall
Halloween yowl
a white tom mooning
between pumpkins
yearning for his yin—
black cat on the prowl
black cat
sinks a single crescent claw
deeper . . .
the waning moon pulls me
into its velvet night
with this candle
beneath your chin, call her name
three times: Bloody Mary . . .
Bloody Mary . . . have no fear
—it’s just a tanka mirror
10-second shutter
turns her into a ghost
this daughter
who once tried to kill herself
now in living black-and-white
Ochtertyre
round Samhain fire, a stone
for every man . . .
come morning, they’ll live out the year,
all those whose stones remain
licking his name
off the calavera
she tastes only
the sweetness of his life
Día de los Muertos
looting my kids’ loot
to find my favorite
chocolate treats—
a Halloween trick I gleaned
by my parents’ example
epitaph:
died laughing when asked how much
she’d earned for her poems
Día de los Muertos
calaveras literarias
the princess bloated
from the coat stuffed underneath
her gown
her crown a-top a ski-cap
—Iowa Halloween
Samhain sills of Erin
where turnip lanterns ward
away the Fae . . .
from far and starved for magick
my Irish blood bids them stay
herbalists,
healers, knowledge-keepers
spelled into witches
and scattered like kernels
beaten from broom corn
the spice of sage
from the arroyo, it raises
all their hopes
for a safe border-crossing
pinned on the pumpkin-pie moon
I hear tell
they once lynched Italians
in N’Orleans . . .
any head can wear a hood
any neck, a noose
dad’s careful carving
eye for eye, tooth for tooth
all lit up
some punk beats our pumpkin
to a pulp—SMASH
Halloween birthday
he drops treats in goodie sacks
tricked into thinking
those elaborate costumes
were all donned just for him
~United States
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 52
Natsuko Wilson
gennepher
walking
to my parked car on the street
after jury duty
i get a parking ticket—
a welcome relief to return-to-life
on the wall
of the dental surgeon’s office
a laser-operated photo
of a landscape
exposes every detail of the trees
a dandelion
through a crack in the concrete path
between the buildings
is about to bloom
so alone but proudly
hanging
on the wall a puppet on a string
shadows
advance
on the sleeping child
the child
woke up with a start
a witch in black
outside her bedroom window
on her broomstick
~Southampton, England
the child
played on the marshes
a gibbet
remained by the stile
the rotten rope perfectly still
~Ontario, Canada
skeletal hulks
of prison ships
rotting
ribcages
rising out of the mudflats
Nilufer Y. Mistry
~Marshes, River Medway, Kent, England, UK
marauding shamal
her blinding wall of sand
overcasts . . . sandblasts
our sleek city towers
our walls of glass
sunrise for the faithful
light desert-dunes on fire
& rose-rimmed sandstone minarets
flare crimson above the Adhan
whispered on the wind
~Dubai, United Arab Emirates
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 53
Joanne Morcom
Jenny Ward Angyal
headless bodies
in 200 Mile Gorge
where men searched for gold
and found instead
a wendigo
only bones
under the turned earth
of Bloody Kansas—
those passenger pigeons
the Choctaw called lost doves
more than a legend
the Jersey Devil lurks
in the Pine Barrens
a solitary hunter
of warm blooded creatures
~Kansas, USA
~Jersey Barrens, New Jersey, USA
no such thing
as alien abduction
I’m only dreaming
about a planet
ruled by lizards
searching for Cthulhu
in the wilds of Rhode Island
expedition members
first lose their way
then their sanity
I read aloud
from the Necronomicon
to summon the Old Ones
but they don’t come
to do my bidding
summertime
and the grave robbing
is easy
I find a use
for every body part
a priest told her
no Jews allowed in heaven—
she raised me
under a white oak
and named it Paradise
~Connecticut, USA
the shark’s tooth
like a dragon’s tongue
filling my palm
bubbles of sea foam
on shifting sand
~North Carolina, USA
slow down
slow down the song
of the wood thrush
until at last it echoes
the music of humpbacked whales
~Virginia, USA
badlands
a good place
for digging graves
the only watchers
spiders and snakes
~Rhode Island, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 54
C. William Hinderliter
Pravat Kumar Padhy
jack-o-lantern smile
the glint
from the carving knife
of the scarecrow
on my doorstep
my shadow
lengthens towards light
the cry of owl
reminds me in dream
it is still midnight
divorce court decree
she points out
the small print
of our prenup
signed in blood
past, present and future
embedded in Krishna’s* mouth
the far off
dust, dark and dance of fire
through Hubble Space telescope
cemetery moon
strolling through the fog
on the long way home
the graveyard
whistles back
enchanted forest
the crunch of the frost
on the old deer trail
the howl of the wind
and the wolves on my trail
forbidden love . . .
the ghosts of my past
still haunting me
the sound of the “wind”
as it rattles my door
~Phoenix, Arizona, USA
*In the Hindu religion books it is narrated how Lord
Krishna manifested the spectrum of universe to his mother,
Yoshoda, by opening his mouth.
Nataraja*
in cosmic dance
God particles
sparkle the stillness
in the discovery tunnel
*Natraja is regarded as cosmic dancer and is depicted of
God Shiva.
Boddhi tree—*
in deep meditation
closing my eyes
I turn within discovering
reflection of sound and light
*Boddhi tree is regarded as the sacred tree, located in Bodh
Gaya, India. Lord Buddha attained enlightenment under
the tree.
~India
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 55
Matsukaze
house full
of local children
gathering for a seance—
next door
a grandmother dies
abandoned cemetery
a shawl of mist
damp leaves,
their brittle sound
unnerves the children
Day of The Dead
my neighbor’s son
thinks it’s cute
to dress up
as rotting flesh
grandma
later found at
grandad’s grave
rehashing the
years they enjoyed
everyone
in the neighborhood
avoids Mrs. McDougal’s
dark home—
she sacrificed her baby
this Halloween
had a party
and
we opted to watch
‘Rosemary’s Baby’
each Halloween
the children scared
by Mr. Harkless
in the cemetery
calling for his dead lover
an old
abandoned cabin—
consulting a medium,
she searches
for a vein in my arm
each year
buying costumes
and candy,
Nana warns us about
devils and demons
my friend
tells me the Mayor’s wife
conducts a black mass
in the basement
of St. Matthew’s Methodist Church
outskirts of town—
several deranged ones
escape the local asylum
on Halloween—
Marlice Hammond’s daughter disappears
dear sister,
you were on my mind;
i, a brown rabbi
paced the length of dry corridors
reciting *berakhah
*berakhah: Hebrew for blessings/benedictions
it was while standing in line
i wondered
were you ok,
in that quiet
town of Norwich?
wanted
to send you several
waka in two lines
so their arms could hold you,
suspending you in a blues of love
~Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 56
Deborah P. Kolodji
lake ripples
of a son’s last
sighting . . .
el vestido blanco
de La Llorona
Janet Lynn Davis
breathless,
will I ever slow down
my racing thoughts?
a roadrunner pauses
on the sunlit grass
midnights
and full moons
our howls
echoing
each other
~Grimes County, Texas, USA
a cottontail
camping out in a bed
of garlic . . .
why am I drawn to things
that ought to repel me?
a sudden chill
and neck pin pricks . . .
it’s midnight
in the Queen Mary
boiler room
~home, Grimes County, Texas, USA
another argument
about ghosts:
the unexplained
light blob
on your photograph
reflections
leap off the water . . .
a statue
beside the Roman Pool
of Diana and the Stag
~Kern County, California, USA
~Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California, USA
Alexander Jankiewicz
a figure
at my doorway
translucent
turning toward me
sleepless in bed
at the ER
a fleeting connection . . .
the screams
of an unseen stranger
echoing mine
~emergency center, Tomball, Texas, USA
mission bells
above the garden—
Joy, Sorrow
and at the center
Gloria
full moon dreams
hearing echoes
of childhood
ghosts from the past
whispering my name
~San Luis Obispo, California , USA
~Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 57
Robert Annis
moth wings
silent beneath the fan
staring
into the light
you fall asleep
the tree branch
hydras over coffee mugs
one day
I’ll call my hands
gnarled
without wind
the rain falls in bars
so straight and thin
I might slip through
completely dry
bed sheets
drying in the sun
my father
insists
I sleep more
pink sunset
bouquets the boulevard
palm tree crowns
pinball
in a rogue gust
three crows
French braid the air
a rise and fall
dance before
the storm
the train crawls
in its stern blue steel
singing midnight
the cicadas slept
their seventeen years all at once
Christmas lights
web October branches
abandoned
an ice cube melts
in a sweating glass
my father’s finger
maps out our road trip
in the old atlas
a dead friend lives
through hidden photographs
in the stairwell
black ants dismantle
a cicada
—the shrinking corpse
of summer
midnight plums
cool in kitchen shade
I could not wait
for breakfast
to eat them
umbrella shadows
jellyfish on the sidewalk
dancing
to a polyrhythm
of sopping shoes
the naked summit
peeks through tufts
of fine nimbus
his brown halo
just a bit wider than mine
on the tracks
we balance, pushing
against the other’s
hand to stay
upright
the lake
laps my ankles
slowly I sink
into black mud
holding a slack line
the waiting room
is full of anxious limbs
—an empty chair
and clipboard
between each of us
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 58
a lean doe
stoops to nibble weeds
from my lawn
I douse the headlights
in favor of the moon
nine stories
over Times Square
a maid folds sheets
with her eyes closed
singing in Chinese
a purple flower
peeks out from the green
of my garden
I reach slowly
and pull the weed at last
subway car
my brother and I
double check
that it’s empty
before doing pull-ups
electric night
beams from headlights
—reflections
from the frozen eyes
of a deer into mine
~New York City, New York, USA
a hungry cloud
nibbles the moon
I fall asleep
to electric rain
pouring from the speaker
hiking mount Rainier
winter is slow to leave
my first snowball
burns my hand
in June
~Southeast of Seattle, Washington, USA
my father’s attic
holds its hot breath
—a photograph
of me fishing
with a dead uncle
the grass pales
thirsty under a clear sky
flies circle
a forgotten trash bag
its sleek black shining
Wallace Stevens
sends his blackbird
to taunt me
its shadow warbles
just beneath my pen
~Florida, USA
in Central Park
October wind spreads
leaves in waves
a homeless woman sketches
deciduous branches
Ernesto P. Santiago
the “nine-dash line”,
and yet another dash
—Spratly Islands,
my eyes wide as skies
as I read “The Iliad”
August full moon
at the Athens Acropolis,
wandering bards—
I surround myself with
patience to lift me higher
~Greece
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 59
Zoe Savina
Constantine Fourakis, Greek-English
Translator
θα ‘θελα κάτι
που να μην με προδίδει
Θεός ή φίλος
αγάπη να μην είναι
. . . και κλαίω τις προδοσίες . . .
I’d like something
that will not betray me,
a God or friend,
yet, love it may not be
and I mourn betrayals
κομμένο ρόδι
μικρό σπουργίτι τσιμπά
. . . κόκκινο στόμα
—κι άλλοι το αναζητούν
για της χρονιάς το γούρι!
a cut pomegranate
a small robin pecks on it
. . . a bright red mouth
—sought by others too
for this year’s good luck!
παλιά κιθάρα—
μια σκιά τα δάκτυλα
το μπράτσο γυμνό
μ’ ένα πουλί τατουάζ
γλυκά να τραγουδά
an old guitar,
a shadow of fingers
the arm is naked
with a tattooed bird
twittering sweetly
~Greece
Geoffrey Winch
clearly as the sea
Blake saw Milton
never envisioned
restaurant sailing-club beach-huts
tennis-courts houses putting-green
~William Blake’s cottage, Felpham, West Sussex, UK
πρώτο άνθισμα
στην όχθη των χειλιών σου
ουράνιο τόξο
—μια απόσβεση θυμού
μ’ επτά μόλις χρώματα
the first blooming
on the bank of your lips,
a rainbow
—an effacement of anger
in only seven colours
coffin-lid ledger stones
with blazoned swords or crosses
but no written legends:
could be crusaders
buried beneath this nave
~St Wilfrid’s Chapel, Church Norton, West Sussex, UK
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 60
Michael Dylan Welch
Alexis Rotella
continuing drizzle—
in the flood plain
inside the Japanese dyke
bales of hay rolled
just like Nebraska
In a Paris café
a white angora
on a velvet cushion
eating bits of filet
each dipped in cream.
~along the Mogawa River, near Gifu, Japan
~Paris, France
I’m a taxidermist
says the other man
in my rain-streaked shared cab—
me too,
says the driver
The bell of the lily
beside the priest
as he gives
my father
his last rites.
~New York City, New York, USA
~Windber, Pennsylvania, USA
up late the night before
our flight to Japan—
again I zip
and then unzip
our suitcase
The sea has many ears
the old woman
with deep
apron pockets
tells my brother and me.
~California, USA
~Rehobeth, Delaware, USA
Is Santa real
I ask
my uncle—
as real as Jack Frost
he says.
Pat Geyer
buttercups
in sunshine, these little
cups of gold . . .
i share a chalice of rain
with my thirsty garden fairy
~USA
The child I was
visits the old woman
who lives by the creek
as leeches suck bad blood
from her tumored arms.
~Cairnbrook, Pennsylvania, USA
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 61
Eamonn O’Neill
my Ireland
the lady asks
what can I tell her—
we have rivers
and we have dreams
we grow old
in Ireland
realising that our lives
could topple
the Church of Rome
at my age
I begin to dream again
of words
there is tenderness in Ireland
amidst the fairy tales
these killers get close
they shoot
uncaring
it’s all about the next fix
in Dublin
any night
in the posh shop doorways
our huddled homeless
most people don’t give a shit
in Dublin
by the Liffey’s side
the boardwalk junkies hell
he waits for a fix
sure I’m already dead
the fucks it to you anyway
I trawl the birth records
for my elder brother
born dead
would he have protected me
would I now be whole
my born dead brother
was never talked about
my mother of the secrets
took to her grave so much
of the unsaid
my younger brother
doesn’t talk to me
and I don’t talk to him
this legacy of the unsaid
is frightening
suddenly
this anger
yet just for today
I curse
those who stole my soul
I read those pretty poems
as if pretty
makes you cry
but I can dig deep
to the darkness of the dead
is this what it’s all about
this rawness
of the gut
you turn out the light
and there are only plastic flowers
~Dublin, Ireland
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 62
Poetry and Melancholy: Jeffrey Woodward’s Another Garden
Reviewed by Charles Tarlton
Introduction of black is the key to the late intensity
of color, the foil for his generous palette . . . . (1)
poem allows us to get over them, to stare into the
abyss symbolically and survive it.
The first four sections of Another Garden, a
hundred pages or so, are made up of selections
from Woodward’s tanka, tanka sequences, and
tanka prose. These are in turn divided up into
four sections: A Deck of Cards, Partial Census, Blue
Flag, and The Simple News. A fifth and final
section, Lagniappe, contains two influential essays
by Woodward and an interview with Woodward
conducted by Claire Everett. All three of these
prose pieces deal with Woodward’s views of the
history and future of tanka and tanka prose in
English. I will consider the poetry first and then
at the end turn briefly to the critical writings.
Dreams Deferred
waste places and disturbed sites
Right across the poems in Another Garden we
can detect a persistent underlying rhythm of
melancholy. There are poems about faded youth,
about lost and faithless love, about dashed hopes
and dreams; there are poems about lives ground
down by misfortune, failure, madness, death,
resignation, and routine, and there are poems
about regret and foreboding. Here and there, the
poet musters up brief moments of ironic
optimism in which he takes a stand for hope or
even happiness against these tendencies, but like
stick writing on the beach, the waves of fatalism
wash up again to all but erase these.
Still, pathos in the tone and subject of the
poems does not necessarily mean despair in the
act of poeticizing; a poet may write of misspent
youth or love betrayed but still do so in ways that
allow poet, poem, and reader to find solace at
another level. Viewed in this way, the poetic act is
an example of what Kenneth Burke called—
“equipment for living.” Facing pain, sadness, or
fear through the language and structure of the
It was the common perhaps even required
ambition of young American men of a certain
generation to defy convention and devote
themselves to the bohemia of Art—poetry,
novels, and paintings for their own sake, made in
poverty, on drugs, or as expressions of social and
sexual alienation. Everyone can readily identify
icons of this dream—Salinger and Vonnegut,
Eliot and Ginsburg, Rothko and Motherwell.
But, for every aspiring young talent who achieved
artistic success in this mode, there were thousands
more for whom the dream fizzled and they had
to drop the show and earn a living.
Many of Woodward’s poems zero in on this
storyline. There is the young man posed in
romantic garb, armed with a book of poetry, and
his head filled with the artistic heroics of
Rimbaud, who has to admit to himself and us
(mixing Heraclitus and Kerouac) that “no one
steps twice onto the same road” (Photograph at 19).
