A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka Number 14 – Spring, 2013

ATLAS POETICA A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka

Number 14 Spring, 2013

ATLAS POETICA A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka

Number 14 Spring, 2013

M. Kei, editor Amora Johnson, technical director Christina Nguyen, editorial assistant

2013 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 Number 14 – Spring, 2013

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.

Published by Keibooks Printed in the United States of America, 2011

ATPO 14: ISBN 978-0615758381(Print) AtlasPoetica.org TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Triptych, Kath Abela Wilson ...... 26 Educational Use Notice ...... 6 The Wavy Dream, Pravat Kumar Padhy ..... 27 Four, Five, Six : Tanka in Short Sets, M. Kei .. 7 The Genetic Heritage, Taro Aizu ...... 28 Ink 2, Kate Frank ...... 29 Tanka in Sets and Sequences Dressing Up, Kath Abela Wilson ...... 29 Orales pues, Genie Nakano ...... 9contrapuntal replies, a tanka string, Sanford Dubhadh—Dowth, Autumn Noelle Hall & Goldstein & Joy McCall ...... 30 Claire Everett ...... 10 The Sorry Nickel, Jenny Ward Angyal ...... 31 Mama, Mira N. Mataric ...... 11 Streetlights #2 : a tanka string, Sanford Individual Tanka ...... 32 Goldstein ...... 12 First Australians, Keitha Keyes ...... 13 Reviews Static, Alexander Jankiewicz ...... 13 edge of the pond: selected haiku and tanka Desert Island, Gerry Jacobson ...... 14 by Darrell Lindsey, reviewed by Patricia Finding the Key, Kath Abela Wilson ...... 15 Prime ...... 53 Born for the River, Tish Davis ...... 16 the taste of shadow (poems for inner rooms) by Five Months, Catherine Harnett ...... 17 ai li, reviewed by Patricia Prime ...... 56 Ink, Joy McCall ...... 18 twelve moons by Claire Everett, reviewed by Corn Tithe, Joy McCall ...... 18 Amelia Fielden ...... 57 Between Nettles, Joy McCall ...... 19 Articles Cage of Bones, Joy McCall ...... 19 Gathering Horsetails : An Invitation to Tanka Bare Bones, Joy McCall ...... 20 Prose, Claire Everett ...... 59 Dementia, Carole Harrison ...... 20 Wet and Dry : Lucille Nixon, Georgia A Playwright’s Monologue, Nu Quang ...... 21 O’Keefe, and Masaoka Shiki on Shasei, by Unﬁnished, Kath Abela Wilson ...... 22 M. Kei ...... 67 The Music Room, Janet Lynn Davis ...... 22 Glyphs, Jenny Ward Angyal ...... 23 Announcements ...... 76 Mizzen Chief, M. Kei ...... 24 Visitor, Marilyn Humbert ...... 24 Biographies ...... 78 Sequined Stars, Kath Abela Wilson ...... 25 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 Four, Five, Six : Tanka in Short Sets

Poets began experimenting with tanka very short ‘Mama’ (3 tanka) are narrative sequences as soon as they started writing works. Events happen. These are in tanka in English. The Internet provides the contrast to two sets by Sanford Goldstein, opportunity for sequences of any length; one by himself and one a responsive work however, short sequences of thirteen or with Joy McCall, as well as others, such as fewer tanka are the norm. Hands down, the nearly surreal ‘Unfinished’ by Kath the pentaptych is the most popular Abela Wilson and ‘The Sorry Nickel’ by sequence length. Jenny Ward Angyal. These very short Tanka are composed of five poetic sequences of four tanka each depict states parts, so a sequence of five immediately of being: grief over the loss of a friend and suggests itself. Five is also short enough for grief for the natural world. The lack of a tanka poet to compose intuitively without narrative structure serves to emphasize the having to explicitly consider questions ‘all at once’ feeling of strong emotion. about organization, narrative, Grief especially grips us in a perpetual development, etc. now which seems as if it will never end. Nonetheless, short sequences of five Tanka in a sequence are not stanzas; tanka often show sophisticated each tanka is autonomous and remains organization. Within these pages, coherent in grammar and meaning if Catherine Harnett and Nu Quang both removed from the sequence. However, make explicit their five part organization, when two or more tanka are joined Harnett with months of the calendar, together, they create a gestalt that is Quang with the five acts Western play. All greater than the sum of the parts. Skilled five of Joy McCall’s pentaptychs have a poets use this to amplify the effect of the beginning, and middle, and an end, and poems. result in some change to the poet’s character or circumstance, although these ~K~ structures are not equally clear in all sequences. Her set of five pentaptychs M. Kei carries the five part form even further for a Editor, Atlas Poetica meta-set of five sets. Himalayan Glacier, Southern China. Besides Other short sequences, such as Genie the world’s tallest peaks, the Himalayan Mountain Nakano’s ‘Orales Pues’ (7 tanka), Autumn Range holds thousands of glaciers. Noelle Hall & Claire Everett’s ‘Dubhadh— Cover Image courtesy of Earth Observatory, Dowth’ (12 tanka), Jenny Ward Angyal’s NASA. Chief’ (6 tanka), and even Mira Mataric’s

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 7

Orales pues

Genie Nakano born in E.L.A. barrios I live in a world of dualities in my tight skirt and sweater that’s it for me I can cha cha and hully gully down dance sets me free but I don’t know who I am forget those guys, those blackened eyes Catch me in the Rye I peroxide my black hair red rat it high, rat it high pierce my ears with the Catholic cross while legs grow strong orale pues—Buddhahead my spine becomes a willow a sansei becomes a chola time moves in rhythm everything makes sense the world becomes a dance homeroom teacher sends me to the back of the room my hair is too high to see over keep on, is all I say she calls me a disgrace you call me a show off now oye, better to nap in the back I don’t care cause I feel good and don’t you wish you had my legs orale pues—right on right on. I look older—don’t I black eyeliner, jade green shadow ~East Los Angeles, California, USA times going too slow want to get out of here rat: back combing the hair I’m Maria of “Westside Story” orale pues: all right, come on, right on Buddhahead: Japanese American sansei: third generation in my purple skirt chola: gangster girl I twirl with amateur grace oye: say hully gully: a dance where you shimmy ‘round and ‘round shoulders and then again . . . suddenly a balance

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 9 Dubhadh—Dowth

Autumn Noelle Hall & Claire Everett

In honor of their shared Irish heritage, Claire Everett and Autumn Hall are currently working on a full-length collection of tanka response sequences written around thirteen of the most signiﬁcant neolithic Irish Heritage Sites. Their ﬁrst of these pieces, New Grange, appeared in ATPO 11. Dubadh—Dowth is their fourth in this series.

ever-circling fading sun catch hold of the sill this faerie mound of darkness, ahead of the Armed King the Pleiades . . . Caomai soon buckles and here, in seven stone suns his sword-belt on the third star a heliacal rising golden to rose-hued when the great bull light spun stone-to-stippled-stone basks in spring meadows turns blinding white . . . seven sisters wander into blue distance in the grooves’ winding shadows across the hills of dawn twin serpents come to life oh, to reach those skies! two-headed snake . . . Bresal-Druid, this mound—your when the maiden turns her face to the light stepping stone, Brighid will leave her cold tomb this shadow—your making . . . snowdrops springing in her wake weep now for your wronged sister and where their petals deep winter fall, here now white quartz remains Orion rests his boot on the tomb of Erc . . . to mark Her steps, and There! A spark from his toe-cap— an amulet of star-shaped Rigel, the blue-white star stone awaits Her reclaiming

Elgebar’s sapphire there are dawns when exhaling light into the the sculptor comes down Witch Head Nebula— from the Red Mountain, takes up his ﬂint of sunlight convex stone casts snow-sun to carve each kerbstone anew into the dark recess . . .