In another context, while his contemporaries
were choosing the way of economic success, the
voice of the poem “squandered the fortune of
my youth—on the luxury of reciting aloud
another man’s finely-tuned phrase or praising the
harmony of another man’s palette” (Halo). But, it
is not all idealism and puerile hope.
there must be a book
about this place
with such counsels as
may save me from the lonely
fall of a winter’s night
In another tanka prose, Woodward celebrates
the Chinese poet Tao Qian, “who chose the
rudeness of the common country path over the
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 63
sophisticated corridor of imperial preferment,
the patient poverty of studious seclusion over the
ready riches of a busy courtier’s life” (Peach
Blossom Spring). Tao Qian’s poem of the same
title, a utopian fantasy of a daydreaming
fisherman, betrays a common longing, “the same
today and yesterday.”
in a time of war
I too would flee here
peach blossoms
scatter and color
a villager’s white hair
she lies on her back
in the cool grass awhile
a winding stream
nearby parallel
a cloud in the sky
my taste inclined
through a long dry season
to stone and water . . .
but now it is there, for love,
in the tangles of your hair
But such moments of ardor are rhythmically
counterpoised by darker sentiments like this—
***
though the mayfly
may not live to
love tomorrow
in loving tonight he
outlives your vow
I too would sit
with the ancient ones
for a time
in the delicate shade
of peach blossoms
or this one, even more bitterly—
Peach blossoms here symbolize leaving the world
behind in the pursuit of Art, but tellingly,
Woodward puts them in a daydream, like the
attitudes struck by the self-conscious youths
perched above the river in Woodberry Tavern, who
drink tequila neat, and “speak of Velásquez as if
he were one of our crew” (Woodberry Tavern).
The young poet who looks out from these
recollections is, of course, long gone. He exists
now only in Woodward’s artfully rendered
nostalgia as a green and hopeful spirit whose
future was, when these snapshots were taken,
unknown. Woodward leaves it there, and does
not drag that youth’s precise fate into the picture,
as if he meant to preserve that innocence.
through a withered garden
But, there is another voice in these poems, an
older and wiser voice that is not so green, a
bruised voice that talks almost wholly in
pessimistic terms about—love—as a tug-of-war
between fond, fleeting, and sexy memories, on
the one hand, and a residuum of heartbreak, on
the other. Here are some scattered small
examples of the former—
lying on her side
pretty chin propped up
in her hand she
looks girlishly innocent
and yet she lies
These short bitter lamentations on false love,
betrayal, and loneliness recur right across the
text, like currants in a scone (so that you get one
in almost every bite). Here is one last example—
long incised upon
an upright slate of stone
the now illegible
but once familiar name
of one left here alone
Not only does this theme of lost or betrayed
love recur regularly in Woodward’s individual
tanka, it is also the central focus of three of his
major tanka prose—Souvenir, Venetian Blinds, and
Morro Bay. Crucially positioned as these works are
at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the
poetry in this book, they remind us of the central
importance here of the pathos surrounding
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 64
physical love. They demand and will reward a
closer look.
In Souvenir Woodward has constructed a
nearly perfect tanka envelope—one tanka, a bit
of prose, and another tanka. In the first tanka the
poet looks up to catch an adventitious glimpse of
a girl in a popular pub—
light falls from her hair
onto a gold necklace
and lapis lazuli
a carafe’s close shadow
of cerulean blue
let the midday light and palm
pass through to stripe
peach and green a satin sheet
and sleeping woman too
Directly, this reminds the poet of someone—
“you in high summer here at my side your
eastern city far behind.” But the poet is disturbed
by the vision and abruptly leaves “that
shimmering aura where it lingers with an
admirer about a corner table.” Nevertheless, the
“shadow” of the remembered “you” dogs the
poet out into the darkness of October, “into a
sudden evening into a windy street.”
We are set up, at this point, for some further
poignant revelations: what is so disturbing? we
want to know. The poet immediately obliges with
this closing tanka.
if I turn back now
and look to the east
the heavens blacken
A setting of dire intonation if ever there was one;
and then we get this—
where tonight you lie at ease
beside another.
A second, seedier narrative can be found in
the tanka sequence—Venetian Blinds. Love affairs
that begin in “a rented room / with a single
window” offer, perhaps, a fleeting ecstasy, but
seldom real happiness. The interior of the room
delivers a temporary “intimacy,” yes, but there is
something foreboding in these tanka lines—
her high heels click
a door clicks to
And then, reversing the more sanguine logic of
the tanka prose, The Silence that Inhabits Houses,
about Matisse’s painting of a room in which the
color black is featured and in which bleak faceless
readers gaze upon a wordless book, the Venetian
blinds here are drawn to shut out the items
present in both poems, the “royal palm and
seaside view.” Though closed, the blinds do not
block everything, but—
But the woman who was—
nakedly there
before
is now fully clothed and—
the interior
intimately
ebbs away
with the click of her heels
with the tide of the bay
And, then she is gone, because erotic suggestion,
as Woodward hints in another tanka prose also
containing disturbing blank faces (this time a
clock’s), is consubstantial with the ebbing away of
“the primal tidal sway” (The Black Clock).
Casual liaisons rise up to frustrate the longing
for real love in the tanka prose, Morro Bay, when
the poet wakes through “the slit of my rumsoaked eyes and stare[s] offshore past the stranger
whose satin robe parts innocently as she tosses
back her platinum pageboy with bangs and I
taste the salt in the air.” And, here comes the tide
again—
a seaworthy trawler
called from night
fishing to port
rolls with a billow
in the morning glare
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 65
Lest we imagine the scene here to be more
genteel than previous assignations, the poet
quickly disabuses us. “Somewhere between
midnight and dawn,” he discloses at the end, “I
misplaced her name. She did not ask me and I
did not tell her mine” (Morro Bay).
We can perhaps treat this one last tanka as a
summary of the Woodwardian outlook on the
transience of love—
I did not flinch but
closely weighed her every word
and only then walked out
as I’d walked in, alone
through a withered garden
In the space remaining I would like to pursue
this last thread by an examination of three of
Woodward’s tanka prose: Tor House, Needles by
Night, and Seamen’s Bethel, New Bedford, each dark
and bleak in its own way.
In Tor House Woodward recounts a visit to
Robinson Jeffers’s stone house in Carmel,
California. A sad, inevitable, and deterministic
outlook saturates the poem, although to be
strictly honest, it is not said to be Woodward’s
view so much as Jeffers’s—“man will be blotted
out, the blithe earth die.”(2) Jeffers is depicted as
building Tor House, his stone house-edifice of
granite boulders hauled with great effort from the
beach against all odds. Then, ironically, we hear
Jeffers’s own words again—
Bleak, Disheartening Travelogues
once seaworthy, indeed, but
lately beached and left to rot
Woodward’s choice of persons and places to
“visit” in his tanka prose tends toward the
desolate and the piteous. Not all of his poems
eulogize bleakness, of course, many focus on
more comforting topics—beauty and tenderness.
Still, the larger part of his attention is devoted to
stories of indigence, madness, dejection,
isolation, failure, and affliction. Listen to some
representative and general observations—
the grass is withered
and every flower
of the field also
their proud colors muted now
muddied red, gray or brown
the stunted pine
that I planted years ago
still stands there
stooped over
refusing to grow
like the weight of
a great stone to
the calloused hand
now stonily numb
this winter sun
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain
Robinson Jeffers’s pessimism was not unfounded;
in time his headland at Carmel was stuffed with
the newer sort of expensive houses, about which
James Tate has more recently written—
your strange carbuncular creation,
now rented to trillionaire nonliterary folk from Pasadena.
Edged in on all sides by trilevel
pasteboard phantasms . . . . (3)
Woodward’s sympathetic lament turns back
upon itself, though, as he seems to realize that he,
the same as all the other tourists, has “come now
to marvel at your handiwork, even now to rest
their hands upon your stone.” The wear and tear
that erodes whole civilizations, the inexorable
grinding down by Time about which Jeffers had
waxed so philosophically has not in this case
happened. The stones in the present still appear
to be eternal, only the context has changed, has
become urbanized, and in Woodward’s words,
Jeffers is left only to lament his loss of “an
unbroken field of poppy and lupin.” The tanka
that finish this poem carry the dismal mood to
the end—
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 66
not far from the house
I find the wind-worn
Monterey cypress
did you plant this one,
this gaunt one, this evergreen
and then this at the very end—
go, then, with the grain
of this, your granite—
I see you there, a child
of the wind, of the tide . . .
and brother to a stone
Needles “here” is surely not so much a place as a
stage or phase on an otherwise unspecified and,
perhaps, pointless journey.
In some ways, I have saved the clearest
example of the melancholic tone of Woodward’s
overall vision for last. Seamen’s Bethel, New Bedford,
recounts Woodward’s visit to the chapel
commemorating dead whalers and fishermen in
New Bedford, Massachusetts. Woodward mixes
history (the story of the Chapel and its dedication
to the dangers of sailing) and literature (episodes
by Melville from and about Moby Dick).
Once the mood has been set by a brief (is it
original to our poet?) sea shanty, we learn of the
“[t]hirty-one cenotaphs on the wall that name
and number the men who did not dock again, at
this port”—one fell to his death from the mast,
one taken by a shark, one simply lost at sea. We
learn in rapid succession that Melville was
amazed at the “actual cannibals” hanging around
the town, “savages outright.”
The dead sailors died for lamp oil, “dipped
with whalers in the blood of their prey, the flesh
and harpoon together cleansed.” In Ahab’s mad
terms, as he baptizes the harpoon, “Ego non
baptizo te in nomine patris,” he says, “sed nomine
diaboli.” Death at sea, Ahab’s madness, the
moralism of Quaker merchants, all come
together in the anathema of this chapel,
dedicated to exactly what—a sailor’s dangerous
life and death, racial curiosity, moral and
religious posturing—“this salt-cured and seasick
chapel?”
The tanka prose concludes in bleak terms.
“The winter light of New England is constant
and pewter on the panes. I rise to take my leave
but the thirty-one tablets stay, the winding-sheet
of the wind unraveling below in the harbor.”
The tanka prose Needles by Night causes odd
reverberations in me when I read it. I grew up in
San Bernardino County, California, where
Needles, being on the California-Arizona border,
is the most eastern city. As boy and much later, I
have crossed and re-crossed that desert in all sorts
of old and new cars. It is a remote and desolate
place in the day, eerie in the headlights of a car at
night.
Woodward manages to give expression to all
this in his repetition, at the beginning of each
prose passage and in the first following tanka, of
the words “coming into Needles.” The
anticipation generated is then thwarted, of
course, because (as Gertrude Stein said about
Oakland) “there is no there there.” You no more
than come into Needles, then you are as quickly
out—
coming into Needles
only to pass through
and quickly
into the wide desert
of the night again
With each of the poem’s “re-entries” we are:
“at the end of a blistering day;” or “on the dusty
coattail of a bit of night wind and heat
lightning;” or “on the sly and under cover of
darkness;” or, finally, “by way of the main street
10:30 p.m. a digital bank clock remarks for the
record 112 Fahrenheit . . . .” The desolation of
the desert at Needles is further reinforced by two
dramatic images that punctuate the tanka—
and every hour or so the ghost
of tumbleweed floats on the road
and gray and scraggly through
the halo of your high-beams
the trickster coyote
I’ve sat in this pew, then,
not unpredictably far
back from the pulpit . . .
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 67
I shut the chapel door, sleet
on the cobbles of Johhny Cake Hill
We might end, then, with Father Mapple’s
(Melville’s own creation) paean to gloom, delivered
in this very chapel, “Woe to him who seeks to
pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed
them into a gale!”
In summing up, I want to bring forward one
last tanka tucked away at the end of a section
entitled “Resident Angel.” T his tanka
summarizes for me the overall tone and
sentiment of Another Garden. It is a gem.
no way to skip it
but I toss the stone
sidearm nonetheless
and listen to it clatter
across the frozen river
The poet resolved to encompass his experience in
this collection, no matter that the effort might
reverberate in unexpected, harsh, and often bleak
caverns.
Coda: On Tanka Prose
Finally, Jeffrey Woodward’s Another Garden
provides us with clear examples of his formal and
pedagogical contributions to the promotion of
tanka prose in the West. Appended to the poetry
is a section entitled, Lagniappe: Two Essays, One
Interview, containing three seminal prose
contributions by Woodward, each of which
displays his knowledge and erudition in the
history and exportation of Japanese poetic forms.
These essays will appeal especially to poets
and readers curious about other forms of
widening, so to speak, the context surrounding
the individual tanka poem, as in tanka sequences
and the like. But, there is a second and more
important thread in these essays that concerns
the question of tanka prose in the history of
literary genres. Here is Woodward at his best:
Two temptations beset tanka. The first lies in
an appeal to ossified “tradition,” in a
misinterpretation or falsification of tanka
that aims at slavish imitation of Japanese
models in subject and form. True tradition, it
seems to me, can be deciphered only by
serious study of tanka literature and history,
by the identification of those vital qualities
that transcend generational change as well as
by an identification, on the negative side, of
capricious trends and stylistic mannerisms.
We must presume, of course (if only to be
logical), some limit which lyrical innovation
cannot exceed without breaking its link to tanka
prose per se, but, luckily, no one now can say
exactly what or where that limit lies (although, of
course, some editors would like to chain tanka
and tanka prose to their own diffident and
mechanical restrictions). At the center of
Woodward’s contribution in this connection is the
idea that, whatever its origins, tanka prose has
now been assimilated into Western poetry and is
more or less free to follow where the poets writing
it want to take it. Art not edict will dictate the
future of tanka prose; better, as it were, alive than
dead.
The push and pull between prose passage
and five-line poem when set over against each
other is always complicated. To prescribe any one
kind of relation here as more correct, as purer, or
more legitimate would stymie the potential
flowering of the form. What I mean is this:
sometimes an effective tanka prose arises from
the harmony of the prose and the poem, from
the derivation of one from the other; but other
times it might as easily arise from a conflict
between them, from the spark generated by the
two in unnatural proximity; and, finally, a
powerful tanka prose might also grow out of far
more oblique connections, as when, for example,
the poet seeks to induce the poem by provoking
marginal, hidden, or anachronistic aspects of the
prose to generate one or a series of more or less
dissonant tanka. Tanka prose can find inspiration
not only from its Vermeers and Mozarts, but also
from its equivalents of Cy Twombly and Philip
Glass.
Charles D. Tarlton
San Francisco/Dublin
January, 2014
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 68
Notes
(1) Jeffrey Woodward, Another Garden (Detroit:
Tournesol Books, 2013) Pp. 13-178.
(2) To the Stone-Cutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore
defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records
fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as
well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die,
the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and
pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
1924
(3) “Failed Tribute to the Stonemason of Tor
House,” Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poems (1991).
January, A Tanka Diary
by M. Kei
Reviewed by Patricia Prime
January: A Tanka Diary by M. Kei
Keibooks, Perryville, Maryland, USA, 2013
$US 18.00.
Available from Amazon as a Kindle e-book for
$US 5.00.
M. Kei is a distinguished author, poet and
editor of Atlas Poetica. His latest poetic offering,
January: A Tanka Diary, is a collection of 640 tanka
of which 220 are unpublished. The rest have
been collected from the tanka he has written and
published in many venues. Finely articulated, the
poems range from resonant lyricism to breezy
pleasantries to dense poems about life, death and
everything in between.
The tanka present a refreshing variety of
content and one is drawn to the honesty and
immediacy of his thoughts and observations. The
title is appropriate, not only in a metaphorical
sense but also because the tanka refer specifically
to a year in the life of the poet beginning from
the cold and dreary month of January and
continuing until the following January. Each
tanka appears on a monthly basis on the day on
which it was written.
In these tanka images of processes in nature
and of the natural world are analogues of
feelings and intuitions which cannot be expressed
in any other way. Descriptions of the scenes, the
birds, the water, the plants, set the mood and
measure the emotions. Images and the language
that contains them evoke happiness, love, sex,
pain, joy, sadness and loss.
Perhaps one has to shift into another gear to
read this poetry, with its quiet, confident rhythm
that links the poet to the world known and
unknown. Sometimes the tanka are presented in
a traditional juxtaposition of human and natural
elements, as in the first tanka:
a fresh leaf
white in the winter
of a new year;
it seems a shame
to mar it with words
Just as effective are those tanka which are a
form of analyzing what will happen after we are
dead and gone:
when the world of men is gone,
who will scatter
the ashes of our existence,
who will place the memorial
of our dying?
The authentic voice of the poet can be heard
in many of the poems, including those that seem
to come wholly from nature:
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 69
first birdsong of the year
somewhere,
amid all the brown gloom,
a small life is
happy to greet the day
This collection of interwoven poems in
which the ‘subject’ is simultaneously created and
dismantled, placed and complicated by the
tanka’s self-conscious attention to perception, to
the constructing of images and therefore to the
status of a work of art in its contemplation, is
masterful.
M. Kei is a major tanka poet. His
craftsmanship is impressive, language honed to
the instrument of his intellect, wit and
observations. Occasionally he lets us into his
closely-guarded inner sanctuary, as much by
implication as by direct words:
throwing away
old papers,
I found a love letter—
I vaguely recall
that boy-man
In the following minimalist tanka, he
comments on his passion for the sea, his sailing
career and the loss when he has to give it up:
I miss the boat
crave it
the water
the herons
and the world
my son and I
crawl through the bilge
of an old wooden boat,
painting the Copperkote
for another fifty years
The poet takes a long slow plunge down
memory lane and comes up with some truly
memorable lines: “even the grackles / have lost
their luster”; “her third eye /shining at the
world”; “Mardi Gras beads rattle / against the
lamp.” From his children to his passion for
sailing, Kei moves sure-footedly. One deft tanka
follows another and we are left with the
impression of a sequence of finely honed poems.
Kei can be moving and intimate:
waking
the same time
as always,
this first day of
being unemployed
and he plies his craft honestly and precisely. He
possesses a poetic language that circles through
time and place, picking up the rhythms of life as
it goes. His poems are full of stories: life on and
off the sea, writing, listening to music, reading,
watching the birds, friendships and loss. There is
also an abiding sense of longing and belonging
which transcends the minimalism of the five-line
poems. The epiphanies Kei uncovers in his
jour ney through the year derive from
illuminations that are redolent of the poet’s
awakenings to life and all its vicissitudes.
Kei also addresses the everyday life and
companionship of his children in these two
beautiful tanka:
leaning on
the windowsill,
my daughter
helps me count
white-throated sparrows
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 70
A Rumination on M. Kei’s January, A Tanka Diary
Reviewed by Jeffrey Harpeng
My youngest grandchild offers me a fake
flower to sniff while the other sets up the
backgammon board next to the computer. It is
seven o’clock on a Saturday morning and in this
scene backgammon girl says “Granddad, you’re
just sitting in front of the computer.” That’s how
she sums up writing and reviewing.
There are flavours, scats, scents and plain
telling of the distracted life in M. Kei’s writing.
Rather than being a light bulb connected to the
mains, the book measures a year as a lightning
rod out in the storm.
“Throw double six and you move four pieces
six places, or two pieces twelve,” I say to my
granddaughter, “but you can’t use it if the other
player has two or more pieces where you want to
go, and before you do anything you have to get
that piece back on the board.” And so goes a
loose headed view of composing tanka.
M. Kei has garnered, gathered and preened a
two hundred and seventy page day-book-worth of
brief phrasings in praise of the fleeting, two
hundred and seventy pages of secular pieties and
ruminations on the repetitions that paint the
fading canvas of permanence.
The tanka in M. Kei’s January, A Tanka Diary
are alive with the small and difficult finesses of
relationship and affection, with the awkward
gravity of sexuality, they are proud with a sacred
relationship with boats and open water, they are
attentive to the small, fine graces of day to day
life with his children, and in woodland rambles
he and the world give and take account and tell
the toll of things passing away in each other. He
writes ever alert to the craft, the craftiness of
tanka, and its possessive, obsessive heritage.
The diary year begins with a fresh leaf, with a
small conceit. In its whiteness the leaf finds
commonality with the winter; it is an exotic
literary foliage.
a fresh leaf
white in the winter
of a new year;
it seems a shame
to mar it with words
To say “it seems a shame” might have told the
moment it was composed, how the thunder
grumbled and the pale lightning flickered, but I
found this small conceit more and more
inappropriate as I read and reread, tracked and
backtracked my way through the year.
Apparently M. Kei soon overcame shame, for
there are twenty tanka set down for January 1.
For myself, I bookmarked the following as my
opener.
cold it is,
and colder still,
this dawn in
a new year
in an old house
The echoing cold, colder, old, adds layers of
chill, and frames still. It becomes a quiet point in
deep time, and the whole poem is resonant with
a petite poverty. It seems more the measure of
the day and an appropriate place to write away
from.
M. Kei’s forte, as a composer of brevities, is to
find the marvellous in the mundane, to make the
mundane marvellous, to assign just-so
phraseology. Here he turned his subject into a
meditation, into a spell.
going to the funeral
it snows a little in Illinois;
coming home
from the funeral,
it snows a little in Illinois
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 71
Or borrowing a quill from Dickens, he can
show suffering, already known.
hungry
the poor man struggles
through the snow,
baby in his arms,
little girl in his footprints
He presents it as a mirror. Are you carried,
carrying or following?
Not every tanka is iconic or an illumination.
Some are the road travelled, the pages turned, to
get to those spellbinding reverences, those
reveries. On occasion when I backtracked from a
tanka that captivated me, I found, as in the
following, the resounding of words echoing back
and forth multiplying relationships between one
tanka and another.
that is as it should be, for in this ‘another summer’ is
‘another Sunday worshiping in the cathedral of the
Chesapeake’ and summer is seeping into wood, the
wood that is the pew in this great cathedral of
water and wind and sky. Such sequences
accumulate delights to the individual tanka.
On other days, as a lightning rod, he was
struck with a voltage of humour. It was carried to
earth by the laconic and wry in his bones and
brainwaves. His reports of those tingles and
shocks are plays and monologues well suited to
the elbow nudge time frame of tanka theatre.
another
book of tanka
for review—
sparrows chirping
in the spring rain
My grin teetered on becoming a smirk at the
‘just-so’ evocation of the jizz of reviewing. From
among my sparrow chirping thoughts I hope I
have told you something meaningful or, better
still, have given a sense of the playful seriousness
January, A Tanka Diary provoked in me. To add a
bit more cheek, I’d like to suggest an alternative
to the following tanka. Instead of perhaps, let that
line read ‘in a tanka’. Let this distortion be my
final litmus reading.
I didn’t know
he was dying when
I stood on
the quarterdeck of his
soon-to-be widowed ship
pretty soon
I’ll have to get up and
go back to work
another summer seeping
into the wood of the boat
another Sunday
spent worshipping in
the cathedral of the Chesapeake,
this wooden boat
the only pew
a bit of green
in a sidewalk crack—
perhaps
i have already
been reincarnated
In this sequence, the ‘pretty soon’ of tanka
two drew me back, to the ‘soon-to-be widowed’.
With that rereading tanka one becomes as a
daydream woken from. There is the haunting of
a weariness-unto-death. We are neither at the
beginning nor at the end. It is another summer
seeping into the wood of the boat. Say those lines
again, yet again and their phrasing is an
oratorical piety, another summer seeping, a joy,
sanguine with the pity of all things passing. And
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 72
Review : This Short Life :
Minimalist Tanka
Reviewed by Joy McCall
This Short Life : Minimalist Tanka
by Sanford Goldstein
Keibooks. 6x9”, pp, 162, print & ebook
$15.00 USD / £10.00 GBP (print)
$5.00 USD /£ 4.00 GBP (Kindle)
I have loved Sanford Goldstein’s tanka since
the first book of his that I found in the late 70’s,
This Tanka World. Each time a new Goldstein
book came out, I bought it. His voice is like no
other in the tanka world. I gave up trying to
emulate it decades ago. His translations sit on my
bookshelves too. His books of tanka are dogeared from travelling with me. Many of them are
inscribed from him and so they matter even
more. He is as good a friend as he is a poet. The
two are inseparable.
Sanford thought that Journeys Near and Far—
his recent collection—would be his last published
book. He didn’t count on M. Kei being wise
enough to know there were far more tanka to be
published. I’m guessing, and hoping, that even
this present book will not be his last; the old man
still has so much to say.
He can still write tanka like no one else.
Tanka which seem simple but hold deep truths.
Tanka that seem complex but go straight to the
heart of things. Sanford writes honest, modest
poems, that tell the stories of his daily life,
following the example of his own hero,
Takuboku.
I spit
on tonight’s
lonely manuever,
I floss,
I scribble poems
He writes:
never
will I know
it,
the sound of
one hand clapping
He already, long ago, realised that none of us
will ever know that sound—and yet all we sheep
keep listening, wondering, while he sits outside
the fold, knowing. Sanford’s books are some of
the most valued things in my life. He is a true
gentleman and a scholar—but more, he is the
kind of man who is the best kind of friend. This
is a wonderful, intriguing book, made perfect by
the combined forces of my two favourite tanka
poets. I’m so happy it came to be.
*
*
*
Mini-Review : circling smoke,
scattered bones
Reviewed by Steve Wilkinson
circling smoke, scattered bones
by Joy McCall
Edited by M. Kei
Keibooks, 6”x9”, pp 176, print & ebook
ISBN-13: 978-0615880006
$15.00 USD / £10.00 GBP (print)
$5.00 USD /£ 4.00 GBP (Kindle)
To read Joy’s tanka is to walk with her in her
journey through life. Along the way you will
encounter joy and sorrow, loss and longing. You
will encounter enigmatic characters from her life
and her town.
As I read her book my emotions were moved
on many levels. She succeeded in transporting me
on a roller coaster ride of introspection and
meditation. On many occasions after reading
particular poems I just sat there in the silence of
my own thought, considering that which I had
just read and how it related to my own world.
Overall Joy’s book is a book of well honed
tanka sequences that deserves its place on any
bookshelf.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 73
Tanka in Three Lines?
Matsukaze
Since my return to tanka the earlier part of
this year (March 13th), the amount of tanka
books I now own have doubled more than the
haiku books I possess, and I’ve voraciously
consumed anything/everything related to
‘tankademics;’ in such a short time. Having
studied different tanka composers both American
and Japanese, I realized there was one I hadn’t
read, and that was Tawara Machi; author of
‘Salad Anniversary.’
I purchased the Juliet Winters Carpenter
translation and in her translation of Ms. Machi’s
tanka, Carpenter opted to translate each tanka
into a three lined stanza. In the book’s Afterword
she stated:
Tanka are often described as “five-line”
poems, but this is misleading in several
respects—not least being the fact that they
are almost always written in a single line in
Japanese. [. . .] In her second tanka
collection, Toritate no tanka desu (”Fresh-picked
tanka”), Tawara has experimented with
writing tanka in two and three lines of
various lengths (although she claims that “in
her heart” she still thinks of tanka as a single
line). In my translations I have generally
adhered to a three-line format, and have
aimed at brevity without attempting to
duplicate syllable counts.
My interest was immediately piqued to not
only discover the history of three lined tanka, IF
it existed; but to also try my own hand at
composing in that form as well as in five lines.
The history of the three lined form is discussed in
the pages of Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of
the Modern Era—Poetry, Drama, Criticism by Donald
Keene. I will give a brief history of the threelined tanka with the intent of encouraging tanka
composers to further their experimentation.
The three lined tanka is a form invented by
tanka poets of the Naturalist School, Shazenso Sha
(“Plaintain Society”) of which the top three tanka
poets were Wakayama Bokusui, Kubota Utsubo,
Maeda Yugure. In Japan there are two branches
of tanka: the Naturalist School and the Myojo
(“Morning Star”) school.
The Myojo school was founded by Yosano
Hiroshi (Tekkan) and his wife Yosano Akiko. The
Myojo was marked by extreme romantic/
symbolist images, lofty words and the frequent
use Japanese pillow-words, sometimes used in a
modern fashion but still reminiscent of classical
waka. The Naturalist School drew inspiration
f ro m e ve r yd a y l i f e, n a t u r e, a n d u s e d
colloquialisms and vernacular language. The
start of experimental lineation in tanka began
with Maeda Yugure who began writing tanka in
irregular lines as his reformation of the waka
form. The mantle was taken up by the fourth
major poet of the Naturalist School, Toki Akika
(Zemmaro). Toki studied under a minor poet by
the name of Kaneko Kun’en who was known to
have flirted with nearly every tanka school in
Japan and experimented with free tanka of
irregular lengths. Kun’en was called a ‘city poet’
because of his style, though not very significant;
he still boasted of an urbanity that went beyond
most of the ‘country poets’ and Toki was
attracted to Kun’en’s open nature.
Around 1910, Toki published his first
collection of tanka titled: Nakiwarai (“Smiling
Through the Tears”) which became a huge
shocker to the tanka community. The collection
was made up of 143 tanka all written in roman
letters and formatted in three lined stanzas! In
this, Zemmaro was working to free tanka from its
old fossilized associations. Therefore his tanka
were extremely antithetical to the pervading
atmosphere of tanka collections and anthologies.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 74
Ishikawa Takuboku, a friend and fellow
tanka composer, reviewed Zemmaro’s work
calling him “Less like a tanka poet than the tanka
poets of the day.” In his three lined tanka,
Zemmaro still used classical language, but the
material was drawn in the naturalist manner:
from commonplace happenings and events.
Zemmaro clung closely to the 31-morae/on
tradition no matter how he divided up his tanka.
He invented the three line form and that same
form was later adopted by his friend, Takuboku,
who so favored it that his only two collections
were published in that form. In Takuboku’s Poems
to Eat, translated by Carl Sesar, he further gives a
bit of insight on rendering tanka into three lines.
After reading this information it seemed to
me that the three line tanka form is indeed more
legitimate than most might think. Studying a bit
about tanka lineation from the Japanese
standpoint I would humbly submit that five lines
is not what makes tanka, tanka; but its
musicality/rhythm, and its fiveness-five poetic
phrases/segments/thought-parts arranged in
either one, two, three, four, or five lines. Of
course I am not in any way advocating the
demise of the standard five line form, but I am
saying that based on a few talks with M. Kei and
further reading, it appears that the reason we in
America compose tanka in five lines is based on
the tanka’s fiveness or its five poetic phrases/
segments. I humbly submit that in the way of
experimentation, three lines should be an added
variety to tanka composition and should be the
decision of the tanka composer. This takes
nothing away from tanka as a poetic genre, but I
believe it adds a richness and vibrancy to an
already ancient, enduring art form. The only
downside is that I don’t believe most of the tanka
publications would be willing to accept tanka in 3
lines or any other derivative outside of five.
Tanka in three lines would be one of many
techniques/tools in the tool box of the tankaist.
Below for your consideration are a few of my
tanka in three lines, the first several accompanied
by their five line versions for comparison.
over a bowl of spaghetti,
steaming hot, we trade anecdotes
about old cinema and rain
over a bowl of spaghetti,
steaming hot,
we trade anecdotes
about old cinema
and rain
morning breakfast,
of blood oranges, a few dates, and talk
of the explosion of Pan Air flight 450
morning breakfast,
of blood oranges,
a few dates; and talk
of the explosion
of Pan Air flight 450
seated—
with the dilettante on the floor listening
to Forrester’s contralto sing Wolf
seated—
with the dilettante
on the floor listening
to Forrester’s contralto
singing Wolf
i wish to do right—
tonight i lie in bed under a man
not my own and still feel sweet
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 75
i wish to do right—
tonight
i lie in bed under a man
not my own,
and still feel sweet
waiting, a long wait
for my man’s blackness to return home—
my man addicted to heroin
washing rice grains—
i ain’t no man’s nigger,
not even in the belly of racist America
Allende del Sol, Mexico
half factory, half tourist town where
another elderly woman was murdered
So we should write it in two lines or three
according to its rhythm. Some may criticize
us by saying this will destroy the rhythm of
tanka itself. No matter. If the conventional
rhythm has ceased to suit our mood, why
hesitate to change it? (Ishikawa, p. 47)
At this juncture in my tanka study, I do not
have some intellectual/philosophical why these
were composed in threes and not fives. I simply
sang them in threes.
Works Cited
the futon,
axis and crux of this unfriendly house—
each night he sits there nursing gin
my body a lean axe
has hacked its way through the night
now morning, i stand poised in prayer
Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of
the Modern Era—Poetry, Drama, Criticism New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999.
Machi, Tawara. Salad Anniversary; translated by Juliet
W i n t e rs C a r p e n t e r N e w Yo rk : Ko d a n s h a
International, 1990.
Ishikawa, Takuboku. Romaji and Sad Toys. Sanford
Goldstein & Seishi Shinoda, trans. West Lafayette,
IN: Purdue University, Press, 1977.
and you Murasaki, did you sink
into each phrase you penned?
dressing for the journey
once a professor of 15th century lit,
four summers later
a schizophrenic episode
i move quietly,
not to disturb the village slumbering
in a hidden ravine of my soul
over a Borodin string concerto
peeling lettuce,
my thoughts smell like plums
Take, for instance, the tanka. We have
already been feeling it is somewhat
inconvenient to write tanka in a single line.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 76
The Problem of Tanka : Definition and Differentiation
M. Kei
1. Introduction
2. Background
Anyone who reads tanka in English has
noticed a trend of the late 20th century that
presents a unified and instantly recognizable
form and content. Once known as “tanka spirit,”
this set of characteristics was widely accepted as
defining the form in English. Then, starting in
2006, with the publication of Modern English
Tanka, a far more diverse genre of tanka began to
be published and continues to this day. With the
benefit of hindsight, it is possible to see that the
tanka of the late 20th century and early 21st
century was not a universal definition, but merely
a powerful vogue. I call it the “New Wave”
because it departed in significant ways from the
tanka that had been previously published, and
because, like a tsunami, it overwhelmed the
previous approaches.
Tanka embodying “tanka spirit” have been
published both before and after the period of
1986–2005, but they did so in competition with a
wide variety of other approaches. The period
before the New Wave was characterized by a
highly diverse and experimental body of poetry,
both in translation and by native English
speakers, and translations from languages other
than Japanese, such as Spanish1 . Most of this
previous body of literature was unknown to poets
and readers of the New Wave, and where known,
frequently dismissed as unworthy and irrelevant.
During the New Wave, tanka was something
magical and mysterious that only the hierophants
of tanka could understand. Novices could learn
only by long toil at the knees of dead Japanese
masters and their self-appointed acolytes. Little
attention was given to tanka in English, and those
who wanted to learn about tanka were constantly
referred to classical and sometimes medieval
Japanese poets and editors—as if nothing had
happened in the intervening eight centuries!
Adapting tanka to English was no easy task.
Although the earliest known publication of
English-language tanka occurred at the tail end
of the 19th century (Lafcadio Hearns’ translation
and anthology, Japanese Lyrics, 1894), it was not at
all obvious how to render tanka into English. The
two major attempts of the early 20th century
were the tanka of Sadakichi Hartmann (1867–
1944) and Jun Fujita (1888–1963).