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 10 there are nights when the hill’s hollowed bowl I could not bear meets its dome of stars to see mom’s clothes two hands cupped together outlive her cradling a standstill moon such unfair victory of matter over life Cold Moon, Boann who named the river, one last glance at the chamberstone of stars long gone mother and once more into Dubhadh! visits daily through her sayings Located in the Boyne River Valley in Country Meath recipes and apron Ireland, Dowth (aka Dubhadh—meaning darkness) is a neolithic passage tomb estimated to I still use at 78 be between 4000-4500 years old. ~California, USA, 2012

kad je mama umrla rano u šoku odmah sam poklonila sve njene haljine ne znajući zašto Mama

Mira N. Mataric nisam mogla gledati da je odeća nadživi tako nepravedna pobeda Mira N. Mataric, English- stvari Serbian Translator nad životom

when mom died odavno je nema posećuje me dnevno early kroz njene recepte i kecelju in shock I gave instantly koju još uvek nosim all her clothes away u 78-oj godini not knowing why ~Kalifornija, USA, 2012

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 11 Streetlights #2 : a tanka string

Sanford Goldstein

rag in her hand even at sixty she wipes coffee shop tables, ﬁnd the same world and her look of lonely men, this end-of-summer day up and down and leaning faraway, forlorn along midnight alleys

on napkins, remember yellow lined sheets, after-her-death scratch pads, mornings I spill my coffee shop poems when I sat alone even after two cups drinking coffee

in this these ﬁve-liners summer heat, at my tanka coffee shop wandering all incomplete, through streets the gap of yearning of excess immense

my kids bright-eyed Athena, at Diary Queen these long summer days, like the story a closed-off world I told of a grilled cheese behind these dark glasses roasted on a sunburned shoulder worn even in coffee shops

cantaloupe only my spoon sounds half-eaten on a over my plate of curried rice cafeteria tray, at this hole-in-wall, images come and go and music of ﬁve lines down of inaccessible places comes unwritten to my ear

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 12 a small slice Static of not -that- impossible on this single’s bed where yesterday’s voices Alexander Jankiewicz still hover, still resound

It was our last good-bye. I sat there at my only the kitchen table pressing the telephone to Saturday night freedom my ear as hard as I could: barely to sit in some cafe understanding her. What would have once and stuff my notebook been an “I love you” became wishes from a with fragments of poems well or wishing me well or bitches from hell. I couldn’t make out the words. It ~most often Japan, but sometimes the United didn’t matter. The storm passed right after States the line went dead.

rain washing away memories like stains on the path we walked together in love First Australians until we stopped holding hands ~Kansas, USA Keitha Keyes stories of their Dreamtime replaced by the fear of God in a foreign language living on the edge of a community deﬁned in white people’s words

~Australia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 13 Desert Island

Gerry Jacobson

Tools scattered on the workshop bench. Among them a rusty old survey tape. Carried one in my workbag for years, used it to measure water levels in wells, or the height of the standpipe above the ground. I remember the end of that workbag. Flying in by helicopter to a remote island and mobbed by the local schoolkids who were on eternal school holidays. As they often are in Peehengee.* They begged me for pencils, rubbers, pens, crayons, scale rules, protractors, writing paper, graph paper . . . and I eventually emptied the entire workbag and gave everything away including the bag.

pouring out love into a bottomless pit— there’s a hole in her heart can never be ﬁlled

They were so hungry for that stuff. Hordes of barefoot snottynosed kids on a desert island. What future for them in that life out there? Where was it? Milne Bay? The Trobriands? I don’t remember. Just remember that scene. I looked at the village wells, inspecting the effects of the great drought of ‘97. Was it ‘97? Those kids would be in their twenties now . . . raskols** perhaps? I remember making notes about the poverty, the shortage of food, the lack of water in that dry dusty village. I ﬁlled in my drought evaluation forms. Then the chopper ﬂew me back to the ship where my team was based. I got back there just in time to shower and change for the cocktail hour.

parallel worlds— yours is there mine here— so rarely touching and now regretting

~Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea

* Peehengee Papua New Guinea ** raskols urban gangsters

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 14 Finding the Key

Kath Abela Wilson

The day before we left for Italy I conveniently lost the key to our door. As if I did not need it! So now today, home one day, after weeding the garden for several hours, I walked a long way to make some replicas of the key to our home. Somehow it seems appropriate.

after a journey I’ve found the key lost all dedication to ﬁtting the right thing in the right place

As I stood in the key maker’s studio, thousands of keys hanging on the walls, I thought of all the keys I have known, how important, different special, and all the things they opened. I have a big jar of keys, I keep it under the sink, old ones that no longer know where they belong, and a few are beautiful . . . one I remember ﬁnding on the street, an old key, as if in a dream,

photo shows a dark shape on a white wall never the sense of any place just wandering with any old key for companion

I think of all the homes I’ve had keys for, I imagine each of us opening the door to our ﬁrst home. I remember special boxes and books with keys, and the metaphorical keys to everything. Even keys to music boxes, ˆ

twirling ballerina it’s not me I’m the one who twists the key and let’s the music out

~Trieste, Florence, Pisa, Venice, Italy

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 15 Born for the River

Tish Davis

deckhands in life vests The sequences are well on barges of black coal choreographed; their heartbeats, timed the slow motion with the river’s pulse. No one missteps of their bodies when teenagers along the bank flash the ratcheting the cables tight crew or when a careless boater barely clears the barges. The towboat rocks slightly in the As the sky scrolls into the evening, the water. Gone are the days of the big wheel. off shift crew gathers in the galley kitchen. The captain is at an instrument panel adjusting levers and cranking cables as he deckhands maneuvers the broad square bow. on walkie-talkies check for leaks as the airlines hiss their white headlamps the boat softly thumps the tow; bobbing, bobbing in the dark what were river sounds when the Iroquois in the swivel chair named her Ohiyo? the captain, his father, glints of green his father’s father, on a reflective river can, leaning into a soft red glow in an old tree with scars onyx evening. . . that marked high water my father flips on a light into the lock that slices where moss patterns the outside air the pitted cement— the captain’s many eyes I watch on the guide walls from the bench seat a star’s sparkling drizzle— deckhands in boots this first and balanced of 28 midnights on hot barges ready the heavy ~On the Ohio River, USA coal-sooted lines

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 16 Five Months

Catherine Harnett

June the parched garden is summer’s vivid gift, hostas, pink geraniums September wish for long-stalled rain to come my soul thirsts too, but for love chilly dusks and dawns the high school band practices the same song over and again; summer has left July us waiting for Homecoming

floozy nectarine skin, pit, yellow-pink flesh, juice she comes mid-July October stunning in a pale green bowl I succumb, my summer sin like doves in the eaves they coo, the girl and boy hide high in the bleachers thinking no one sees them kiss August as the game plays out below cicadas chatter ~Virginia, USA from the sycamores word comes so loud, relentless the geese begin their fall flight so certain, such gorgeous v’s

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 17 Ink Corn Tithe

Joy McCall Joy McCall for Chit, at Sith Tattoo studio corn tithe mark in the flint pebbles the dark tattooist of the nave— dipping the needle this ancient church was paid for in black ink by the sweat and blood of peasants begins the kanji in my pale skin round towers on the little flint churches blood trickles, in old Norfolk— running down my arm, no square edges, no corners mixing with ink— where the dark devil can hide impatient, he stops, cleans, starts needling again dislodged a piece of knapped flint part-way through at my feet— he pauses, lifts his hands like us, the ancient church and looks at me, crumbles towards eternity his eyes asking a question— I say, yes, it is good in moonlight a quick dark shadow he falls silent in the graveyard— focussed on the images gone before I know in his mind— its name, its purpose dark lines appear, curling into patterns, pictures old ships and old churches the intimacy, lie ruined— the brief connection the bay and the low hills changes me— owning the years, the ages I live now with the circling tracks of a stranger in my skin ~Billockby fields, Norfolk, UK

~Norwich, UK

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 18 Between Nettles Cage of Bones

Joy McCall Joy McCall

dark pathway guttural voices through the dense trees of ancient men to the stream— in wind and rain she walks slowly, in a dream, carried across the stones— between the nettles so alien, so familiar on the windy hill, I long to be fallen stones in the long grass, a vagabond, a hobo, weeds and brambles free to wander fill the rusty iron cages anywhere, far away where the lunatics lived from this brittle cage of bones lime mortar crumbles if my ashes into the roofless nave, are scattered in the circle broken flint falls— on the high moor, red foxes sleep will my spirit know where Viking voices rang what my body knows— this is home?