Writing in Drifting Flowers of the Sea (1904),
Hartmann composed tanka in what is now called
the “sanjuichi” form, from the Japanese word for
“thirty-one.” His tanka were metered and
rhymed poems of thirty-one syllables in the
classic Japanese pattern of 5-7-5-7-7. Clearly
Hartmann, Japanese-born and well educated in
Japanese and Western literature, conceived of
tanka as a formal verse, so he added the formal
Western elements of meter and rhyme to his
Japanese structure. 2 His results are musical, but
they aren’t good poetry. A single example of his
work will suffice,
Like mist on the leas,
Fall gently, oh rain of spring
On the orange trees
That to Una’s casement clings—
Perchance she’ll hear the love-bird sing!
Sadakichi Hartmann 3
Here we have an orange tree instead of a
cherry tree, but the archaic, consciously poetic
diction deliberately mimics the classical diction of
waka, as tanka was known before it was reformed
at the end of the 19th century.
Jun Fujita, publishing in Poetry Magazine from
1919–1929, left behind a small body of tanka
poetry and literary criticism. In 1922 he criticized
Yone Noguchi, another Japanese North
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 77
American, for adopting the “carcass” but not the
“essence” of Japanese poetry 4. In discussing a
poem about a waterfall, Fujita noted that
Noguchi focussed on the roar of the waterfall
rather than its silence. Fujita stated,
To feel and create this poetic silence, and
through it to suggest the roar, the power, and
the majesty of the fall without describing it, is
the mission of Japanese poets.5
syllable lengths are closer to Japanese than
English; a sanjuichi written in Spanish or Italian
doesn’t struggle to balance the Japanese
aesthetics with the requirements of the form.
This may be why tanka was readily taken up in
Romanian 8 and also had a vogue in Catalan.9 It
may be that the struggle for adaption and the
resulting variety is part of the definition of tanka
in English. What follows is a survey of numerous
methods and attempts to adapt tanka into
English.
Fujita’s own work embodies his principles.
3. The New Wave
While you pant deliriously, I awake
To the bold moon,
The somber hills,
And myself.
Jun Fujita6
The five poetic phrases of tanka have been
formatted as a quatrain, no doubt to meet
Western expectations of what a poem is supposed
to look like, but it is highly irregular: 11-4-4-3
syllables. If the first line is broken into two, the
pattern becomes 8-3-4-4-3. Obviously, formal
form, archaic poetic diction, and classical subjects
are not what Fujita conceived tanka to be.
Although Hartmann and Fujita are treating the
same subject, love (or at least passion), Fujita’s
approach is thoroughly modern.
Although many newcomers begin by writing
the sanjuichi form of tanka, they usually
abandon it once they become more
knowledgeable. Dr. Richard Gilbert’s article,
“Stalking the Wild Onji,”7 has been influential in
explaining the difference between Japanese and
English metrics and the implications for prosody.
The problem of tanka is how to adapt a formal
form into a language that simply does not behave
like Japanese. Clearly, Hartmann’s solution is not
satisfactory while Fujita’s solution gives good
poems that don’t look like classical Japanese
poems.
The quest to adapt tanka into English is
more arduous than for other European
languages. Romance languages adapt well to the
sanjuichi pattern because their own vowels and
3.1 The Wind Five Folded School of Tanka
The Wind Five Folded School of Tanka was
one of the most prolific and influential schools of
tanka to arise during the New Wave (1986–2005).
Led by Jane and Werner Reichhold, it had a
major influence on poets of the period. An early
adopter of the World Wide Web, the Reichholds
were able to disseminate their approach to a
broad audience at a time when very few tanka
venues attempted to do so. A tireless advocate for
women poets past and present, Jane Reichhold
became the heroine of a generation.
Reichhold’s editorial vision is embodied in
the multitude of publications which she and her
husband wrote, edited, or published, including
Lynx, a journal for linking poets, the Tanka Splendor
Award, numerous publications through her small
press, AHA Books, and its online presence, AHA
Poetry, as well as her own poetry and articles, but
she only recently organized previously existing
articles into a series of lessons she calls the “Wind
Five Folded School of Tanka,” named after the
The Wind Five Folded anthology, which she and her
husband co-edited and published in 1994.
In her lessons, Reichhold describes tanka as:
• subjective (meaning you can add your
opinion, or that of anyone else)
• emotional, opinionated, hot (often sensual),
and lyrical
• can discuss the most intimate body parts
and functions
• use an “elegant” language, and choose
elevated euphemisms to cloak the unspeakable
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 78
• are made of sentence fragments and
phrases and should not read like a complete
sentence
• in English, we use the line length to
indicate the length of the 5 or 7 sound units
• are usually written completely in lower case
except for proper nouns
• can or don’t use some punctuation.
Sentence punctuation is really wrong
• use the technique of showing an
association, comparison or contrast between
images.
• taking an image from nature and
associating, comparing or contrasting with the
emotional situation of a person (it rains, I cry)10
The following tanka is an example of
Reichhold’s poetry from The Wind Five Folded,
now as night
everything returns to being
clotted moonlight
stones sleep to be clocks
pendled by tides they tick
Jane Reichhold 11
Reichhold has identified the pivot as the
defining feature of tanka and stated her opinion
unequivocally, “In fact, if anyone asked what
makes a tanka a tanka, I would have to say that it
must have a pivot.”12 She cites ancient Japanese
tanka with a bipartite structure in support of this,
but defines “pivot” very loosely, allowing for
“implied pivots.”
This is not born out by an examination of
either ancient or modern poetry or critical
writings. While a “turn” forming a contrast
between the upper and lower strophes of a
bipartite tanka is common, many tanka do not
exhibit this. Many tanka do not even have a
bipartite structure. Professor Sanford Goldstein,
as editor of Five Lines Down, wrote,
I do not feel I would restrict tanka rhythms to
this 3/2 approach. Why not a rhythm of 2/3
or 1/4 or even a rush of five lines down?13
Examples can be found as far back as the
Man’yoshū. Likewise, numerous verse forms also
feature a turn, such as the sonnet, but that
doesn’t mean a sonnet is also a tanka.
A few other writers were even stricter in their
definition of pivot, most notably Donna Ferrell,
who equated the pivot with the swing line (a line
that can be read either with what precedes or
what follows to form two coherent strophes), a
view she often espoused in postings to her online
forum, “Mountain Home,” founded in 2000.14
Modern waka looks to the best of the Court
tradition for examples of form and spirit,
and to our own experience for authenticity
of expression. Just as classical waka came to
be defined by the uta, or “short poem,”
modern waka is primarily expressed in the
five-line form familiar to readers of
contemporary tanka. Modern waka features
a grammatical “pivot” similar to that of
classical poetry. 15
The loneliness
Of a single firefly blinking
In the gloaming;
A rose slowly fades
Into the darkness of everything.
Donna Ferrell 16
The Modern Waka school of tanka did not
differ in significant ways from the Wind Five
Folded School. The principle difference was a
narrow choice of models, explicitly classical, and
especially Saigyō (1118–1190 AD). Mountain
Home (Sankashu) was the name of Saigyō’s most
famous work. Ferrell did not publish any articles.
Her editorial vision was manifested through her
own poetry and her commentary on poetry
workshopped in the Mountain Home forum. She
rarely published outside of her own forum, and
the email list has not had any significant traffic
since 2010. 17
The notion that tanka have a bipartite
structure is a common one, but the two-part
structure is not found in the oldest tanka: the
famous wedding song of the god, Susano-o no
Mikoto. The pattern in his tanka is the ancient
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 79
tripartite structure of the original tanka: line 1
and 2 are a unit, line 3 and 4 are a unit, and line
5 is a unit. There is no “turn” here, but a steady
building of repeated elements with pleasing
rhythm and alliteration.
Yakumo tatsu
Izumo yaegaki
Tsumagomi ni
Yaegaki tsukuru
Sono yaegaki o
In eight-cloud-rising
Izumo an eightfold fence
To enclose my wife
An eightfold fence I build,
And, oh, that eightfold fence! 18
However, as editor Edwin Cranston notes,
this is the modern form of the poem. The earliest
Japanese poems were frequently irregular. 19 Even
today tanka is often irregular. 20 Ultimately this
has led to the creation of gogyoshi, a five line
Japanese poem without any requirements
regarding line length at all. 21
Aside from structure, the assertion by
Reichhold that tanka juxtapose nature and
emotion must be contested. This is a common
technique in contemporary Anglophone tanka,
and it has antecedents in Japanese classical tanka,
but is not a requirement. Case in point, the works
of Sanford Goldstein do not adhere to this
prescription. Goldstein, a retired English
professor who pursued a second career teaching
in Japan, has translated (along with his partners)
numerous works of modern Japanese literature,
including the major tanka poets, such as Yosano
Akiko, Masaoka Shiki, Ishikawa Takuboku, and
Saitō Mokichi. Goldstein has been writing and
publishing his own tanka in English since the
1960s. His approach to tanka is very different
from either the Wind Five Folded or Modern
Waka schools.
another
Father’s day
I did
not visit
his grave
Sanford Goldstein 22
Another of Reichhold’s points to be
contested is that tanka must use elevated
language and euphemism to cloak “unspeakable”
subjects. This prohibition certainly applied to the
classical waka, but it does not apply to modern
tanka in Japanese.
I leave my house
preoccupied with thoughts;
a dog with saggy balls
passes
on the street
Ai Akitsu23
Dead of night
returning home exhausted
from the interrogation—
my period begins to flow
like rage
Motoko Michiura24
Menstruation, interrogation, canine genitalia,
and other “unspeakable” subjects do not appear
in either the Wind Five Folded or Modern Waka
schools of tanka, not even cloaked in euphemism.
However, in the early 21st century have we
started to see taboo-breaking tanka in English.
there’s always a monkey
beating off at the zoo—
school boys laugh,
the facts of life not fitting
into the teacher’s plan
Bob Lucky25
The aesthetic espoused by Jane Reichhold is
miyabi, literally “courtly beauty.” In other words,
poetry considered to be in good taste by the
culture and aesthetics of the Imperial court of
the Heian period (794–1185 AD). It is frequently
coupled with fūryū, “elegance,” as in Reichhold’s
points above. Father Neal Henry Lawrence,
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 80
Benedictine monk, priest, missionary, and tanka
poet, wrote, “Like Japanese tanka, tanka in
English must never be vulgar, but always in good
taste.”26 Father Lawrence would probably not
approve of poems about dog testicles, monkey
masturbation, menstruation, or getting arrested.
Above and beyond that, Reichhold’s
characterization of tanka as “feminine” does a
real disservice. While it is true that women were
successful tanka writers, we must also
acknowledge that the context in which they wrote
was one dominated by men. All the editors of the
Man’yoshū, Kokinwakashū, and Shinkokinwakashū
were men, and men made up the majority of
tanka poets published in those anthologies.
Likewise, the famous tanka poets of the Meiji
and Taisho periods that transformed waka into
tanka were largely male: Masaoka Shiki, Saitō
Mokichi, Takuboku Ishikawa, Yosano Tekkan,
etc. Yosano Akiko shocked Japan by refusing the
role of the demure and proper Japanese wife to
became Japan’s most famous tanka poet. To label
tanka “feminine” ignores that women tanka poets
had to compete and succeed in a milieu
dominated by men. That they did so makes their
achievements even more impressive.
The elements stereotyped as “feminine” in
tanka are emotional expressiveness and sensitivity
to the natural and human environments. These
are the traits of good poets regardless of gender.
It patronizes women to contrast them as
feminine, emotional and subjective, versus
objective, rational and masculine men. In tanka,
the full range of expression is open to all poets.
Orientalism. With the exception of Hartmann,
Orientalism is an approach typically utilized by
Western poets.
It is not surprising that novice poets respond
to the exotic content of tanka without
understanding the underlying principles, so it is
inevitable that newcomers to the field will
produce tanka about cherry blossoms, kimonos,
and temples. However, some poets and editors
participate consciously and deliberately in
Orientalism. They usually do so with the best
intentions and the belief that they are
accomplishing good in the world.
Case in point, Charles E. Tuttle, founder of
the publishing house that bears his name, did
excellent work publishing books in English on
Japanese subjects. However, the anthology he
edited in 1957, Japan : Theme and Variations, is rife
with Orientalism. Tuttle tacitly admits as much,
The older images of dainty geisha, pagodas
and arched bridges, and jeweled landscapes
yet remain—although often in bright new
contexts. 27
A single example of “jeweled landscapes” will
suffice:
The snow has fallen
on the black branches of plum
and cherry; on all
the hills the moon walks, but you
still hide behind your tall screen.
Florida Watts Smyth28
3.2 Orientalism
Orientalism is an aesthetic that has
influenced tanka in English from its origin. The
earliest tanka in English, by Sadakichi Hartmann
(in Drifting Flowers of the Sea, 1904), are Orientalist
in nature, embodying as they do a japonisme that
represents an imaginary and Romanticized
Japan. Given that Hartmann migrated from
Japan to the West when he was a teenager, it is
perhaps not surprising that he came to view
Japanese poetry through Western eyes. All other
Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans
whose work I’m familiar with are devoid of
Smyth’s work is not devoid of merit, but it is
predicated on the belief that tanka is written in a
pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 about classical Japanese
subjects. She manages to pack the piece with
Oriental tropes: snow, cherry trees, plum trees,
moon, and a Japanese screen, all while
impersonating a courtly lover.
Forty years later, a more sophisticated
treatment of the same theme is provided by
Jeanne Emrich.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 81
why do I feel
so empty tonight?
moonlight streams in
at every window
and you await me
the projection of an Oriental fantasy upon Asia
by Westerners, instead of seeing Asian people for
who they are. 31 In addition, even when there is a
sincere desire to engage, care must be taken to
avoid “tourist tanka,” by which we mean
superficial works that record the traveler’s
reactions to an exotic locale.
Jeanne Emrich 29
Emrich captures the classical trope of a
woman waiting for her lover by moonlight
without resorting to any flagrantly Oriental
motifs. At 4-4-5-5-5 syllables she doesn’t embody
either the 5-7-5-7-7 or short-long-short-long-long
formats, but what she has written is a very
traditional tanka in subject matter and aesthetics.
If it were translated into Japanese, it would be
entirely acceptable to the ladies and gentlemen of
the Heian court. She demonstrates that Japanese
aesthetics can be used without Orientalism.
Let us consider how Japanese aesthetics
could be applied to a different culture. John
Daleiden chose a Haitian theme:
Haitian woman,
spawn of powerful genes—
work your spell
use your voodoo fingers
to enliven this old man
John Daleiden 30
It is hard to imagine a subject that deviates
from the tanka norm as much as voodoo. In fact,
if anyone had suggested that there might be
something compatible between tanka and voodoo
before reading this poem, the reader could be
forgiven for being skeptical. Daleiden uses the
melody of tanka, and he applies tanka aesthetics:
compaction, evocative detail, suggestion, allusion,
subjectivity, and eroticism. Words like “Haitian,”
“spawn,” “spell,” and “voodoo” are heavily
freighted with associations that amplify the poem
beyond what is written on the page.
In order to critique Orientalism, we must
also be certain what it is not. Mention of Asian
topics is not inherently Orientalist. Many people
travel or live in Asia and record their experiences
authentically. Orientalism, as per Edward Said, is
Thai massage
at the women’s prison—
she works on my feet
and plans her escape;
I can feel it
Bob Lucky32
Although Lucky went as a tourist to
Thailand, his experience and thoughts go well
beyond the usual tourist venues. Dark, yet
humorous, trivial, yet troubling, he gives a
complex and ambiguous description of an
unexpected scene. Lucky’s poem exposes the
power imbalance inherent between the
Westerner free to fantasize about exotic Oriental
women and the Asian woman who has no choice
but to endure a stranger projecting his fantasies
onto her, a literal prisoner at his feet.
3.3 Zen, Introspection, and Realism
A significant motivator of Orientalism during
the New Wave was Asian spirituality. Zen in
particular and Buddhism in general became
popular in the West. Certainly religion influenced
tanka in Japan, and religion of any sort is a
legitimate topic for tanka, but during the New
Wave, a subset of tanka were appreciated not so
much for being poetry, but for being homilies
from or homages to Eastern spirituality.
Classical tanka were influenced by Zen and
Buddhism, sometimes in overt ways, but usually
less so. The Zen master was supposed to be
detached from the suffering of the world, but
ironically, that very detachment led to an
awareness of the transience of the world, which
inspired feelings of pathos, which in turn became
highly subjective tanka in which the feelings of
the poet were the focus of the poem. This self-
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 82
referential irony is depicted in the Buddhist monk
Saigyō’s (1118–1190 AD) tanka,
even someone
free of passion as myself
feels sorrow:
snipe rising from a marsh
at evening in autumn
Saigyō33
The transience of the world, represented by
the Japanese term aware, the pity of things that
pass away, is an integral part of Japanese
aesthetics as incorporated into Anglophone
tanka. Although yūgen (mystery and depth) and
ma (negative space) have been championed by
Robert Wilson and Denis M. Garrison
respectively as essential to understanding
Japanese tanka, it is aware, along with miyabi, that
has had the most influence on tanka written in
English. The two go hand in hand to form a
genteel nostalgia that addresses everything from a
broken heart to wrestling with cancer. The
refined approach dignifies subjects that might
otherwise appear banal or trivial, and allows
poets and readers to experience the value of
ordinary things. At its best, it leads to personal
epiphany . . .