I return the great grey stones again and again gather, circling my dreams to the same place— of desolate hills— in love with the stark ruin the wind cries across the fells on the windswept hill city sirens disturb my sleep sleepless desolation sleeps I write to him in silence deep inside let us go— until the call the wind is warm tonight of hills and standing stones in the shelter of the stones then, the wild howling begins

~Shotesham All Saints, Norfolk, UK ~Barton Fell, Cumbria, UK

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 19 Bare Bones Dementia

Joy McCall Carole Harrison

under the street dancing wires ancient tunnels run crossed and confused, through the chalk— a state of strange— ale smugglers’ casks lie rotting I know I know the answer bats roost in the darkness what is the question? a bleached skeleton I run, I run lies at the mouth of the cave, to the edge of myself darkness beyond— grasping it is time for me to face shapeshifting memories . . . the bare bones of my fears dreaming the boy I was in the cave living in a dream where the old bones lie between the past and lies the dead crone— perhapsness, I must now learn am I still me? what I need to know, alone father’s face in the mirror always trying early winter to climb back out shadows roll towards me, of the pain— a slow tsunami how sweet to fall asleep of reality—not ready in that dark pit I sort keys . . . sort keys the slow insistent beat the stillness of a low drum, in an empty playground the horizon turning, returning— in the depths I wonder how long before dark things stirring he forgets me

~lime workings, Whitlingham Lane, Norfolk, ~Wagga Wagga and Jamberoo, NSW, UK Australia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 20 A Playwright’s Monologue

Nu Quang

Saigon has made an exit from the stage . . . its shadow stays in the backdrop refusing to totally fade away

~South Vietnam My own fourth act is a soliloquy I ponder “Et tu, Brute?” Ho Chi Minh City “to be or not to be” performing act two its luster tarnished by the wandering ghosts of the boat people in act five slowly, I disappear ~Unified Vietnam altogether leaving behind me a tale of three countries unscripted ~Seattle, Washington, USA we refugees present act three in exotic settings: fallen leaves and snowflakes become part of the scenes

~All over the world

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 21 Unﬁnished The Music Room

Kath Abela Wilson Janet Lynn Davis for Andre Levi It was her punishment for chatting after “lights out.” Marched out of the the leg of her table bedroom by Mrs. M., one of the watchful walked into my house house staff members responsible for the she painted one side boarding students’ care, she knew full well blue butterﬂies on lapis where she’d be taken. There, she’d spend a wooden autobiography time alone, in fetal position, to contemplate her transgression. another pink blossoms on red how she’d hide the rest begins with lightning from Bach and Mozart— splintered and leaning their busts against my yellow wall on the piano what’s left of the table their ghosts in the dark

~Girls School, Surrey, England poised near our front door as if it may leave anytime or perhaps just arrived her life shakes in my hand like thunder

the leg of her table walked into my house one side is elegy another lament the rest is left unﬁnished

~Santa Barbara to Pasadena, California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 22 Glyphs

Jenny Ward Angyal

stone rooms an altar stone ﬁlled with Mayan dreams— grooved for the ﬂow of blood . . . the wings in each little shop of frightened swallows an armed guard beat against my chest struts his shotgun

Chaak the rain god’s the sun god’s blackened face nightly passage rising through a two-headed snake— over the temple steps I dream of ﬁnding a double rainbow the second mouth

a jade mask wisps for a dead king . . . of smoke rising in the window from a ritual ﬁre of the tourist bus we cleanse ourselves— the beggar’s face these bundles of rue

crutches ﬂower water on cobblestone . . . in a plastic bottle the boy tucked with the withered foot in my carry-on hawks used shoes the shaman’s essence

~Belize, Guatemala & Honduras

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 23 Mizzen Chief we are all madmen who go to sea in ships, M. Kei laboring in the salt water of our own sweat my ﬁrst day ~off Yorktown, Virginia, USA as mizzen chief— lightning and wind, the ship scudding along at seven knots under bare poles

Visitor she fights me hard and tosses Marilyn Humbert her foamy head beneath a veil As a child I feared the dark hours: tar of stormclouds black nights when clouds covered blinking stars and blotted out the moon’s gentle yellow beams. These nights, as I closed my snug ashore eyes and slumber overtook me, I was with their air conditioners visited by strange apparitions, phantom the landlubbers figures with red-ember eyes, who never know nothing about spoke as they beckoned to me with long a blue ship heeling in the wind bony fingers. No amount of screaming could save me from being dragged away. it’s a fatal love, When my father tired of my nightly this desire to visitors he brought to my room a tiny go down to brown spider. He told me this spider was a the sea in ships— catcher of dreams. “farewell” is a prayer in the corner above my bed knee aching, tangled threads I remember Ahab dangle who lost a leg imprisoning my tormentors to his obsession for the sea The Athels, Calivil, Victoria, Australia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 24 Sequined Stars

Kath Abela Wilson

you told me you let them go we laughed at how a hundred butterﬂies you crawled to the open door not knowing to a spot of sunshine where they’d land where they found you happy or if they could come back as a cat

with ease of twilight I listen to the sound or dawn a thousand double wings a hundred double wings all the poems of yours sparkle on your white sheets I’ve not yet read where we played milky way have landed on my page now

your hair the spark butterﬂies over your quizzical look let loose in your dream at our odd imaginations you left your smile on sequined stars while I was waiting your last light for our renga to begin

~Caltech, California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 25 Triptych

Kath Abela Wilson

From the window the sea spread an invitation. As if in this place and time the box seat on the world had been given to me, a complimentary ticket. The Adriatic. As if silence had shown its true color. Silver-blue. The weight of all that water was heavy on my poems. The great responsibility of a moment in time and space.

unknown to me no urgency years later from another shore the same magniﬁcent scene

In mid-step over the city bridge a statue holds a book and might look back over its shoulder. On an ordinary walk I match the pose. Photo. On either side colorful small boats sway an anxious sense of approaching departure. This familiar square, a travel site, and then the sea. There’s nothing that can make that ordinary.

from the other side remember here waiting every harbor you’ve ever known

Steps to the sea. A hundred paces a small courtyard, potted plants. A few hours of work on small objects and I must leave the bench. It has come over me. The wave of desire for the hunt. Along the beach wood and stone have faces that long to go back. The pulse they know, that soothing sense. Fallen stars, in constellations, do they ﬂoat?

standing at the top it’s evident I cannot go high tide comes up the stairs

~Opatija, Croatia–Trieste, Italy–Santa Barbara, California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 26 The Wavy Dream

Pravat Kumar Padhy

It is Sunday evening. The breeze of Puri sea beach muses a different rhyme with aesthetic touch of divinity. The thrilled water glitters with the gentle warmth of the twilight hour.

My wife and I leisurely walk and occasionally lean down to collect sand and shells. We reminisce the time, long back once visited, at the peak our age. Our foot prints might have been in different form since then, buried and washed away.

“There lies a sublime relationship between the dreams of life and waves of the sea. Whenever we visit the sea shore, it always reminds us the music of the past with close intimacy”, I tell my wife, Namita. She smiles back with gleaming innocent expression. Late evening, we return home with the aroma of long remembrance.

In my dream, I walk along in search of the pearls of beauty from the rise and fall of the waves. As I wake up, the grains of sand still cling to my body and remind me the closeness of the extended sea.

winter morning sprinkles softness of early sun the window-pane opens a dream of freshness mingling my present with the past

~Odisha, India

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 27 The Genetic Heritage

Taro Aizu

The salesclerk turned his eyes back from their childhood to their death. It will from the lake to me and said aloud. “It’s cause them some suffering every year. true praying is good, but it’s not enough Besides, if they get cancer, they will suffer just to pray for the future health of our much more. I was given a healthy body by children. If we have enough time to pray my parents and ancestors. But if my for them, we should help them practically, children get cancer because of cesium, I we should earn more money and give them will have to apologize to all my ancestors.” food without cesium so that they don’t get He gazed at the earth lit by the cancer. If we don’t eat something now, we midsummer sunset for a while. He lifted won’t even live long enough to be able to his face and said to me while looking get cancer in the future.” toward the brilliant surface of the lake. He burst into laughter, bending himself “Well, I will do it at any rate, you know. backward. I gave a bitter smile at his jokes I will do what I can for my children rather and made my point once more. than for myself. I will work very hard, I will “But you should give your children earn money and I will buy food without food with low levels of cesium, if you can.” cesium and I will give it to my children. “OK! If I had to choose between two Moreover, I will grow vegetables without foods containing cesium, I’d give my cesium by any means I can. It’s very, very children the food with less. We parents difﬁcult. But I must do it!” have lived healthy lives for dozens of years “Oh, good! You won’t have to apologize but our children are still young. Besides, I to all your ancestors. But now I’m sorry I can’t live a happy life if I’m always afraid of have to go home with my relatives, I’m cesium every day. The rest of my life would driving and they are waiting for me.” be unhappy, wouldn’t it?” He replied with a smile. “Oh, thank He grinned ironically. But instantly, he you. I enjoyed chatting with you.” showed a serious side. “We parents have “Me, too. See you here next summer!” only 20 or 30 years left to live but our “Really? Next summer?” children have 70 or 80 years, Oh, my god!” “Yes, of course. I will return here to He was silent for a moment and said to pray for my ancestors next summer. See himself quietly. “They will have to have you then!” their unhappy lives being afraid of cancer as they will have to have cancer checks