I am
I am not
I am
as I walk in & out
of mist
The hunger for significance marks many
tanka poets. Most of them are ordinary people
leading ordinary lives. They feel something is
missing and they fill it with themselves. This is
both bad and good. Good, when it teaches them
to value themselves and what they find around
them, but bad when it entraps them in a literary
solipsism in which nothing outside the self and its
sensations are of interest. As long as tanka poets
devote themselves to capturing “the moment,”
they miss out on bigger topics and the growth
that comes from grappling with things larger
than the self.
Then again, is tanka really an adequate tool
for dealing with large scale subject matter? Can it
cope, for example, with a world war?
where Hitler danced
his little jig
outside Paris
a mime and a monkey
on the spot where he stood
Michael McClintock36
Today at Pearl Harbor,
From the shore line,
At highest tide,
A gossamer mist,
With the deepest stillness.
Hagino Matsuoka37
A. A. Marcoff34
Standing
On the wide desert,
Before the silent wind,
My body sank
Into nothingness
Fumiko Ogawa35
. . . but at its worst, self-indulgent navel-gazing.
Yes. The reason that so few exist is not
because tanka is inadequate, but because poets
are. Tanka’s art of implication enables the poet to
incorporate far more into the poem than is
written on the page—but the poet has to believe
it is possible before he will even try.
The trick to writing tanka is to see. Not just
the self, but everything in the universe, large or
small, near or distant, familiar or strange, and to
value it. When this method of seeing is applied
without reservation, it allows us to overcome our
own limitations. The world is out there. As poets,
all we need to do is report it. Lucille Nixon, the
editor of Sounds from the Unknown, talks about this:
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 83
For example, for years each spring I had
admired a certain wild flower, the horse mint,
for its lavender coloring, its fringed and
delicate outline, so fragile though balanced
on a stern and forbidding stem, but I had
never noticed its tiny coral center. I couldn’t
believe that it was there when first I noticed
it, and so I looked at the many blossoms to
see if all were sent up from this roseate
center, and sure enough, they were all the
same, and had been for centuries, no doubt! I
just had not been able to see. 38 [emphasis in
original]
The poets in Sounds from the Unknown (1963)
often record scenes of nature, but they also talk
about war, immigration, discrimination,
internment, people of color, oil wells, factories,
stoves, and buses.
I scoured tanka literature for Hurricane
Katrina poems after the disaster in 2005, but
found nothing. In the years after, only a tiny
number of tanka appeared, such as:
Surrounded by detritus
A fallen tree, wrecked car,
One FEMA trailer
The house behind broken,
A string of Christmas lights glow.
Mark Burgh 39
By contrast, there was an outpouring of poems in
the aftermath of the triple disaster in Japan in
2011.
poets seemed more moved to write about the
tribulations of the Japanese than their fellow
citizens? There are two possible explanations:
one is that everything having to do with Japan is
better—a point of view that naturally follows
from the insistence that we must genuflect to
ancient Japanese tanka masters; but the second is
that in 2005 and the years immediately after, the
grip of mannered miyabi and personal subjectivity
had not yet been broken. If all the tanka they had
ever seen was about love, cherry blossoms, and
Zen, how could tanka poets even begin to
grapple with the horror that befell New Orleans?
The Japanese American and Canadian poets
of the mid-20th century grappled with big topics
and succeeded. It was a manifesto for them. The
Totsukuni tanka circle led by Tomari Yoshihiko
was composed of “realists as opposed to the
romanticists or symbolists.” 41 Lucille Nixon
directly linked realism to Masaoka Shiki and
modern American practice, but the generation of
non-Japanese poets immediately after her did not
value Sounds from the Unknown. It was not until
after the MET revolution of the 21st century (see
below) that tanka poets came to value this
anthology.
The very different responses to Hurricane
Katrina and the triple disaster in Japan show that
tanka in English has undergone significant
development in the six years that separates the
two events. The frank depiction of destruction
and human suffering is no longer taboo.
4. Destabilization of Tanka Assumptions
4.1 Modern English Tanka
The publication of the journal Modern English
Tanka (MET), beginning in 2006, destabilized the
world of late 20th century tanka. Denis M.
Garrison, a long time poet and editor of short
form poetry, founded MET as a deliberate escape
from the orthodoxies of tanka. In the inaugural
issue, Garrison wrote in his editorial,
Dosimeters
hanging from their necks
even when the children
play tag with me
in the green park.
Taro Aizu 40
It is understandable that Aizu, a former
resident of Fukushima, would write about the
disaster when he returned to visit his family who
still live there, but why is it that American tanka
It’s time to write, read, critique, and study
our English tanka, per se, which presupposes
the skillful use of our living language rather
than some faux-Japanese-English [. . .]
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 84
Moder n English Tanka is dedicated to
publishing and promoting fine English tanka
—both traditional and innovative verse of
high quality—in order to assimilate the best
of the Japanese uta/waka/tanka genres into
a continuously developing English short verse
tradition. [ . . .] It is not the goal of Modern
English Tanka to either authoritatively define
English tanka or sponsor any particular
formula or template. 42
For the next three years, an outpouring of
tanka of all kinds filled the 250 pages of each
issue of Modern English Tanka (MET) four times a
year. Publishing approximately 500 poems per
volume, the roughly 6000 tanka published by
MET provided an outlet for tanka that had
previously been kept in drawers. One of the
frequent contributors was Sanford Goldstein, the
master of English-language tanka. Although he
had previously published several chapbooks and
was co-editor with Kenneth Tamemura of the
short-lived journal Five Lines Down, MET gave his
work a wide exposure that served to cement his
reputation as the leading tanka poet working in
English. He wasn’t the only one. Several poets
who couldn’t get published under the old regime
rocketed to prominence after publishing in MET.
Garrison didn’t stop there. He established
Modern English Tanka Press (MET Press) to
publish additional journals, collections and
anthologies. The MET stable of journals
included Modern Haiga : Graphic Poetry (MDHG);
Prune Juice : A Journal of Senryu and Kyoka (PRUJ);
Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern
English Tanka (ATPO); Modern Haibun & Tanka
Prose (MHTP); Concise Delight Magazine of Short
Poetry (CNDL); and Ambrosia : Journal of Fine
Haiku. When health problems forced him to
curtail his commitment to poetry, Atlas Poetica and
Prune Juice found new homes and continued
publishing in the hybrid print and online editions
he pioneered. The other journals closed, and
tanka was poorer for it.
Another paradigm changer was the
anthology Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the
Human Heart (FRPL) published by Keibooks in
2006. Edited without dogma as to form or
content, Fire Pearls was the first of the post-New
Wave anthologies, the first thematic anthology,
and the first sequenced anthology in English. 43
The only previous book length sequence was Jun
Fujita’s Tanka : Poems in Exile (1923), although
there were some chapbooks, such as Goldstein’s
At the Hut of the Small Mind.44 Prior to Fire Pearls,
anthologies were usually organized alphabetically
by poet’s name. Fire Pearls divided nearly four
hundred poems into five seasonal categories.
Within each category, poems were sequenced to
create relationships.
Fire Pearls was followed by a series of
anthologies published by MET Press, including
The Five Hole Flute (FHFL) (sequences), Landfall :
Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka (LNFL), Five
Lines Down : A Landmark in English Tanka (FVLD)
(an omnibus of the journal), The Tanka Prose
Anthology (TKPA), The Ash Moon Anthology : Poems
on Aging in Modern English Tanka (ASHM),
Streetlights : Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English
Tanka (STLT), Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka,
Volumes 1–3 (TAK5:1–3) (TAK5:4 was published
by Keibooks), as well as collections by established
and emerging poets. MET Press also brought out
Jun Fujita : Tanka Pioneer, a collection of all of
Fujita’s poetry in one omnibus edition with an
introduction that traces the establishment of
tanka in English in the early 20th century. MET
Press also published Goldstein’s Four Decades on
My Tanka Road, an omnibus of the master’s
previous hard to find chapbooks, Alexis Rotella’s
Lip Prints, and others.
Garrison also provided technical assistance
and mentoring to various poets, editors, and
small presses who were able to copy the method
he pioneered to publish poetry: print-on-demand
(POD) publishing combined with online editions.
He demonstrated that having a free online
edition did not hurt print sales, but provided tens
of thousands of readers the opportunity to enjoy
and learn about tanka. The print circulations of
Anglophone tanka journals (with the exception of
Japan’s The Tanka Journal (TTJ)) are minuscule,
numbering only a few hundred subscribers. It is
the online journals and websites that collectively
reach as many as a hundred thousand readers a
year.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 85
In the ensuing years numerous projects have
come to fruition in the hands of a variety of
editor s and poets, but covering those
developments in depth will be deferred to this
author’s History of Tanka in English. What is
important is the sheer mass of MET Press
publication. It was not just a shot across the bow
of New Wave tanka—it was an entire broadside.
The challenge would not go unanswered.
Established journals were unwavering in their
commitment to their editorial ideals, but they
could not prevent new journals from being
founded, so they had to compete for readers and
submissions from a much more diverse and
demanding audience. Some of them folded. So
did some of the new venues. Blowback came
from various quarters, sometimes from
established poets who passed judgment, claiming
that not only were some poems not tanka, they
weren’t even poetry! Most of the criticism was
informal via email discussion groups and similar
forums. On the other hand, some established
poets, such as Alexis Rotella, who had been
publishing Japaniform poetry since the 1970s,
embraced the new possibilities. Rotella founded
Prune Juice : A Journal of Senryu and Kyoka precisely
because she wanted to “get things moving.”45
4.2 S-L-S-L-L as ‘Traditional’ Tanka
The formal response came in the summer of
2009 in the form of a jointly authored article by
Amelia Fielden, Robert Wilson, and ironically,
Denis M. Garrison. They published “A Definition
of the ideal form of traditional tanka written in
English.” It appeared in both Wilson’s journal,
Simply Haiku (SH), and in Garrison’s Modern
English Tanka (MET).
While there are linguistic and orthographic
differences between Japanese and English
that cannot be fully resolved, we believe that
it is possible to follow the centuries-old waka/
tanka formal poetic tradition to a substantial
and meaningful degree. We do not seek to
define nor deal with avant-garde innovations
based on tanka in this paper, nor do we seek
to restrain poetic experimentation by any
poet.46
They laid out seven “essential guidelines for
writing ‘Traditional Tanka in English’ in the ideal
form,”47 which include but are not limited to a
set syllable count of 19–31 English syllables, a set
pattern of lines in the form of short-long-shortlong-long with an ideal syllable pattern of
3-5-3-5-5 but permitting minor variations, a stop
to end each line (“five phrases on five lines”), and
a strong fifth line that should not be shorter than
the others. They accepted various subjects and
treatments with the exception of polemics or
didactic works.
My own analysis of syllables in a tanka leads
me to believe that their proffered syllable count is
too long to approximate the usual Japanese
rhythm. I recommend 17–26 syllables, but I
accept considerable variation. This is because the
English syllable is far more dynamic than a
Japanese unit of sound. “Radio diva” is five
syllables, but “stretched” is only one.
Kozue Uzawa, a Japanese-Canadian tanka
poet, editor, and translator, recommends twenty
syllables.
As for syllable counting, I personally like to
use about 20 English syllables because this
shortness is very close to Japaneses [sic]
tanka. If you don’t like to count syllables, just
count words. Use 10 ~ 15 words, or up to 20
words at maximum.48
This was adopted and announced as editorial
policy for Gusts, the journal of Tanka Canada, in
issue 7, Spring/Summer, 2007. Uzawa, along
with Amelia Fielden, edited and translated the
highly regarded Ferris Wheel : 101 Modern and
Contemporary Tanka in 2006. Her own poetry
reflects this preference for twenty syllables.
white pulp
of a baby pumpkin
no smell
no taste, simply soft
seeds not yet formed
Kozue Uzawa49
Saeko Ogi is a tanka poet and translator who
was born in Japan. She currently lives in
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 86
Australia. In an interview with Guy Simser, she
describes tanka in English as commonly having a
pattern of 3-4-3-4-4 syllables, or eighteen
syllables total—less than the lower bound set by
Wilson-Fielden-Garrison. When translating
English to Japanese, she renders them as
5-7-5-7-7.50 Although Ogi provides no evidence
in support of her contention that “most” tanka in
English are 3-4-3-4-4 in pattern, that someone
who is a highly experienced poet and translator
regards it as normative shows yet again that there
are legitimately varying opinions regarding
proper form in English.
Regardless of the various pronouncements
made, when we look at tanka as it is actually
written by highly qualified and well-regarded
poets, we see immense variation. Hypometric
and hypermetric lines are common. For example,
Sanford Goldstein’s tanka range from twelve to
thirty-six syllables in length. Goldstein quotes
Takuboku in an editorial in Five Lines Down,
Some may criticize us by saying this will
destroy the rhythm of tanka itself. No matter.
If the conventional rhythm has ceased to suit
our mood, why hesitate to change it? If the
limitations of thirty-one syllables is felt
inconvenient, we should freely use lines with
extra syllables. 51
In fact, it is not entirely clear that the
Japanese count “syllables” at all, as per Richard
Gilbert. That is why advocates of the
“traditional” style have offered S-L-S-L-L as an
alternative. The trouble is, short and long what?
sound? printed line length? absolute or relative
length?
Not only do English syllables differ in sound,
they also differ in appearance. Examining the
formatting of numerous S-L-S-L-L tanka
suggests that the de facto definition of short and
long has nothing to do with prosody but is an
artifact of formatting. Thus numbers and
symbols are used for short lines that when spoken
aloud are longer than their printed length,
sometimes even longer than the poem’s “long”
lines.
We can see the artificiality of this dictate
when it results in a mangled line for no good
reason except to conform to the format.
this moon
watching her dance
on the
shorelines as if
the stars exist
Robert D. Wilson52
Wilson isn’t usually as egregious as this, but
it’s hard to find a better example of why it’s
wrong to let the format dictate the line breaks.
The real poem is:
this moon
watching her dance
on the shorelines
as if
the stars exist
“As if ” can justify a line of its own, but “on
the” cannot. The poem has been forced into
conformity with Wilson’s edict regarding S-L-SL-L. The arbitrary shape is an artifact of
formatting and does not conform to units of
prosody and meaning.
Wilson prepended the SH edition of
“Traditional tanka” with an introduction that
was even longer than the article. He offered his
own definition of tanka:
A 5 lined poem that makes use of breaks
(cutting words: i.e., punctuation or ellipsis,
whenever necessary), utilizes a meter similar
to that found in Japanese tanka, makes use of
Japanese aesthetics, follows as much as
possible the S-L-S-L-L schemata, makes use
of juxtaposition as needed, and is not a haiku
or senryu masquerading as a tanka such as a
five lined poem using one or two words per
line. 53
Wilson’s definition contradicts the paper he
co-authored. In particular, if the paper’s ideal for
short lines is only three syllables, they must, of
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 87
necessity, be composed of one, two, or three
words. Prohibiting lines of one or two words
imposes an unreasonable restriction to the form,
and indeed, Wilson cannot mean that because
the two examples he offers each have lines
composed of one or two words. Maybe what
Wilson meant is that a line should not be
composed of one or two syllables, but that’s not
what he wrote.
Wilson admires a poem by Carole MacRury,
sleep-walking
through my childhood . . .
until I wake
to forgive and kiss
my dying father goodbye
Carole MacRury54
“Sleep-walking” is a line composed of a single
word that demonstrates why counting anything—
words, syllables, or stresses—is a problematic way
to compose tanka in English.
The core of Wilson’s definition is the S-L-SL-L format because the rest of the items are
optional. A five lined poem that uses breaks “as
needed” contradicts the recommended full stops
in the “traditional” article. Likewise terms such
as “a meter similar to that found in Japanese”
and “makes use of juxtaposition as needed”
provide a lot of wiggle room. His definition boils
down to poem written in S-L-S-L-L with
Japanese aesthetics.
Wilson’s own Simply Haiku is the only venue
that implements his view of tanka. Of course
that is his editorial prerogative, but as long as his
own publications are the only ones to embody it,
it represents a personal point of view, not a
definition. (Cattails also espouses S-L-S-L-L, but
has not yet published its first issue as of this
writing.) Gusts shares some of the concepts
(Amelia Fielden served on the editorial
committee at the time) 55, but Gusts has its own
distinctive editorial voice. Editor Kozue Uzawa’s
preference for shorter tanka results in a lighter,
suppler tanka.
As soon as the “traditional” definition
appeared, it was roundly challenged. Numerous
poets and editors, including this author, disagreed
with it, and disagreed even with the notion that
the form of tanka described qualifies as
“traditional.” There is no “traditional tanka” in
English. A wide variety of adaptions have been
made over the decades and they are all valid
approaches. None enjoys consensus. Harking
back to Hartmann and Fujita, we can see that
they are both “traditional” in the sense that their
approaches have persisted over time and been
followed by a variety of poets and editors.
Neither of them conforms to the definition given
in Wilson, Fielden, and Garrison. Both are far
older and have the virtue not only of longevity,
but of being created by poets who were native
speakers of Japanese and well-educated in both
Japanese and Western literature. In other words,
S-L-S-L-L is just one of many legitimate
adaptions.
Translating tanka from Japanese to English is
no easy thing. An entire book is devoted to the
subject, Nakagawa Atsuo’s Tanka in English : In
Pursuit of World Tanka (1987, 1990). It gives
extensive attention to problems of structure and
adaption, which in turn provides a number of
linguistically valid methods of translation. It
logically follows that the same diverse methods
are also legitimate methods for composing tanka
in English.