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 28 The genetic heritage Dressing Up not contaminated by cesium Kath Abela Wilson is a precious gift in my dark cell. Instead of wearing my walking shoes, I ~Fukushima, Japan chose a pair of pretty high heels. When I was a teenager I delivered papers on Sunday and instead of sneakers, I carried my heavy Sunday paper bag in New York, my feet making a lovely clicking sound as if I was dressed for a date.

the New York Times dropped on every doorstep the tooth fairy wore lipstick and a ﬂuffy dress

Ink 2 We moved into our condo here in Southern California, then moved out for eleven months renovation, and back in. I Kate Frank wore full skirted flowery party dresses to pack boxes and move furniture. on my shoulder work was incidental a muscular owl I happened to be moving a fading green planet center stage moons in seven phases lifted an off-handed approach from a greeting card to the elements of style a winter owl who leaves Elegant and apart from the ordinary the snowy north roughness, a cloud, floating above it all, red ink now seeming right moves out into the bay. the fire of a rebellion held inside my skin ~Staten Island, New York–Pasadena, California, USA ~Canada

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 29 contrapuntal replies, a tanka string

Sanford Goldstein & Joy McCall

almost ready needing little, wanting even less for departure again for myself— wondering— still, that stark fear shall I throw in the towel? of darkness descending shall I abandon my life?

wanting when he speaks quiet liberation, with such uncertainty freedom, of dying— my mind shuts the door freedom from what? dreading his absence liberation from whom?

ready the question I ask the careless fates for death again in this day after day— my eighty-sixth year, why did I pass that way I suppose survival at that perilous time? contains the same stupidities

my English friend holding on knows the bitterness to precarious life of loss, after the crash— would death at the scene how long she has borne her pain, have meant an end to this pain? mine has just started

I see struggling with life in distant Japan, my pile of savings my tanka friend— dwindling, his despair mirrors my own, and dwindling too we walk the same rutted road this vapid last of life

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 30 no place The Sorry Nickel to go for relief, for sanity, Jenny Ward Angyal I face my tanka notebook, write what I cannot say

still in my veins five lines the pulse of ancient seas on the brittle pages my kinship of the old book— with the lobe-finned fishes those small ancient songs and with you stop my soul from shattering ~Planet Earth all warm in this winter coat, the eyes this winter hat, of the lowland gorilla inwardly I am ablaze cradling with trapped thoughts her stillborn infant— the ache in my womb

shedding layers ~Africa like the snake, I move into new skin— I leave the old sadness elephants— to shrivel in the hot sun 25,000 a year dipped in blood so many ivory icons I try of the cruciﬁxion to deny this chiaroscuro life ~Africa & the Philippines why call it that, Sanford? you sit in a silent corner Ganesha, Poe’s raven remover of obstacles stands above my door, up on a pedestal black eyes staring— surrounded by coins— I make no move I add a sorry nickel to leave this dark place ~Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ~Japan and the United Kingdom

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 31 Patricia Prime we stand looking down at the ﬁshing boats against the wharf a large cod is weighed, wrapped & passed up to us the bay sparkles and the wind gathers— ~Wellington, NZ as you smile at me a thousand shearwaters streak with one mind bare feet feel the crust of sand ~Miranda, Bay of Plenty, NZ give way so sea-washed shells and pebbles that bruise rain mist on the top of the ranges ~Greymouth, South Island, NZ the wispy strands like thinned out cotton wool against a backdrop of spray a nervous bird more often heard than seen ~Waitakere, Auckland, NZ the kiwi’s notes a tracery of sound heard in the undergrowth on the black sand of Piha beach ~South Island, NZ a crowd watches a Maori haka before they launch their canoe light shines through the passion fruit’s ~Piha, Auckland, NZ vines forming a pattern that even children remark upon a blustery morning along the waterfront the tide is high I live my life we laugh as the spray hits us— between two oceans a passerby laughs too with all their sounds— liners, yachts and turbulent waves only sailors can interpret

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 32 for no reason as the evening cools I look away from my book we walk along the river see the wind watching the water buffeting the Norfolk pine, ﬂow from the hills to the sea, black clouds in the western sky stars ﬂickering in the dark

~Katikati, Bay of Plenty, NZ a blackbird sings in my neighbour’s tree after the parade its voice streamers and bunting lilting on the wind strewn on the street notes scanned from leaf to leaf the echo of Christmas carols fading into the distance there’s no room left for emptiness my broken heart lunch in the city now ﬁlled with the laughter pigeons scattering before me, of friends and grandchildren one comes so close it pecks my ﬁnger thinking it a scrap of bread today I surprised ~Queen Street, Auckland, NZ myself by buying a book in Chinese a subject about which in the ghost forest I know nothing every branch encrusted ~Te Atatu South, Auckland, NZ with minute clumps of crystalised snow with a muted glow you once took me to where the farm’s boundary ~Greymouth, South Island, NZ was home to the bulls and we had to make our escape across the fence to safety

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 33 Luminita Suse

an eye Luminita Suse, English- in each raindrop Romanian Translator so much to observe on earth between two sky-blinks how the forest un ochi în fiecare strop de ploaie bursts into glitters atât de multe tonight, your smile de văzut pe pământ changes the darkness între două clipiri ale cerului a firefly at a time

pădurea again you don’t explodează în scântei answer phone calls zâmbetul tău today slowly transformă întunericul licurici după licurici becomes the time when friends start to change

din nou nu răspunzi la telefon I think of the days astăzi devine ziua after I met him când prietenii tăi rain or shine au început să se schimbe the nightingale has always flown high cars line up mă gândesc la zilele at the traffic light de când l-am întâlnit a vee of flying geese ploaie sau senin reaches home privighetoarea a zburat întotdeauna la înălțime before we do

mașini aliniate la semafor un V de gâște zburătoare ajunge acasă înaintea noastră

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 34 a waste of gold Amelia Fielden copper and iron on muddy streets this autumn smooth highway is ﬁlthy rich driving between pine forests in Oregon risipă de aur cupru și ﬁer distant from contemplation pe străzi înnoroite of your particular concerns toamna aceasta e putred de bogată ~Oregon, USA

a blue jay immensely long sings her heart out a freight train rounds the bend . . . in my garden surely that another day goes by will have the capacity without your reply to transport my woes away

o gaiță albastră ~Montana, USA cântă din răsputeri în grădina mea încă o zi a trecut fără știri de la tine golden wattle above frost’s silver another August hand in hand I will leave you knowing we brave the fog I’m bound to come back in my daydreams the windmill ~Canberra, Australia never stops spinning

mână în mână “roll up, roll up înfruntăm ceața deasă for all the fun of the fair în reveriile mele try your luck . . .” brațul morii and when this carousel slows ș nu se opre te niciodată will my luck run out? ~Ottawa, Canada ~Sydney, Australia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 35 Beverly Acuff Momoi

turning El Paso to Carlsbad from the man yelling miles of salt flats then mountains in the laundromat sudden coolness all the white sheets nights filled with free-tail bats an angry flush of pink dreams of flight

~Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA that ﬁrst apartment the windowless room she claimed heading home her own, nothing but blue for some AC and sweet iced tea sky, gulls in ﬂight heat shimmers on blacktop at the crossing a family ~Chicago, Illinois, USA ducks making their way to water

a spray of red bats love the wild blossoms across her face night-blooming cereus unbidden its deep fragrance the dogs nuzzle closer and ghostly petals striking after their romp in poison oak but like all beauty—short-lived