4.3 The Kyoka Challenge
Beginning in 2006, kyoka was offered as an
alternative outside the tasteful parameters of the
New Wave. Articles and poetry published in
MET stimulated interest. In 2006, a poem
labeled “kyoka” appeared in Moonset, Volume 2:1,
Spring, 2006. Prior to that, two poems labeled
“kyoka-style” were published in The Tanka
Anthology (2003). The Kyoka Mad Poems email
list was founded as a workshop in 2006 and
continues to this day.
In 2009, Robin Gill published Mad in
Translation, a massive compendium of kyoka
translated from the Japanese, the first and only of
its sort. It was followed by the Mad in Translation
Reader, featuring a selection from the original.
Prior to that, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
and Viking Press translated and published two
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 88
kyoka books illustrated by Utamaro, the famous
woodblock print artist, A Chorus of Birds (1981)
and Songs of the Garden (1984). They circulated
principally among art lovers, not tanka poets.
Kyoka was also mentioned in some of the
scholarly anthologies, such as those by Donald
Keene.
The kyoka below from Mad in Translation is an
example of how kyoka could parody the classical
waka.
Though this body, I know,
is a thing of no substance,
must it fade, alas,
so swiftly,
like a soundless fart?56
for Children,” a special feature online. In spite of
the name, a number of the poems were kyoka
and exhibited a playfulness of language not often
found in tanka. In 2012, Pieces of Her Mind :
Women Find Their Voices in Centuries Old Forms,
edited by Alvin Thomas Ethington, appeared. It
featured haiga, senryu, and kyoka by women.
Japanese American poets had been writing
tanka on humorous or even vulgar subject matter
for years.
秋晴の野路行きはて放ちたる屁の音乾けり明日
も晴ならん
I cross a field the fine autumn day and cut a fart
it sounds dry—tomorrow should be a fine day too
Alexis Rotella, well known for writing both
tanka and senryu, embraced kyoka. In 2008 she
published a collection of her own poetry, Looking
for a Prince : A Collection of Senryu and Kyoka. She
also founded Prune Juice : A Journal of Senryu and
Kyoka (PRUJ) with its first issue appearing early in
2009. It later spun off from MET Press and came
under the editorship of Liam Wilkinson, then
Terri French.
Rotella is the best and most consistent poet
writing kyoka in English. Her poem below shares
a sensibility with the kyoka above, but it is a
thoroughly modern poem.
Old man—
first he asks
to die,
then for
a ham sandwich.
Alexis Rotella57
Also founded in 2008, Atlas Poetica : A Journal
of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka (ATPO)
(originally Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place
in Modern English Tanka) expressly included kyoka
in its submission guidelines. Thus two journals
came into existence in 2008 that saw kyoka as
part of their editorial vision. In 2010, Richard
Stevenson published Windfall Apples : Tanka and
Kyoka. In 2011, Atlas Poetica published “25 Tanka
Konoshima Kisaburo58 translated by David
Callner
Anglophone advocates of kyoka saw it as an
avenue to escape the mannerism of New Wave
tanka, but although kyoka continues to appear, it
remains a minority interest. It did not
revolutionize the tanka world. Nonetheless,
because tanka and kyoka have exactly the same
form in Japanese but are different genres, it
explicates why form alone is not a sufficient
definition for tanka. The existence of kyoka also
points out that the content and style of
Anglophone tanka are not yet as broad as
advocates claim, although great strides have been
made in recent years.
4.4 T he Gog yohka and Gog yoshi
Alternatives
In the early 1990s in Japan, Kusakabe Enta
invented gogyohka, a five line poem derived from
tanka. It scrapped the sanjuichi form and defined
itself by writing short poems on five lines;
“gogyohka” simply means “five line poem.” 59
Gogyohka consciously rejected tanka, but tanka
aesthetics permeate the work published so far in
English. On the other hand, gogyohka
encourages sincerity of expression, so works that
would be considered naive or undeveloped by
English tanka readers are considered fresh and
direct when published as gogyohka. Starting in
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 89
1994, Enta established a Gogyohka Society in
Japan and began publishing the Gogyohka
Journal. 60 In 2006, his book Gogyohka was
published in English. He held the first Gogyohka
Conference in 2008. In 2006, he started holding
workshops in the United States. This was
followed by the formation of a Gogyohka Society
for North America,61 and the establishment of
the Gogyohka Junction forum online. A handful
of publications in English followed.
Starting in about 2010, gogyohka caught the
attention of tanka poets on Twitter. It became a
fad with many experimenting with the form. The
#gogyohka hashtag rapidly came to outnumber
the #tanka hashtag. 62 Many poets tried gogyohka
and declared that it offered greater freedom than
tanka. Although significant changes and
expansions had occurred in the type of tanka
being published in English, the fascination that
gogyohka held for tanka poets illustrates an
ongoing disaffection, even after those limits had
largely fallen away.
Disputes among poets erupted with a
constant discussion about how to differentiate
gogyohka from tanka in English. Enta had not
been aware of the indigenous English-language
tanka movement before he began his workshops,
and it was difficult to distinguish gogyohka that
didn’t count sound units from contemporary
English-language tanka that didn’t count
syllables. Some advocates made the “breath” the
basis of the line for gogyohka, but it is not clear
whether such arguments required the lines to be
end-stopped. If so, this is a difference from tanka,
but if not, there is no discernible difference. The
two have come to an equivalent place via
different routes.
Debate erupted between Taro Aizu, a former
student of gogyohka, and Enta. Aizu advocated
an even freer implementation of gogyohka. Enta
trademarked the word “gogyohka” in Japan.
When word of Enta’s trademark reached English
speakers, ATPO switched to using the public
domain term “gogyoshi” in order to avoid
infringing on Enta’s trademark. A flurry erupted
among Anglophone poets, but the term
“gogyoshi” did not catch on with them.
Gogyohka continues to be a popular hashtag on
Twitter, but interest in gogyohka and gogyoshi
has waned among tanka poets.
I n 2 0 1 1 , Ta ro A i z u p u b l i s h e d h i s
“Declaration of Gogyoshi”63 in the pages of
ATPO. Aizu embraced a broad view of the
world’s five line forms of poetry, including
Western and Eastern forms. He sought some sort
of unification among them, although what he
envisioned was not exactly clear. He also
republished his earlier book, The Lovely Earth, in
English translation.
The following poem appears in The Lovely
Earth and embodies the lack of adornment prized
in gogyohka and gogyoshi. It resembles the
approach of poets in Sounds from the Unknown,
where kokoro (“heart,” i.e., sincerity) is valued,
Is my cat
really dead?
I caress
her throat
very softly
Aizu Taro 64
Gogyohka and gogyoshi failed to establish
any English-language journals, and aside from
the acceptance of the forms in ATPO, didn’t
make any inroads among existing journals or
websites. Gogyohka and gogyoshi attracted the
attention of far more poets than kyoka did, but it
had even less impact on tanka.
4.5 Small Issues
This article has explored major developments
but omitted several smaller ones, such as the
tankeme (2-3-2-3-3 beats), word tanka (one word
on each line for five lines), shaped tanka (a tanka
arranged to form a shape, such as a cross or
circle), and other tanka adaptions.
Experimentation continues. For example,
Professor Stephen Carter, the well-known
translator, has tried exploding tanka translations
on up to ten lines. 65 Others, such as Marlene
Mountain, have tried writing tanka in English on
two lines. Matsukaze has been experimenting
with three line and one line tanka. Edward
Seidensticker advocated a two line tanka in
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 90
iambic pentameter.66 Most recently, Chase Fire
has founded the online journal Skyline, a Journal of
Modern and Experimental Tanka to provide a venue
for tanka experimentation. (Skyline has not yet
published an issue as of this writing.) Some have
advocated the use of rhyme, quatrain, or other
methods. None of these smaller efforts has
garnered widespread interest or spawned any
journals aside from Skyline.
4.6 Tanka As It Is
The most comprehensive attempt to survey
tanka as it is found was the Take Five anthology
series. Each year for four years, the editorial team
read all tanka published in English to select
approximately three hundred poems for inclusion
in an annual volume, along with several pieces of
tanka prose and tanka sequences. In the final
year, the team read in excess of eighteen
thousand poems in more than a hundred and
eighty venues. 67 Media ranged from print
journals to poet blogs to symphonic music to
chapbooks to videos and more. The four
volumes, covering material published 2008–2011,
gives a valuable snapshot of tanka of the modern
era. What emerges is a portrait of a highly
diverse field of skilled poets working with a
variety of techniques to create poetry that is
supple, muscular, and insightful. No single
approach dominates.
5. Definition
The problem of tanka is how to define it.
Any definition must be broad enough to
encompass tanka as it is written in English,
narrow enough to exclude its relatives, consistent
enough to show its Japanese roots, and flexible
enough to permit innovation. All of the ideas
described above have merits and demerits, but
none has been universally adopted.
Closeness to the Japanese original cannot be
the basis of authority in English-language tanka.
On the other hand, distance from the Japanese is
not the basis of authority, either. This apparently
contradictory position can only be resolved if we
step back and realize that tanka is no longer a
Japanese literature. This may strike some as a
profoundly radical position. Clearly, tanka
originated in Japan and has been going strong
there for fourteen hundred years, but just as
clearly, it is now written in scores of languages
around the world.
Defining tanka requires a “unified field
theory” that takes in all the various methods of
adaption, tradition, and innovation. The
definition must account for all of tanka’s
manifestations from ancient times to the present
in whatever language it appears. It cannot
depend on tautology or solipsism, but must be an
objective standard that any reader can apply.
The pragmatic definition that has arisen
from the work of many poets, editors, publishers,
and readers is this:
Tanka is a short lyric poem originally from
Japan composed of five poetic phrases
conventionally written on five lines in English.
Additions and restrictions are proposed by
various parties to expand or contract the
definition, but the statement above is generally
accepted as being part of tanka’s definition, even
when it is not accepted as the whole.
The reason why definition has been so
fraught is the fear that if a definition is accepted,
it will result in the gatekeepers refusing to publish
things that “aren’t really tanka.” This is a
legitimate fear: editors have the right—and duty
—to publish poetry that embodies their editorial
vision. That means they have the right to turn
down poems that don’t adhere to their guidelines.
Fortunately, publication venues have multiplied to
the point that there are dozens available. Further,
print-on-demand and ebook technologies, online
venues, and social media provide outlets where
anyone can publish anything. We live in an era of
almost perfect liberty for anyone who is willing to
learn some new technology. The reign of the
gatekeepers is over.
6. Conclusion
If anyone can publish anything they wish,
why do we even need a definition? Because
definitions allow us to understand what we’re
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 91
talking about. Although it is fashionable to say we
don’t want to label our poetry, in truth, terms are
handles that help us to pick up ideas and carry
them around. Although writing poetry is
generally conducted as an intuitive practice, it is
actually a skill that can be studied, learned, and
enhanced, but only if we have an effective
vocabulary. In short, understanding tanka better
makes for better poets, editors, and readers.
10
All items on this list are verbatim from: Reichhold,
Jane. ‘Lesson Seven Comparing Haiku with Tanka.’
Wind Five Folded School of Tanka. Gualala, CA: AHA
Poetry, 2011. <http://www.ahapoetry.com/Bare
%20Bones/wffles7.html> Accessed 28 August 2011.
11
Reichhold, Jane. Appears in Reichhold, Jane and
Werner, eds. Wind Five Folded : An Anthology of
English-Language Tanka. Gualala, CA: AHA Books,
1994, p 159.
12
Reichhold, Jane. ‘Circling the Pivot Again.’ Lynx, a
journal for linking poets. XXII: 1. Gualala, CA:
AHABooks, February 2007. <http://
ahapoetry.com/ahalynx/221articles.html>
13
Goldstein, Sanford. ‘Tanka As Open Form.’ Five
Lines Down: A Landmark in English Tanka. Baltimore,
MD: MET Press, 2007, p 95.
14
Ferrell, Donna, moderator. Mountain-Home : A
Modern Waka Workshop. <http://groups.yahoo.com/
group/Mountain-Home/> Accessed 23 August
2012.
15
Ibid.
16
Fujita, Jun. ‘A Japanese Cosmopolite.’ Poetry
Magazine. Chicago, IL. June 1922, pp. 162–164.
Ferrell, Donna. Mountain-Home : A Modern Waka
Workshop. 26 May 2010. <http://
groups.yahoo.com/group/Mountain-Home/
message/9361> Accessed 23 August 2012.
17
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
18
6
Garrison, Denis M., ed. Jun Fujita : Tanka Pioneer.
Baltimore, MD: MET Press, 2007, p 43.
Cranston, Edwin A., ed. & trans. A Waka Anthology :
Volume One : The Gem-Glistening Cup. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1993, p 7.
19
7
Gilbert, Richard. “Stalking the Wild Onji : The
Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in
Japanese Poetry Circles.” AHAPoetry, undated.
<http://www.ahapoetry.com/wildonji.htm>
Accessed 20 October 2011.
Ibid, p xviii.
20
Gilbert, Richard. “Stalking the Wild Onji : The
Search for Current Linguistic Terms Used in
Japanese Poetry Circles.” AHAPoetry, undated.
<http://www.ahapoetry.com/wildonji.htm>
Accessed 20 October 2011.
21
Aizu, Taro. “Declaration of Gogyoshi.” Atlas Poetica
10. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, Autumn, 2011, p 78.
22
Goldstein, Sanford. In M. Kei et al, eds. Take Five :
Best Contemporary Tanka, Volume 2. Baltimore, MD:
MET Press, 2010, p 143.
23
Ai Akitsu. In Lowitz, Leza et al, eds. a long rainy
season : haiku and tanka. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge
Press, 1994, p. 83.
Kei, M. A History of Tanka in English, Part 1 : The North
American Foundation, 1899–1985. Perryville, MD:
Keibooks, 2013. <http://atlaspoetica.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/Tanka-History-Pt-IPDF.pdf> Accessed 18 March 2014.
2
3
4
8
9
Kei, M. ‘Introduction.’ Jun Fujita : Tanka Pioneer.
Denis M. Garrison, ed. Baltimore, MD: MET Press,
2007.
Hartmann, Sadakichi. Drifting Flowers of the Sea and
Other Poems, self-published, 1904, p 10. Digitized 19
September 2005. Accessed 1 November 2007.
<http://books.google.com/books?
id=a7kH3SY_Y0oC&printsec=
frontcover&dq=drifting+flowers+of+the+sea&ei=lYpR8eNGY7U7QLzkMTxCw#PPP1,M1>
Moldovan, Vasile, ed. ‘25 Romanian Tanka Poets in
Romanian and English.’ Magdalena Dale, et al.,
trans. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, 2010. <http://
atlaspoetica.org/?page_id=141> Accessed 17
September 2012.
Dornaus, Margaret. ‘Carles Riba and Catalonian
Tanka.’ Atlas Poetica 10. Perryville, MD: Keibooks,
Autumn, 2011, p 64–66.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 92
24
Motoko Michiura. Ibid, p. 103.
25
Bob Lucky. In Modern English Tanka 1:4. Baltimore,
MD: MET Press, Spring, 2007, p 109.
26
Lawrence, Father Neal, quote by Sanford Goldstein
in ‘From This Side of Five Lines Down.’ Five Lines
Down : A Landmark of English Tanka, a Compilation of
All Issues 1994–1996. Denis M. Garrison, ed.
Baltimore, MD: Modern English Tanka Press, 2007,
p 20.
38
Nixon, Lucille. ‘Introduction.’ Sounds from the
Unknown : A Collection of Japanese American Tanka.
Denver, CO: Alan Swallow, 1963, p xvi–xvii.
39
Burgh, Mark. In Atlas Poetica 10. Perryville, MD:
Keibooks, Autumn, 2011, p 34.
40
Aizu, Taro. ‘Our Hometown : Fukushima, A
Gogyoshibun.’ Atlas Poetica 12. Perryville, MD:
Keibooks, Summer, 2012, p 9.
41
Nixon, Lucille. ‘Introduction.’ Sounds from the
Unknown : A Collection of Japanese American Tanka.
Denver, CO: Alan Swallow, 1963, p xix.
27
Tuttle, Charles E. ‘Publisher’s Foreword.’ Japan :
Theme and Variations. Rutland, VT & Tokyo, JP:
Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1957, p. xi.
42
28
Smyth, Florida Watts. ‘Festival of Spring.’ Tuttle,
Charles E., ed. Japan : Theme and Variations. Rutland,
VT & Tokyo, JP: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1957,
p. 33.
Garrison, Denis M., ed. “I’ll Tell You About
Onions.” Modern English Tanka 1:1. Baltimore, MD:
MET Press, Autumn, 2006, p. 1–3.
43
Emrich, Jeanne. In Ward, Linda Jeannette, ed. Full
Moon Tide : The Best of Tanka Splendor 1990–1999.
Coinjock, NC: Clinging Vine Press, p. 55.
Kei, M. ‘List of Tanka Anthologies.’ Atlas Poetica.
Perryville, MD: Keibooks, 2013. <http://
AtlasPoetica.org> Accessed 5 July 2013.
44
Goldstein, Sanford. At the Hut of the Small Mind.
Gualala, CA: AHA Books, 1992. <http://
www.ahapoetry.com/hut1book.htm> Accessed 30
June 2013.
45
Rotella, Alexis. ‘Editor’s Note.’ Prune Juice : A Journal
of Senryu and Kyoka 1. Baltimore, MD: MET Press,
Winter, 2009. <http://prunejuice.wordpress.com/
journal> Accessed 20 October 2011.
46
Fielden, Amelia; Denis M. Garrison, & Robert
Wilson. “A Definition of the ideal form of
traditional tanka written in English.” Simply Haiku :
A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry 7:2.
Summer, 2009. <http://simplyhaiku.com/
SHv7n2/features/Ideal.html> Accessed 20
October 2011.
47
Ibid.
48
Uzawa, Kozue. ‘What is Tanka?’ Tanka Canada.
<http://members.shaw.ca/uzawa/
whatistanka.htm> Accessed 17 September 2012.
49
In Gusts : Contemporary Tanka 13. Burnaby, BC:
Tanka Canada, Spring/Summer, 2012, p 15.
29
30
Daleiden, John. In Kei, M., ed. Fire Pearls : Short
Masterpieces of the Human Heart. Perryville, MD:
Keibooks, 2006, p. 131.
31
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage
Books, 1979, pp 1–6.
32
Lucky, Bob. In Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka,
Volume 3. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, 2011, p. 49.
33
Saigyō. In ‘Snipe Rising from a Marsh.’ Rodney
Williams, ed. and trans. Atlas Poetica Special Features.
2012. <http://atlaspoetica.org/?page_id=490>
Accessed 17 September 2012.
34
Marcoff, A. A. In Kei, M. et al, eds. Take Five : Best
Contemporary Tanka, Vol. 2. Baltimore, MD: MET
Press, p 121.
35
Ogawa, Fumiko. In Nixon, Lucille. Sounds from the
Unknown : A Collection of Japanese American Tanka.
Denver, CO: Alan Swallow, 1963, p 118.
36
McClintock, Michael. In Atlas Poetica, Vol. 1.
Baltimore, MD: MET Press, p 58.
37
Matsuoka, Hagino. In Nixon, Lucille.
‘Introduction.’ Sounds from the Unknown : A Collection of
Japanese American Tanka. Denver, CO: Alan Swallow,
1963, p 43.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 93
50
Ogi, Saeko. An Interview with Saeko Ogi, tanka poet and
translator in Australia. Guy Simser, interviewer. Simply
Haiku : The International Journal of English Language
Traditional Japanese Short Form Poetry. 8:3. Spring,
2011. <http://simplyhaiku.theartofhaiku.com/
past-issues/simply-haiku-2011/spring-2011/
features/interview-with-saeko-ogi.html> Accessed
17 September 2012.
61
‘Mr. Enta Kusakabe, Founder.’ The Gogyohka Society.
14 April 2011. <http://www.zoominfo.com/
CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=—
1324364379&page_url=//www.fivelinepoetry.com/
about_founder_
Enta_Kusakabe.html&page_last_updated=2011-0414T06:58:34&firstName=Enta&lastName=Kusaka
be>. Accessed 17 September 2012.
51
Ishikawa, Takuboku. Quoted in Goldstein, Sanford.
‘From This Side of Five Lines Down.’ Five Lines
Down : A Landmark in English Tanka. Denis M.
Garrison, ed. Baltimore, MD: MET Press, 2007, p
20.
62
Kei, M. ‘The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry
on Twitter.’ Atlas Poetica 9. Summer, 2011, p 56.
63
Aizu, Taro. ‘Declaration of Gogyoshi.’ Atlas Poetica
10. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, Autumn, 2011, p 78.
52
Wilson, Robert D. A Lousy Mirror. 31 March 2012.
<http://lousymirror.blogspot.com/> Accessed 17
September 2012.
64
Aizu, Taro. The Lovely Earth. Morrisville, NC: Lulu
Enterprises, 2011, p 6.
65
53
Wilson, Robert. ‘Introduction to A Definition of the
ideal form of traditional tanka written in English.’
Simply Haiku : A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form
Poetry 7:2. Summer, 2009. <http://
simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n2/features/Ideal.html>
Accessed 20 October 2011.
Carter, Stephen, ed. Unforgotten Dreams : Poems by the
Zen Monk Shōtetsu. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press, 1997.
66
Goldstein, Sanford. ‘Tanka As Open Form.’ Five
Lines Down: A Landmark in English Tanka. Baltimore,
MD: MET Press, 2007, p 95.
67
Kei, M. et al, eds. Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka,
Volume 4. Perryville, MD: Keibooks, 2012, p 10.
54
MacRury, Carole. In Wilson, Robert. ‘Introduction
to A Definition of the ideal form of traditional
tanka written in English.’ Simply Haiku : A Quarterly
Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry 7:2. Summer,
2009. <http://simplyhaiku.com/SHv7n2/features/
Ideal.html> Accessed 17 September 2012.
55
Fielden, Amelia. Gusts : Contemporary Tanka 5.
Burnaby, BC: Tanka Canada, Spring/Summer,
2007, p 1.
56
Gill, Robin, trans. and ed. Mad in Translation. Key
Biscayne, FL: Paraverse Press, 2009, p 455.
57
Ibid.
58
Konoshima, Kisaburo. David Callner, trans. Simply
Haiku : A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry,
7:1. Spring, 2009. <http://simplyhaiku.com/
SHv7n1/features/Callner.html> Accessed 17
September 2012.
59
Enta, Kusakabe, ed. Gogyohka. (Second Edition)
Matthew Lane & Elizabeth Phaire, trans. Tokyo, JP:
Shisei-sha, 2009 [2006], p 20.
60
Ibid, p 21.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 94
1
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Atlas Poetica will publish short announcements in any
language up to 300 words in length on a space available basis.
Announcements may be edited for brevity, clarity, grammar, or
any other reason. Send announcements in the body of an email
to: [email protected]—do not send attachments.
*
*
*
Tomoe Tana’s
“History of Japanese
Tanka Poetry in America”
Published
Tomoe Tana (1913–1991) was an American
tanka poet, editor, and translator. Best known for
editing and translating Sounds from the Unknown
with Lucille Nixon (1963), she had numerous
accomplishments in the field of tanka poetry. A
member of the “Totsukuni” tanka circle of
California, she was also a winner of the Imperial
Poetry Contest (1949), an editor, translator,
publisher, and scholar of tanka in America. In
1985 she obtained her master’s degree at San
Jose State University.
Tana’s history covers the United States,
Canada, and to a lesser extent, Brazil and South
America. Pouring over tanka publications and
Ja p a n e s e l a n g u a g e n e w s p a p e r s , Ta n a
documented a large segment of tanka published
by people of Japanese descent in North America,
and to a lesser extent, non-Japanese poets.
Particularly compelling are her details of life for
the internees (she was herself interned during
WW2), such as how Tomari Yoshihiko (her
sensei), cut stencils by hand in order to publish
not just newsletters, but entire books of tanka
while interned.
In addition to the history, Tana includes
appendices of useful information, including a
listing of American winners of the Imperial
Poetry Contest from 1949 to 1984 with
translations of their poems, and Zaibei dōbō
haykunin isshu / One Hundred Tanka by our Countrymen
in America, which had previously only been
published in fragments in Japan. The anthology
was the result of a poetry contest with 5000 (five
thousand) tanka submitted. It was judged by a
trio of Japanese judges: Kubota Utsubo, Saitō
Mokichi, and Shaku Chakū. Readers of tanka
will recognize Mokichi as one of the great
Japanese tanka poets of the modern era.
We thank Shibun Tana, Mrs. Tana’s son,
who has granted permission to publish his
mother’s master’s thesis online. Scanned and
photocopied by Tina Nguyen, with an
introduction by M. Kei, it is now available in the
Resources section of the Atlas Poetica website. It
can be accessed at: http://atlaspoetica.org/?
page_id=705 (Scroll down to ‘Tanka Articles.’)
Previously this extremely rare document
existed only in one official copy in the San Jose
State University Library, and in a handful of
photocopies and scans. Keibooks is proud to
make this important document available to any
one interested in tanka in America.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 95
Skyline Journal
Experimental Tanka
Established
Skyline is a bi-annual tanka publication with a
focus on work with bold and experimental
content, which might not be accepted in other
tanka publications. Some of the themes we like
involve references to myths or the unreal, bold
erotica, personification, religion, poems with
strong language, and even tanka that follow
structural differences, such as three line tanka
and one image tanka.
Main site: http://skylinetanka.webs.com/
*
*
*
Soumettre à Cirrus
APPEL À TANKA POUR LA REVUE
Électronique CIRRUS: tankas de nos jours
Maxianne Berger de Montréal, Canada et
Mike Montreuil d’Ottawa, Canada lancent un
appel à tanka, en vue de la publication d’une
nouvelle revue électronique dédiée au tankas
contemporains. Le lancement du premier
numéro est prévu pour la fin janvier 2014.
Notre vision esthétique repose sur l’essence
du tanka – sa brièveté, sa légèreté et sa subtilité.
Nous cherchons des poèmes qui par leur simple
expression vont évoquer une réaction émotive
chez les lecteurs, et non des poèmes qui
expriment une émotion ou un sentiment en
utilisant son nom abstrait. Nous préférons des
tankas où les liens entre les fragments qui
forment les vers restent fluides: tout en évitant
des listes d’épicerie, il n’est pas nécessaire de lier
tous les vers de façon explicite quand la
juxtaposition de fragments à elle seule peut en
établir le lien.
Jusqu’à 5 tankas par poète peuvent être
soumis. Pour chaque tanka, il est sous-entendu
que le/la poète en est l’auteur, qu’il ou elle
détient tous les droits, et nous accorde le droit de
publier sur le site web de la revue les tankas qui
seront acceptés. Les tankas soumis ne doivent en
aucun cas avoir été déjà publiés. Ils doivent être
inédits et ne peuvent pas être soumis ailleurs.
Les tankas écrits dans une langue autre que le
français seront acceptés s’ils sont accompagnés
par une traduction française. Les directeurs se
réservent le droit de faire des modifications des
poèmes traduits. Les soumissions devront être
expédiées par courriel, et uniquement pendant la
période de soumission qui s’étendra entre le 1er
et le 30 novembre 2013 pour une publication à la
fin de janvier 2014. (Les soumissions reçues avant
ou après cette date ne seront pas lues.)
À: [email protected]
Objet: soumission tanka 2013
Tous les tankas devront paraître dans le
courriel même et non en pièce-jointe.
*
*
*
A Solitary Woman
Published by
Pamela A. Babusci
I am happy to announce that my second
tanka book: A Solitary Woman has been
published. If you would like a signed copy, please
send your request to me. The price for the US is
$15 plus $3 S&H; Canada $15 plus $3.50 S&H,
Aust., NZ, England, Japan $15 plus 6.50 S&H.
Anybody can use Paypal if they desire, please just
add $1 extra to cover Paypal fees. I will have
copies of my tanka book by Jan. 7th, but, copies
can be purchased now on Createspace.
Checks or International money orders made
out to: Pamela A. Babusci
Pamela A. Babusci
244 Susan Lane Apt. B
Rochester, NY 14616 USA
You can also, purchase my book at once at
<http://www.createspace.com>.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 96
2014 One Man’s Maple
Moon: Call for Tanka
Submissions
Bright Stars, An Organic
Tanka Anthology,
Call for Submissions
Send your best published tanka (please
provide publication credits) or new work and a
bio sketch (50 words max.) with the subject
heading “Published or Unpublished Tanka, Your
Name, Submitted Date” to Chen-ou Liu, Blog
E d i t o r a n d Tr a n s l a t o r v i a e m a i l a t
[email protected] And place
your tanka directly in the body of the email. DO
NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS.
No more than 20 tanka per submission and
no simultaneous submissions. And please wait for
at least three months for another new submission.
Deadline: November 1, 2014.
Please note that only those whose tanka are
selected for publication will be notified within
three weeks, and that no other notification will be
sent out, so your works are automatically freed up
after three weeks to submit elsewhere.
The accepted tanka will be translated into
Chinese and posted on NeverEnding Story and
Twitter. Of them, the best 66 tanka will be
included in the anthology, which is scheduled to
be published in June of 2015, and the poet whose
tanka is chosen as the best tanka of the year will
be given a 3-page space to feature the tanka of
his/her choice. For those whose tanka are
included in the anthology, each will receive a
copy of its e-book edition.
Complete Guidelines at: http://
atlaspoetica.org/?p=952
*
*
*
Toolbox Passes Away
21 March 2014, Newark, DE, USA.
Toolbox, senior ship’s cat of the tall ship Kalmar
Nyckel, went to Fiddler’s Green. She frequently
appeared in the tanka of M. Kei, including:
do sailor cats
dream of Fiddler’s Green
where every day
brings bowls of cream
and slow-flying sparrows?
Bright Stars is an experimental project from
Keibooks that will run for one calendar year
(2014). As an anthology, it will publish both new
and socially published tanka (within certain
parameters) in as many volumes as can be filled
with intriguing work. All volumes will be
published in 2014. As each volume fills, it will go
to press and subsequent submissions will be
considered for the next volume. There is no
planned number of volumes: it will depend
entirely on the quantity and quality of
submissions. It will not follow a fixed schedule.
The content of the anthology and the press of
other business will determine the schedule.
Bright Stars focuses on the Japanese aesthetic
of ‘akarui’—bright, light, illuminated, brilliant,
shiny, brassy, active, energetic, noisy, loud, happy,
drunk, passionate, wild, playful, vivid, and
boundless. That doesn’t mean you can’t send us
dark poems—black is a color too—but it should
be an active darkness, not a hand wringing,
genteelly sighing darkness.
Experiments are welcome here. If you’ve
written something and you’re afraid the standard
tanka venues won’t consider it, send it here. We
make no promises, but we’re open to new ideas.
To Submit
Send up to 40 unpublished or socially
published tanka to BrightStarsTanka@ gmail dot
com.
Reading window: November 10, 2013 thru
September 30, 2014.
Guidelines at: http://atlaspoetica.org/?
p=952
Addendum: sedoka, mondo, and cherita
welcome.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 97
BIOGRAPHIES
Alenka Zorman is the former president of the
Haiku Club of Slovenia and editor of its journal Letni
časi / Seasons. Her two haiku books Metulj na rami /
Butterfly on the Shoulder (2004) and Notranja osvoboditev /
Inner Liberation (2006) have been published in Slovenia
and Macedonia. Her haiku and tanka also appear in
Slovenian literary journals and on-line journals.
Alexander Jankiewicz was born and raised in
Chicago, IL, USA and currently lives in the United
Arab Emirates with his wife and two daughters.
Alexis Rotella has been writing haiku, senryu and
tanka for 30 years. Her work has appeared
internationally in hundreds of publications. Her books
include Lip Prints (tanka 1979–2007), Ouch (senryu
1979–2007) and Eavesdropping (haiku 2007).
Amada Burgard lives with her quirky family in
beautiful central Michigan, USA. She is a poet, writer
and lover of tanka, with several upcoming
publications.
Autumn Noelle Hall lives in Green Mountain
Falls, Colorado, shadowed by mountain lions, ravens,
and a predatory urge to write. Her Asian Short Form
poetry and nature photography have been featured
online and in journals worldwide. Whether snapping a
hummingbird’s dance with her camera, hiking the
pine needled slopes of Pikes Peak, or throwing found
fossils to read the I Ching, Autumn is ever gathering
the stuff of tanka.
Bernice Yap is an aspiring writer who currently
dabbles in poetry and short stories. Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia.
Having graduated and worked as an economist,
Brane Grgurovič has been a fisherman for 23 years.
His haiku were published in the Slovenian journals
Apokalipsa and Primorska srečanja, and also in two
Croatian miscellanies, in the Romanian cultural
journal Cronica, in Ardea and Slovenska tanka.
Brian Zimmer lives in St. Louis Missouri within
walking distance of the great Mississippi River. His
work has appeared in various publications & journals
both online and in print, including Modern Tanka Today,
red lights, The Tanka Journal (Japan), Gusts & Skylark. He
has been writing both micro and longer poetry for
over forty years, devoting most of his efforts today to
tanka and other Japanese short forms.
C. William Hinderliter was born and raised in
Phoenix, AZ. Though he is a Registered Hypnotist, he
prefers to spend his time writing poetry. His latest
work can be seen in Frogpond, Prune Juice and Star*Line,
to Kamesan’s World Haiku Anthology on War, Violence and
Human Rights Violation.
Carole Har rison combines her love of
photography, long distance walking and short form
poetry. Her work has been published in Eucalypt, Atlas
Poetica, plus other anthologies and on-line pages. She
lives in country Australia with her husband,
surrounded by rainforest, a dairy farm and lots of
local birds.
Carole Johnston lives in Lexington, Kentucky, but
her heart still wanders the Jersey Shore. Recently
retired from teaching creative writing in a high school
arts program, she is free to pursue her passion for
writing tanka and haiku. She is now ‘cloud hidden’
alone all day with her dog, working on a novel.
Charles Tarlton is a retired university professor
currently living in Oakland, California with his wife.
After a long career writing about the history of
political theory, his interests now are focused entirely
on tanka, particularly the mixtures of verse and
discourse in tanka prose.
Chen-ou Liu lives in Ajax, Ontario, Canada. He
is the author of four books, including Following the
Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize Winner of the 2011
Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest). His tanka and haiku
have been honored with many awards.