~West Palm Beach, Florida, USA late spring and the air ﬁlls with the big leaf maple’s whirlybird children just gadding about, spinning falling, spinning, falling

~Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 36 Janet Lynn Davis

wine tasting— it’s pretty his usual gruffness she says while showing me transforms the sparkling into a bouquet little gold trinket of oak and berries she’ll glue inside my mouth

~winery near Burton, Texas, USA ~dental ofﬁce, Magnolia, Texas, USA

taking sips I don’t fret of prickly pear wine . . . about privacy, subtle swirls these blinds open of sweet and biting to the midday sun together in one glass and the crow-black night

~winery near Montgomery, Texas, USA water ﬂows down our seasonal creek enamored as before of this stained-glass panel I learn how to let till it strikes me . . . the ripples just be the image only shimmers with sunlight behind it ~Grimes County, Texas, USA

~garden shop, Navasota, Texas, USA

we scour shelves for half-price chocolates, our way of sweetening February 15th

~local drug stores, Houston, Texas, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 37 Paul Mercken wie wordt de leider van cowboys en indianen een kinderspel de aalmoezenier de Moor of de Mormoon? van de nor Leuven Hulp Sandy scheidsrechter? mist een sleutelbos hij opent alle celdeuren who’ll next be in charge met zegen van boven of cowboys and Indians a children’s game Volgens nieuwsagentschap Belga van 31 the Moor or the Mormon? oktober 2012 gebeurde dit een week daarvoor. Sandy umpire? Kan o.m. 180 celdeuren en 20 afdelingsdeuren openen, maar geen deur naar buiten. ~November 3, USA

the chaplain het leeuwenpaar of prison Louvain Help misses a key ring van de bibliotheek it opens all the cell doors te New York— with blessings from on high men zegt dat ze brullen telkens een maagd ze passeert According to news agency Belga of October 31, 2012, this happened a week the lion pair earlier. Opens among others 180 cell doors of New York’s and 20 ofﬁce doors, but no outside door. public library— they say they roar each time a virgin passes them by Opwarming ~New York City, New York, USA ach Moeder Aarde het gaat niet goed met u u bent niet lekker— u lijdt aan opvliegingen u bent in de overgang

Warming up

oh Mother Earth things are not well with thee thou dost not feel good— thou sufferest hot ﬂushes thou art in transition

~Earth

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 38 Robert Davey dusk school kids by mid afternoon dissolving into the world mist . . . and I becoming that adolescent unbalanced loss of bearings dwindling ~Dereham, Norfolk, England beech leaves brighter every day gust my love for you through the beech barrel that ﬁlls the window— staves escape my house lifts and plunges rusted hoops my collapsed soul ~Norfolk, England open to the elements

~Norfolk, England dawn on the lake a boat deer leap swamped by across stubble slow fog into mist getting through ~Windermere, Cumbria, England another winter

~Weston Longville, Norfolk, England spent rocket clips the roof unseen driving I ponder life through the forest after death at night knowing and not ~Bonﬁre Night, Dereham, Norfolk, England knowing where I am

~Thetford, Norfolk, England ➢

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 39 ~Davey, cont. bus gears the el goes by even here . . . a photo purple paint drops from that morning glories autumn— the colours, the berries the people not in it mom and kids spend the evening ~Plattﬁelds Park, Manchester, England hanging out on hot concrete toys on the curb lying in the park a limbless trunk two women my dog sniffs on the sidewalk the sawdust eat dinner rice beans and iced tea ~Thetford, Norfolk, England sunﬂower corner

behind the gate junk pile installation a young mother drags her little girl down the sidewalk

~Fish Town, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Carole Johnston six A.M. he haunts the old graveyard riding the train walled in brick past junk yard grafﬁti Ben Franklin’s ghost a slow tattoo on cobble stone streets we cross the bridge ~Old City, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, into Trenton Pennsylvania, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 40 Marilyn Humbert Bob Lucky beneath wide sky Marley’s white cliffs the legs in my wine stand steadfast— stride far into the night— worn by prevailing winds muezzin’s call and ice blue southern ocean I lie awake and listen to my wife breathe ~Royal National Park Sydney Australia

Monday morning on wind swept a pack of donkeys Macquarie Island refuses to yield— I touch the sky testing the stiffness a rusted relic of my collar bound in Poa grass

~Macquarie Island a final lap around the rain-soaked track— on the edge I stop to watch of the birdbath a leopard tortoise chew grass a mudlark as if the world will never end sinks into his reflection I turn into my shadow cloudless night ~Berowra, NSW Australia the distant cackle of hyenas— staring at the moon gate hinges creak and wanting to howl whispers of laughter flashes of colour ~Addis Ababa as I step forward in this overgrown garden

~Calivil, Victoria, Australia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 41 Душан Видаковић / цену са књиге Dushan Vidakovich лако ћу обрисати али како да Mira N. Mataric, Serbian- склоним са твога рамена English Translator страних уједа подлив

the price on the book can be easily erased but how do I remove Усклађујем бат from your shoulder срца мог несигурног someone else’s bite са пулсом слабих корака сигуран и сам заточник монодраме четворосекли пламен гаси одблеске I am adjusting the thump острва смокве of my insecure heart мастилом пучине леш to the pulse of the weak смеђериђе осеке steps confident alone the captive of the monodrama the four-forked flame extinguishes the reflection of the Fig Island the deep sea ink једина књига corps of the brownish-red low tide исти аутомобил и нека жена међутим никада се земаљски гето нећу вратити кући минулих Сефарда дубље у веђе only one book чемпреса повлачи ее the same car прошивен позлатом тла and a woman however I will never the world ghetto return home of the ancient Sephards moves deeper into the cypresses’ brows sewn with the gilt of soil

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 42 двадесети спрат Patricia McClelland бетонска земуница надомак звезда a girl in yellow silk falls asleep рингишпил сноморе in the full moon’s path усијава постељу she wakes a woman menstrual flow stains her gown red the twentieth floor blood blackens in silvered light a concrete dugout close to the stars with the nightmare carousel pain rips a womb heating-red the bed weeps hot brine a ripened body overflows bearing down is grief свитање неће a woman knows the sting of fate подгрејати кошмаре испод ћебета склупчане у леден зној a tube in his swathed skull будим се уморнији turns snowy gauze vermillion a gorge rises in my throat the dawn will not squandered brain blood seeps warm the nightmares ruby wake of a surgeon’s knife coiled under the blanket into the icy sweat ~California, USA I wake up more exhausted

тон и ток туђе мучнине охоло ме предодређује зовем те пуно пута Susan Diridoni не одазиваш ми се

we sit on either side the ﬂow and tone of the long cardboard box of someone else’s nausea that holds his body haughtily predestines me we were so often a visiting trio I call you many times that our grief is brieﬂy forgotten you do not respond

~California, USA ~Serbia

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 43 Guy Simser Jade Pandora

soft rain drips life going gentle is from the downspout less desirable a tinkling than the opiate as intermittent as of a one-night lover this old man’s stream to make me forget tea ceremony deep into the ritual in a sweet sour scent losing focus of sweat on every muscle trying in the shadows not to pass gas you nuzzle my hollows counting ribs removing the cap from her little altar vase a truth denied I can still see that and scorned for so long he’s a man his dry umbilical cord with strong arms and legs, but I smile as he smiles ~Canada from his feminine side

tonight his passion turned savage, an animal tearing, trapping me against him— fuck I loved it Richard Cody ~California, USA 4:30 am, dim light at the windows, we wake up to pee. Wind chimes, like us, tinkle in the dark.

~California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 44 Neal Whitman first snow, fresh snow fox and mouse tracks cross paths a plot read backwards last night backcountry snowshoeing black bean soup in a cell service dead zone this morning an unspoken truce ~Alpine Meadows, Lake Tahoe, California, breaking wind USA rain the size of gum drops at noon how sweet a crow flopped from a tree top for the two of us its wings silver to spend all day in bed morning over, I go too time to check out slippery when wet I am slowed by pelting rain ~Lucia Lodge, historic cliff-side resort, Big my grip tightens Sur, California, USA and so does my heart leaving you moonlight in Yosemite falls at a slant I’m locked in the outhouse and the dark deepens this stinks I climb the Coast Guard fence it took a karate kick to shoot Point Pinos Lighthouse to bust my way out ~Asilomar Drive, Pacific Grove, California, ~California, USA USA waves of rain the roadside sign: wading in our cul-de-sac Free Artichokes Tomorrow a pair of mallards— for the umpteenth time lucky to live by the ocean I tell her that hitman joke: is lucky enough Artie chokes three for a dollar

~Paciﬁc Grove, Central Coast of California, ~Highway 1, Castroville, California, USA USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 45 Mira N. Mataric if life is a big album of snapshots it seems I am not at all cancer claimed my husband’s brain photogenic speech and movement body shrunk into a skeleton ~Pasadena, California, USA eyes the window to his soul our only contact till the end

in old age we serve our body in youth it serves us happiness is wisdom Christina Nguyen of gratitude and reconciliation

long hair each droplet of dew under our baseball hats reﬂects the moon we walk in its magniﬁcence summer streets all nature drinks as boys from its milky stream ~Lauderdale, Minnesota, USA nobody knows where the white drifting clouds almost unnoticed go or come from the BBC announcer pauses restless to sigh like the human heart before talking about Syria she walks in beauty out of the closet I check off long hair shorn all my poetic obsessions like men’s death satin dress replaced by pants the moon and you

~Hugo, Minnesota, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 46 the day Chen-ou Liu I see the specialist is the day Golden Arches my symptoms dot the Beijing skyline— stop a man whispering ~St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Jesus Loves You to passersby with Happy Meal boxes

~Beijing, China we snicker at the bobblehead Fido in the taxi August 6 as we cruise Dalat at 8:15 AM . . . for a dog restaurant the shadow ~Dalat, Vietnam of a girl heat-imprinted on the temple’s stone steps

~Hiroshima, Japan

Bruce England

Neil Young more and more Lisa Tibbs a grizzly bear in ﬂannel i made a deal pacing the stage for eternal youth the price i pay ~Bridge School Concert, Mountain View, California, USA for putting up with him everyday

Both of us wary custom red pocket skirt among the ruins it’s been a while of Hovenweep the memories it brings I watch mother hawk but no recollection in tree watching me from where this 20 pence came

~Hovenweep National Monument, Utah, USA ~Pasadena, California, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 47 Dawn Apanius Marilyn Morgan as I help you wash your hair fog I wonder how much more like giant balls you would smile bouncing along the beach without your disability children disappear a headstand to refresh my energy– along my spine the widow resonance wanders of my morning happiness to moon drenched windows and draws passing clouds the curtains we would watch together– to keep in touch cool of holy water come on my ﬁngertips take my hand weep with me a piece of music along the river practiced over and over under the willow tree my percussionist husband sticks with me and our tempos when angels speak of love mist rises from the ﬁeld neat spin cherry blossoms swing open of your windmill, songbirds harmonize tight muscles it’s springtime again break dancing my pattern of dysfunction when I die walking I want to die swimming a jumble of thoughts among the branches onto a trail somewhere oak, maple, birch between here and now love, loneliness, hope ~New York, USA ~Ohio, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 48 Dawn Bruce Jenny Ward Angyal

a woman’s shoe a dragonfly black, stubby heeled, on the tip of a reed lies alone emerges in the alley car park . . . in a mirror universe— chill breeze its reflection flies first ~Crows Nest, Australia jimson weed— violet moonflowers she wraps open at dusk his birthday present the shaman’s magic in willow-patterned paper, the arching lines unbidden at my door like her tender arms hummingbirds ~Croydon, Australia suspended in mid-air above the buddleia all the questions the amber eye I’ve never asked of the lighthouse casts its gaze across choppy seas . . . gathering in your love, my haven laundry off the line . . . the song ~Central Coast, Australia of the white-throated sparrow slips through my fingers at dusk old women sift debris wild persimmons from burnt-out dreams . . . not yet sweetened I catch reflections of today by frost in a child’s eye I paint the long days with a tincture of hope ~Bayview, Australia

~Windy Knoll Farm, Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 49 Sanford Goldstein

the image last time I have had for for coffee at Mint decades, this year, not this closed right ﬁst again we order their baked cake, hurling tanka red again their dark hot Dutch

I stop as usual along my route the enormous breakfast for shopping, Japanese style, stop to smell I search for the nori sea-grass a purple bloom for the pickled plum

I know in years what my tanka collaborator for the ﬁrst time I look at meant. my seven family albums, like the legendary elephant. when alive, my relatives he moves down down the ravine looked so fresh, so vivid

behind me at night the tears of your family coming home from women, Hebrew school, I speak only to your portrait found it was not goblins or ghosts at the family funeral I feared but sidewalk shadows

the newborn the only wind in its blue pillowless crib, on this yearly morning spittle from its mouth— November walk, moving its tiny arms and legs comes from this ancient me as if nowhere to turn or run along the bare rice ﬁeld paths

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 50 I want involved somehow my tanka to avoid in relationships troubling me, what is art, I wait it out let it be as it falls, one escape valve exists, small traces of life lived old age, I’m certain, will decide

the long drive in ﬁve years, through November mountains and I stop think, with their gorgeous leaves, ﬁve years!— why does Joseph’s gorgeous robe then at ninety-two bombard me at this time? seems wrong from the start

all kinds the child of morbid deceptions found fathered by the man in the Old Testament, has no protest, in the New one major one, on his lap the abominable the signal of Judas kissing Christ often happened to her

~Japan and the United States you don’t precious Barbra sings out, her face stunning the absence of meaningful ﬂowers makes no difference to my joy

she gathers rocks from historic places, she makes jewelry from stones found along rough watered sand

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 51 Sergio Ortiz in the labyrinth your voice under a tangle of smoky stars . . . when she asks, do you want to share illusions wither the pillow, with my words of love monarch butterflies migrate to our bed amber dragonfly spellbound fossil on the bark the scent of an evergreen of your body fades morphed like a Gaudi sculpture into night— winter is ending valleys filled with water . . . I fold into myself they say the dead float out of their tombs— the luck molted I thought would outlast water nymphs all omens . . . in spring rain my toes curl in a spasm of doubt a stallion behind my porch winter drizzle crestfallen the black and white photo from summer’s heat . . . of a younger man Mother says: give it water . . . I close my eyes to hear the nightingale birthday morning . . .. I no longer care time for this old love of death erases the light the cold angel whose ruin of your smile . . . I learn to accept kindling this burning inside in winter sleet honey bees and rue as I enter spill from her pocket . . . the hospital room still-life painting a handkerchief at the funeral parlor keeping her mouth closed . . . furled leaves on the table ~Puerto Rico, USA

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 52 ARTICLES

Atlas Poetica welcomes book reviews and non-ﬁction article submissions year round.

Review: edge of the Lindsey includes both haiku and tanka in his selection and he is adept at both. His pond: selected haiku and acute eye and talent for stirring the senses tanka are admirable. His attunement and oneness with the environment and by Darrell Lindsey humanity come through strongly, allowing the reader to take an active part in the Reviewed by Patricia Prime poems. Lindsey’s haiku demonstrate the importance of being in the here and now:

Darrell Lindsey’s haiku and tanka have step by step, won awards in the United States, Japan, fog climbing Croatia, Bulgaria and Canada. He was a the rocks Pushcart Prize nominee in 2007. In this collection of over 80 haiku, and leaning on the hoe, tanka, Darrell Lindsey’s work exempliﬁes autumn dusk tugs the essence of both haiku and tanka which at my sleeve is to discover the resonance of a moment experienced in everyday life. A wide range Lindsey’s haiku also serve as an of subject matter ranging from love, loss, example of the use of a minimum of words memory, faith and nature are treated with and punctuation in haiku. The following thoughtfulness. To lighten the way, are among my favourite: however, Lindsey counterbalances with moments of joy, warmth and humour. spring gust the baby bird’s heartbeat grows faint

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 53 mystic poets suppertime around a campﬁre the tang of weeds in last night’s dream in the cow’s milk I tasted their words as if they were wine Lindsey’s greatest gift is his ability to communicate directly and immediately a poet’s worth with the reader. In almost every poem measured in beggar’s pennies readers will ﬁnd something with which yet they seek him out they make a strong connection. Lindsey for some sort of solace brings discernment to his tanka themes when all the music has stopped which is modest yet astute; an intensity which is lens-like in its ability to capture He is never content simply to describe, the tensions and joys of life: or even just to meditate on his subjects, instead he draws out subtleties of an exit missed meaning, animating them through the more than a few miles back— stories he creates, exploring and I look down the road interpreting realities which speak of for the right occasion contemporary issues, such as we see in the to tell you how lost I feel following two tanka:

waking up late, next to me I ﬁnd half of the closet on the plane ride home is empty— a couple with baggage it’s as if I dreamed you, not even the airlines even the scent of your perfume could manage to lose