Constantine E. Fourakis was born in Chania,
Crete, Greece. He studied Law as well as Economic
and Political Sciences and followed post-graduation
studies in Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK.
Settled in Athens, Greece, he became an
educationalist with British and Greek Colleges as well
as a translator and simultaneous interpreter in the
early 80’s and been awarded by international
distinctions and praises.
Christina Nguyen is a Minnesota copywriter,
poet, and mom. She likes to play around in Facebook
groups, especially Tanka Poets on Site, NaHaiWriMo,
and Senryu & Kyoka. She is also fond of tweeting as
@TinaNguyen.
Debbie Strange is a member of the Writers’
Collective of Manitoba and the United Haiku and
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 98
Tanka Society. Her writing has received awards, and
has been published in print and online by numerous
journals. Her photographs have been published, and
were recently featured in an exhibition. Debbie is
currently assembling a collection of haiga and tankart.
She can be found on Twitter @Debbie_Strange.
Deborah P Kolodji is the moderator of the
Southern California Haiku Study Group and the
former president of the Science Fiction Poetry
Association. In addition to Atlas Poetica, her work can
be found in Modern Haiku, Ribbons, Red Lights, Frogpond,
bottle rockets, Strange Horizons, Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s
Soul, and other places.
Diana Teneva is a Bulgarian writer. She has
appeared in Sketchbook, World Haiku Review, The Heron’s
Nest, The Mainichi, Asahi Haikuist Network by The Asahi
Shimbun, A hundred gourds, Shamrock, Chrysanthemum.
Some are translated to Russian, French, English,
Italian, Spanish and Croatian.
Eamonn O’Neill is retired after working for thirty
years with Aer Lingus, Ireland’s national airline. He
has travelled widely, both in America and Europe.
While recovering from surgery he was introduced to
the many facets of early Japanese poetry. Tanka has
become his favorite style. Still a novice, these are his
first Tanka poems accepted for publication.
Elizabeth Howard lives in Crossville, Tennessee.
Her tanka have been published in American Tanka,
Lynx, Eucalypt, red lights, Mariposa, Ribbons, Gusts, and
other journals.
Ernesto P. Santiago is a Filipino who lives in
Greece, where he enjoys exploring the poetic myth of
his senses.
Genie Nakano has an MFA in Dance from
UCLA. She performs, choreographs dance and
teaches Gentle Yoga, Meditation, and Tanoshii Tanka
at the Japanese Cultural Center in Gardena, CA. She
was a journalist for the Gardena Valley Newspaper
before she discovered tanka and haibun and was
hooked.
gennepher began writing micropoetry on Twitter
in 2010, and mostly writes haiku and tanka. She lives
in North Wales, UK, with 3 cats and a Hearing Dog
for Deaf People.
Geoffrey Winch resides in Felpham, West Sussex,
England. His poetry has appeared in numerous UKbased magazines over the years, and more recently in
various US-based journals including Atlas Poetica 9 and
15. He is active in his local poetry scene where he
leads occasional workshops, currently promoting
Contemporary Tanka and their kin forms. He is
hopeful that his new collection Alchemy of Vision will be
published before the end of 2014.
Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, Australia. He
was a geologist in a past life and wrote scientific
papers. But nothing beats the thrill of having tanka
published in Atlas Poetica. Gerry’s tanka and tanka
prose also appear currently in Ribbons, GUSTS and
Haibun Today.
Ivanka Kostantino writes prose and poetry; since
2006 haiku and tanka have been her favourite. Her
haiku have been published in the Slovenian journal
Apokalipsa, in two Croatian miscellanies, in the
Romanian cultural journal Cronica, in the on-line
journals Locutio, pesem.si and Slovenska tanka.
Janet Lynn Davis lives in a rustic area north of
Houston, Texas. Her work has been published in
numerous online and print venues. Many of her
poems can be found at her blog, twigs&stones, <http://
twigsandstones-poems.blogspot.com>.
Jeffrey Harpeng’s most recent writing online is
“Hope” and “Finding Hope” at Haibun Today and
“And the Soil” at CHO.
Jenny Ward Angyal lives with her husband and
one Abyssinian cat on a small organic farm in
Gibsonville, NC, USA. She has written poetry since
the age of five and tanka since 2008. Her tanka have
appeared in at least eighteen of the short-form
journals and may also be found online at her blog,
The Grass Minstrel.
Joanne Morcom is a social worker and poet who
lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She’s a founding
member of The Magpie Haiku & Tanka Poets, as well
as Haiku Canada and Tanka Canada. For more
information on her published poetry, including two
poetry collections, please visit www.joannemorcom.ca.
Joy McCall (Murasame) is 68 years old and has
written poetry, mostly tanka, for 50 years. She lives on
the edge of the old walled city of Norwich, UK. The
poets she reads most often are Ryokan, Langston
Hughes, M. Kei, Frances Cornford, TuFu, Sanford
Goldstein, and Rumi.
Kate Franks is grateful every day for the
opportunity to teach middle school in Calgary,
Alberta, Canada. Conversations with her students and
the poetry of her mother, Joy McCall, inspire her to
write when she can. She treasures the support and
perspective of her wonderful companion, Paul.
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An 8-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National
Park Artist-in-Residence, Karla Linn Merrifield has
newest books are Lithic Scatter and Other Poems and
Attaining Canopy: Amazon Poems. Visit her Vagabond
Poet blog at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. She
resides in Kent, NY/ North Fort Myers, FL.
Kath Abela Wilson is the creator and leader of
Poets on Site in Pasadena, California. Closely related
to poetry of place, this group performs on the sites of
their common inspiration. She loves the vitality and
experimental micropoetic qualities of Twitter
(@kathabela) and publishes in many print and online
journals, as well as anthologies by Poets on Site.
LeRoy Gorman’s poetry has appeared in print
since 1976. Since 1996, he has been editor of Haiku
Canada Newsletter 1996–2006, Haiku Canada Review
beginning in 2007, annual anthologies, broadsides. In
1998, he began to publish poetry leaflets and
postcards under his pawEpress imprint.
Leslie Ihde lives in upstate New York with her
husband and their golden retriever. She works as a
psychotherapist and as an artist, writing poetry to
mark moments of insight and gratitude. She is the
editor of Inner Art Journal, an online journal devoted to
using tanka writing as a practice for self-discovery.
M. Kei is the editor of Atlas Poetica and editor-inchief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka. He is a tall
ship sailor in real life and has published nautical
novels featuring a gay protagonist, Pirates of the Narrow
Seas. His recently published a collection of poetry,
January, A Tanka Diary.
Margaret Van Every resides in San Antonio
Tlayacapan, a village on Lake Chapala near
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. She is the author of a
book of tanka entitled A Pillow Stuffed with Diamonds
(Librophilia Press, 2010). <http://librophilia.com>
Marilyn Humbert lives in the outer Northern
suburbs of Sydney surrounded by bush. Her work
appears in Eucalypt, Kokako, Moonbathing, Simply Haiku
and Atlas Poetica.
Marilyn Shoemake Hazelton is a poet and essayist
in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She is the editor and
publisher of red lights, an international tanka journal.
Matjaž Tevž Potočnik is an economist. He has
been working in the charitable organisations over 20
years. Since 1989 he has published six books of lyrics;
in the last few years he has also been writing haiku
and tanka. His haiku have been published in the
Slovenian journal Apokalipsa, in two Croatian
miscellanies, in the Romanian cultural journal Cronica,
in the on-line journals Ardea and Slovenska tanka.
Matsukaze discovered haiku and tanka 8 years
ago. At that time haiku captured much of his attention
so he solely focused on haiku. As of March 13th, he
‘re-discovered’ tanka. After reconnecting with an old
friend who is very much a tanka guru, he decided to
focus solely on tanka since then.
Matthew Caretti is influenced in equal parts by
his study of German language and literature, by his
Zen training in the East, and by the approach of the
Beat writers. He currently teaches English and directs
the Writing Center at a college preparatory school in
Pennsylvania.
Michael Dunwoody is a retired Canadian teacher
from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, with a fondness for
poetic forms. His publications in various magazines
include numerous sonnets. This is his first attempt to
publish tanka poems. Fond of music and photography,
his work likes to express a particular eye in sensuous
language. His garden often serves as a favourite
setting.
Michael Dylan Welch founded the Tanka Society
of America in 2000, and served as its president for five
years. His haiku, tanka, and longer poetry have
appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies,
and in 2012 one of his waka translations appeared on
the back of 150,000,000 United States postage
stamps. Michael lives in Sammamish, Washington,
and his personal website is graceguts.com.
Nu Quang grew up in an ethnic Chinese society
in Vietnam during the war and lived under the
Communist rule after Saigon fell. Now a naturalized
US citizen, she writes from her background consisting
of three cultures. Her haiku, haibun, and tanka have
been published in Notes from the Gean, A Hundred Gourds,
The Heron’s Nest, Haiku News, Multiverses, Moonbathing,
Red Lights, Lynx.
Nilufer Y. Mistry was born and brought up in
Calcutta, India. She now resides in British Columbia,
Canada, along with her family. She is an artist. She
discovered micropoetry on Twitter in 2011 and is an
avid member of this virtual community ever since
@NiluferYM. Her micropoems usually reflect Nature
but also document everyday-life.
Pat Geyer lives in East Brunswick, NJ, USA. A
photographer and nature lover, her Haiku and Tanka
have appeared in Mijikai Haiku, Moonbathing and The
Bamboo Hut.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 100
Patricia Prime has spent her working life as an
early childhood teacher and now works part-time in
this field. She is co-editor of Kokako, reviews/
interviews editor of Haibun Today and writes reviews
for the NZ journal Takahe and for Atlas Poetica.
Currently she is one of the guest editors for the World
Haiku Anthology, edited by Dr. Bruce Ross.
journal of contemporary English language tanka http://
thebamboohut.weebly.com/index.html
Paul Mercken, Belgian philosopher and
medievalist (1934), former treasurer and/or secretary
of the Haiku Kring Nederland. He likes participating
in international renga by e-mail and is learning
Chinese.
Tim Lenton has been concentrating on his poetry
since retiring early from journalism in 2002. He lives
in Norwich, the city of his birth, with his wife and has
an adult son and two grandchildren. Among his
favourite poets are Eliot, Yeats, Rilke, Dylan Thomas
and Leonard Cohen. He is a trustee of the Paston
H e r i t a g e S o c i e t y. < w w w. b a c k 2 s q 1 . c o . u k ,
www.pastonheritage.co.uk>
Pravat Kumar Padhy hails from Odisha, India.
He holds a Masters in Science and a Ph.D from
Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. His haiku, tanka
and haibun have appeared in Lynx, The Notes from the
Gean, Atlas Poetica, Simply Haiku, The Mainichi Daily
News, Red lights, Shamrock, A Hundred Gourds,
Chrysanthemum, Magnapoets, Bottle Rockets, Ribbons, Lilliput
Review, etc.
Radhey Shiam was born a citizen of India in
1922. He contributes haiku, tanka, articles and poems
in English, Hindi and Urdu to Indian and foreign
magazines. He published Song of Life and contributed
to the First Hindi Haiku Anthology, India, 1989 and the
First HayNaku Anthology, USA, 2005.
Robert Annis is a Florida born Tampa resident
who teaches at the University of South Florida. His
work has been nominated for the 2013 and 2014 AWP
Intro Journals Project. His poetry has appeared in
Lingerpost, Lynx, Gusts, and Ribbons.
Sergio Ortiz is a retired educator, poet, painter,
and photographer. Flutter Press released his debut
chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk, in October of 2009.
Ronin Press released his second chapbook: topography of
a desire, in May of 2010. He lives in San Juan, Puerto
Rico.
Sonam Chhoki was born and raised in the eastern
Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. She has been writing
Japanese short forms of haiku, tanka and haibun for
about 5 years. Her works have been published in
poetry journals and anthologies in Australia, Canada,
Japan, UK and US and included in the Cultural
Olympics 2012 Poetry Parnassus and BBC Radio
Scotland Written Word programme.
Steve Wilkinson is from County Durham,
England and has been writing tanka, haiku, senryu
and gogyoshi for several years. He has been published
in various on-line and print editions of Japanese short
form poetry journals. He now edits The Bamboo Hut
Susan Burch resides in Hagerstown, MD, USA,
with her husband, 2 kids, and warped sense of humor.
She loves reading, doing puzzles, and Coca-Cola
slurpees.
Tish Davis lives in Dublin, Ohio, USA. Her work
has appeared in numerous journals including Modern
Haibun and Tanka Prose, Atlas Poetica, Haibun Today, red
lights, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Presence, bottle rockets,
Contemporary Haibun Online, and Simply Haiku.
Toki is a native of the Pacific Northwest and a
writer of poetry, fiction, and occasional nonfiction,
with works appearing online and in print. Toki likes
listening to the music of the spheres, pondering the
interstices of the universe and taking long walks in
l i m i n a l s p a c e s. To fi n d o u t m o re, fo l l ow
@tokidokizenzen on Twitter.
Vasile Moldovan was born in a Transylvanian
village on 20 June 1949. He was cofounder (1991)
chairman of the Romanian Society of Haiku (2009).
Vasile Moldovan published five haiku books—Via
Dolorosa (1998), The moon’s unseen face (2001), Noah’s Ark
(2003), Ikebana (2005) and On a summer day (2010). Also
he published together with Magdalena Dale the renku
book Fragrance of Lime.
Yancy Carpentier is a student of the 18th & 19th
centuries. Her interests include military and maritime
history, and poetry of all flavors. The Mediterranean
and the Ottoman Empire are her keenest attractions.
She loves to read and garden. Yancy lives in the Deep
South with her best friend/husband.
Zoe Savina-Greece was born in Athens and writes
haikus, tankas, minicuentos, short essays and critiques,
awarded by international prizes, appearing in poetry
journals. She is currently preparing a haiku book
dedicated to Lafcadio Hearn. She is member of the
National Association of Greek Writers, Coordinating
Centre of Hellenism, World Haiku Association-Fujimi
Saitama – Japan, and an Honorary Member of the
Yugoslav Haiku Association.
A t l a s P o e t i c a • I s s u e 1 8 • P a g e 101
Publications by Keibooks
Edited by M. Kei
This Short Life, Minimalist Tanka, by Sanford Goldstein
Hedgerows : Tanka Pentaptychs, by Joy McCall
circling smoke, scattered bones, by Joy McCall
Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka (Vol.4)
Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka
Bright Stars, An Organic Tanka Anthology
M. Kei’s Poetry Collections
January, A Tanka Diary
Slow Motion : The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack
tanka and short forms
Heron Sea : Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay
tanka and short forms
M. Kei’s Novels
Pirates of the Narrow Seas 1 : The Sallee Rovers
Pirates of the Narrow Seas 2 : Men of Honor
Pirates of the Narrow Seas 3 : Iron Men
Pirates of the Narrow Seas 4 : Heart of Oak
Man in the Crescent Moon : A Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure
The Sea Leopard : A Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure (forthcoming 2014)
Fire Dragon
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INDEX
Alenka Zorma, 40, 41
Alexander Jankiewicz, 7, 57
Alexis Rotella, 61
Amada Burgard, 49
Autumn Noelle Hall, 19, 52
Bernice Yap, 31
Brane Grgurovič, 40
Brian Zimmer, 10, 32
C. William Hinderliter, 55
Carole Harrison, 20
Carole Johnston, 30
Charles Tarlton, 36, 37, 63
Chen-ou Liu, 38
Christina Nguyen, 46
Claire Everett, 19
Constantine Fourakis, 60
Debbie Johnson, 46
Debbie Strange, 16, 17,
Deborah P. Kolodji, 57
Diana Teneva, 42
Eamonn O’Neill, 62
Elizabeth Howard, 42
Ernesto P. Santiago, 59
Genie Nakano, 17, 34
gennepher, 53
Geoffrey Winch, 34, 60
Gerry Jacobson, 35, 50
Ivanka Kostantino, 41
Janet Lynn Davis, 57
Joanne Morcom, 54
Jeffrey Harpeng, 71
Jenny Ward Angyal, 35, 54
Joy McCall, 9, 11, 15, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 51, 73
Karla Linn Merrifield, 46
Kath Abela Wilson, 10, 44
Kate Franks, 15
LeRoy Gorman, 47
Leslie Ihde, 14
M. Kei, 5, 8, 77
Margaret Van Every, 43
Marilyn Humbert, 32, 33
Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton, 17
Matjaž Tevž Potočnik, 40
Matsukaze, 28, 29, 30, 56, 74
Matthew Caretti, 47
Michael Dunwoody, 22
Michael Dylan Welch, 61
Murasame, 28, 29, 30
Natsuko Wilson, 18, 53
Nilufer Y. Mistry, 53
Nu Quang, 50
Pat Geyer, 61
Patricia Prime, 46, 69
Paul Mercken, 49
Pravat Kumar Padhy, 55
Radhey Shiam, 48
Robert Annis, 58
Sergio Ortiz, 12, 31
Sonam Chhoki, 12, 23
Steve Wilkinson, 73
Susan Burch, 51
Tim Lenton, 26, 27
Tish Davis, 7, 49
Toki, 45
Vasile Moldovan, 44
Zoe Savina, 60
Our ‘butterfly’ is actually an Atlas moth (Attacus atlas), the largest butterfly/moth in the world. It comes from
the tropical regions of Asia. Image from the 1921 Les insectes agricoles d’époque.
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