Lindsey’s art lies not in presenting the regardless ‘bigger’ picture but the ‘ordinary’ story. He of my proximity to you offers a range of moments, perceptions, the strange place experiences, memories, often quotidian, I ﬁnd myself in always felt and personal. His ability to cannot be googled breathe life into the everyday, to animate those moments in life which we remember Lindsey builds up his tanka with fondness, will evoke familiar feelings incrementally, using simple words and in the reader with their keenly observed brief lines which let the images bear the detail: emotional weight. It is poetry of constraint and control and his simple structure enables him to be clear and direct.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 54 Although this may lead to over- conscious mannerisms or affectations, yet simplification or predictability of image, whose work can probe and expose the the images are not too rationally intense power of these simple 3- and 5-line constrained; instead they strike out at poems. One cannot publish a collection unexpected angles, as in these verses: where every poem will please everyone who reads it and there are some which walking the creek trail may not appeal to every reader. And maybe I detour to the right . . . a few others where Lindsey might have wipe sand this spring day been more selective. But any negatives are from a baby’s grave outweighed by the positives of the in the old cemetery collection, and it will be great to read more of Lindsey’s work in the future. Here are no reply needed two more of my favourite tanka: for the mute moon on this pond a firefly, but the silence at home or the darkness, is screaming for words or both? sometimes I wonder There is a wide range in the tanka and what I’ve become to you haiku of subject matter and technique. Though the haiku are relatively similar in following you home method and the majority are three-line to a backwoods cabin verses there are two one-line haiku: I glimpse a firefly in the shadows of your heart the long train all the breeze this summer that no one will ever catch night Lindsey employs traditional techniques in the garden steel ears for dreams come and form with great freedom. Always there whistling are remarkable resources at the service of a poet who has something to say. This is a It would have added to the variety of collection that will offer pleasure to many the collection if there had been more readers. Thematically varied— not just love wordplay, indentation, and verse length in and loss, but also meditation, books, the haiku. journeys, a bookstore and a pond, these The poems in this collection engage are his subjects. The poems will stay with the reader through an intimacy of tone and the reader a long time. voice and through the poet’s ability to give delicate expression to a range of emotions. He is a poet whose work is free of self-

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 55 Review: the taste of shadow everyday. They chart the failure and limitations in a relationship. The persona by ai li in the following tanka realizes her relationship is based on lies: Reviewed by Patricia Prime another city to lie from the taste of shadow by ai li (2012) postcards e-book, available from Amazon.com from a man $US 2.99 inside a condom

ai li’s poems have been widely and in a subsequent tanka, the lover is published in the UK, USA and Japan. Her presented as a deceitful manipulator: writing career got off to a dramatic start when she became the founding editor and you call publisher of still, a highly innovative it lovemaking magazine of haiku, and published moving your mouth into breath and dew-on-line. on my nipple As a poet, ai li went on to create a tasting of her series of book-length life journals written as contemporary haiku and tanka that are What makes ai li’s poems so effective is ambitious and innovative. These are all the dramatic effect that so many of her available as e-books. the taste of shadow tanka contain. Last lines which operate (poems for inner rooms) does not spare the like prophecy and which offer commentary reader. Between the collection’s opening on the human drama. Yet her statements haiku, “ﬁnding the mountains in the city” are often followed by resolution, making and its closing haiku, “stargazing you their authority more accountable: not here,” there is little remission. Indeed, ai li’s haiku and tanka do not pull any repeated blows to your head punches, nor do they relinquish their the paper reported exploration of the way we often use love/ i pour cochineal desire to stave off the experience of our the colour inherent separateness. What governs this blinding collection and the others in this series is the belief that no matter how hard we try, ai li is skilful in casting her work in the we will somehow fail in our relationships. ﬁrst person—the ubiquitous “i” by which The poems are skillfully linked. The she arranges that conjuring act of the right poems are touched by zen, loss, joy, the amount of disclosure with involvement; surreal, the erotic, humour, truth and the the right amount of surface tension. This

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 56 sense of the personal voice that rings with Here is a collection for the romantics an awareness of life’s complexities and amongst us! The tanka in Claire Everett’s sadnesses, a world of ambiguous and sheer Twe l ve M o o n s collection are beautiful, joy, is perfectly heard in ai li’s twenty-first century, echoes of the classical contemplation of the self and the other: Japanese waka of love, longing, and loss. My heart and mind are taken back to man the world of the Heian era women poets by in the evening its very title Twelve Moons, and then the of my life division of Claire’s book into these i run barefoot chapters: spring; awakening moon; egg towards myth moon; lilac moon; summer; corn tassels’ moon; barley moon; autumn; harvest i no longer listen moon; leafdance moon; white frost moon; to the rain winter; long nights moon; wolf moon; outside hunger moon. it begins The world of tenth century women’s in me waka/tanka was opened to English readers in 1990 with the publication of The Ink This vividly perceived reality can be Dark Moon, Love Poems by Ono no found throughout this excellent collection Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, translated by with its existential search for identity and Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Otani. context. This is a collection worth the price Indeed, one of Claire’s harvest moon of an e-book. It’s worth reading both for tanka directly refers to that wonderful the contents and as a way to make the book of translations: acquaintance of an extremely talented poet as she uses her poetry to find her way in a cloth-soft edges … perplexing world. whose hands held you before mine? my heart a rice-paper sky * * * for The Ink Dark Moon Review: twelve moons In Twelve Moons, we find four pieces by Claire Everett which include the word ‘tanka’, another three which sing of poems and the writing Reviewed by Amelia Fielden of poetry in general, and this one in the autumn moon chapter which references the twelve moons by Claire Everett (2012) first great collection of waka/tanka, the available from eight century Man’yōshu, the Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves:

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 57 until, my love our days have the ink from the tip of autumn of the breeze-brushed fir drying in their veins . . . red sumi-e ten thousand leaves in the sun a robin’s calligraphy this roll of kinwashi sky A characteristic of Japanese collections, also, - even in the modern era – Yes, there are many Japanese is to include a number of poems about the connections in Twelve Moons; but there are creative process, and the comfort to be also poems which sing of the English found specifically in reading and countryside and many original metaphors, composing tanka. such as this whole tanka, another of my It is clearly a comfort which Claire, too, favourites: enjoys, in addition to the delights of contemplating the natural world around miles away her. One of my favourite tanka in Twelve a piece of the stream is still singing Moons is this: of the loss of the heron’s reflection spring’s first iris I watch her unfold her blue kimono … Outstandingly, this is a collection the comfort of rituals throbbing with universal emotions, in this shaken world expressed in the fresh voice of Claire Everett. There is strong resonance in some of It is a life-loving voice, frequently Claire’s tanka with Japanese imagery: here wistful – proportionately there are more we have the unfolding of a kimono; in which could be classified as ‘poems of another poem her heart is likened to a koto longing’ than any other type of tanka in (Japanese harp); while the night as a black this collection – yet it is a voice which flower is an enduring makurakotoba (fixed reflects the joys as well as the griefs of epithet) in traditional Japanese tanka. This ‘everywoman’. is Claire’s ‘black flower’ love poem: Delicate black and white ink nature scent of breaking light drawings by Claire’s daughter, Amy, the shortest day enhance the pages of Twelve Moons. The this night lovely fox in the snow cover is also the a black flower work of this talented young artist. we have pressed between us An introduction by David Terelinck gives an excellent analysis and summation And, in the long nights moon chapter, of this book, which I recommend whole- decorated with Japanese terms is this heartedly. charming shasei tanka:

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 58 Gathering Horsetails : An Invitation to Tanka Prose

Claire Everett

Tanka prose in English is still in its If I despised you nascent form, having first appeared, as far who are as beautiful as the violet as we can establish, in 1983, when Sanford from the murasaki grass, Goldstein published his “Tanka Walk” (1) would I long for you We can trace the origins of tanka prose in though you are another’s wife? (3) Japanese literature as far back as the 8th century when the Man’yōshū (Collection of Nature, in all its aspects, became a Ten Thousand Leaves) was compiled. Book V powerful tool; metaphors for hidden of the twenty volume anthology contains emotions, declarations of love and many examples of the form, but the lamentation, abound in this ancient text. “Excursion to the Matsura River”, With the appearance of Ki no Tsurayuki’s commonly ascribed to Otomo no Tabito Tosa Diary and the anonymously composed (2), is considered by many to be the jewel Tales of Ise in the 10th century, the spare in the crown. From ancient times, tanka prose accompaniments and prefaces that were exchanged—often between lovers— had served merely to establish a setting, and courtly etiquette required the the occasion or the details of an event, recipient to respond. Immediately, the two (e.g. “On plum blossoms in the snow”) now tanka were intimately connected and rapidly evolved into a wide array of tanka’s propensity to link in sequences of contexts: memoir, diary, travelogue, two or more poems, or with prose, was romance, military chronicle, etc. From explored with vigour. Typical of one of around 1008, Murasaki Shikibu not only these exchanges is the following, from the wrote the Tale of Genji, but she also Man’yōshū, in which Princess Nukata authored a diary and poetic memoirs (4) opens the dialogue and Prince Ōama, (who comprising 128 waka, each preceded by a is pining for the Princess, his former wife) prose preface, which ranged from a brief responds: sketch of time and place, as described above, to long, descriptive passages, Going this way on the crimson— reminiscent of the prose composed in the gleaming fields of murasaki grass, spirit of tanka, which is the keynote of going that way on the fields modern English practice. Until such of imperial domain— times, in Jeffrey Woodward’s words, the won’t the guardian of the fields prose element of such compositions had see you wave your sleeves at me? been little more than “a handmaiden to the

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 59 poem”; now, both components were on an published a special feature of “25 Tanka equal footing (5). Prose”, edited by Bob Lucky. My interview with Jeffrey Woodward, A writer new to the genre might ask, “Tanka Prose, Tanka Tradition” (Atlas how do I begin to write tanka prose? how Poetica 9, summer 2011) explores the is it constructed? are there specific chronology of the genre in detail and it is guidelines? Tanka prose in English, in its not my intention to duplicate that history most basic form, consists of one paragraph here. Suffice to say, that while the form is and one tanka—most commonly, the prose still in its infancy in English-language preceding the tanka—but the inversion of practice, we can see that like tanka in this order can be employed to great effect English, its roots are deeply embedded in (7). The tone of a piece can be greatly Heian Japan. affected by the arrangement of prose and When Sanford Goldstein published verse; where the tanka follows the prose, it “Tanka Walk” very few people were writing often serves as a revelation, the lyrical tanka in English, but a handful of poets fulfilment of the piece: soon after began to explore the dark, but nonetheless, inviting waters of tanka prose —Jane Reichhold (“A Gift of Tanka”, 1990) Requiem, Simple Version and Larry Kimmel (“Evening Walk”, 1996) to name but two. Jane and Werner Who could know another winter was Reichhold’s online journal, Lynx, was one not to be, that ash would bury her bones of the earliest venues to promote the form on the hill? And later, that same stolen and in recent years, Haibun Today, year, the snow that came would bury once Contemporary Haibun Online and Atlas more everything we loved. Poetica have made tanka prose accessible to an ever-increasing and appreciative My sister audience. In 2008, Jeffrey Woodward still at the center edited and introduced The Tanka Prose of the universe Anthology (Modern English Tanka Press). It her grave remains was the first collection of its kind, drawing the smallest of all. upon the work of nineteen poets from eight different countries. A mere quarter of ~Michael McClintock, Haibun Today a century after Sanford Goldstein took his 6:3, September 2012 first tentative steps down that well-trodden road, the “first flowering in English” of this ancient Japanese genre was deemed a Where the tanka begins the piece, it resounding success and was “here to will, to a degree take on the narrative or stay” (6). In 2011, M. Kei of Atlas Poetica expository role normally shouldered by the prose (8). In this case, we will sometimes

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 60 ﬁnd that the prose takes full advantage of prose is the ‘envelope’, whereby one the heightened poetic diction for which element is enclosed by the other, ie. prose/ the verse has paved the way: tanka/prose, or tanka/prose/tanka. Let us look at two examples, the ﬁrst a prose ‘envelope’: Anticipating Grief

I wake into Morro Bay an afternoon steeped in dreams something like Wagner The girlfriend who doubles as her pumped out of speakers hidden roommate, she says, came home in the in bushes, behind mirrors early hours, by car, from her mother’s place in Topanga Canyon. I sit by a window Far away my father kicks off his covers almost as narrow as the slit of my rum- and wonders where he is, sees people who soaked eyes and stare offshore at a keep of aren’t there, asks the nurses as they move wild rock that tilts a towering shadow like him back into bed what kind of religion a pointer—toward how many ﬂowering this is. Here I argue with my son about islands?—in the California spring. Her grades, with my wife about money, with satin robe parts innocently as she tosses myself about love. When everyone’s in back her platinum pageboy with bangs and bed, I search online for cheap ﬂights. I taste the salt in the air.

~Bob Lucky, Haibun Today 4:2, June a seaworthy trawler 2010 called from night ﬁshing to port rolls with a billow If the reader tries inverting prose and in the morning glare tanka in these two pieces, it is interesting to note how the overall tone of each piece Somewhere between midnight and would change entirely. This is useful when dawn, I misplaced her name. She does not considering the form our own ask me and I do not tell her mine. compositions should take. Often we have an intuitive sense of what is right for a ~Jeffrey Woodward, Modern English particular piece, but sometimes, a little Tanka, V 3, N 3, Spring 2009 experimentation is necessary, just as it is when we write tanka, to determine subtle shifts in emphasis and emotional tone. In this piece we can see how the Another form that is frequently opening paragraph is both narrative and encountered in modern English tanka descriptive; it segues seamlessly into a

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 61 lyrical tanka which is rich in assonance Here, the opening tanka is speculative, and consonance and replete with subtle philosophical in tone. The prose that layers of meaning, and this, in turn, leads follows is the narrative component of the us to the concluding paragraph, which piece and the tanka that seals the envelope amounts to only two sentences, but firmly uses vivid imagery that weaves back anchors the work as a whole. through the piece, shedding light on the Now for our tanka ‘envelope’: scene we have witnessed and returning us to the question posed by the opening tanka. Again, we could consider how the Evening Out tonal quality of this piece would have been markedly different if the two tanka were what separates inverted. one life from another Works consisting of alternating tanka an imaginary and prose elements are those most line widening frequently encountered. The two elements moment by moment may alternate symmetrically or asymmetrically, at the writer’s discretion Wisps of white hair stray from beneath and as the composition dictates; the her opaque headscarf as she mechanically possibilities are endless and it is the lifts the soup-spoon to her mouth. She harmony between the two components hardly responds to what the waiter is that determines the success of the final saying and seems upset. Her son, with his piece. Interestingly, all five pieces that back to the snow-frosted window, asks in a made the final selection for Take Five Best raised voice: “Do you want something Contemporary Tanka, Volume 4 (M. Kei, else?” She hunches over in silence. He Editor-in-Chief, 2011) were in this style. refills his wineglass and leans back in the Limitations of space make it impractical chair. In the background, the pianist for me to quote examples of this repeats the theme. Caught off guard by her compound form in full, but I encourage sudden eye contact, he sits up straight. readers to seek out these compositions, some of which are available online: heirloom quilts “Florentine Studies”, Charles Tarlton on the walls (Atlas Poetica 25 Tanka Prose); “Unlocked”, home spun threads David Terelinck (Casting Shadows, 2010); and complex “Pursuit”, Dawn Bruce (Haibun Today 5:4); geometric patterns “Art of Decay”, Marie Lecrivain(Haibun Today 5:4) and “Red Marble”, Marilyn ~Dru Philippou, Haibun Today 5:2, Hazelton (Atlas Poetica “25 Tanka Prose”). June 2011 The final compound form, consists of the prose element either preceding or

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 62 following a sequence of two or more boundaries of the form, whether it’s as an tanka. Such works seem particularly able exquisite short sketch such as his “Re- to sustain heightened poetic diction within reading the Tosa Diary”—in his own the prose, making full use of attributes words, an “homage to Lord Tsurayuki” (11) normally associated with verse, such as —or a dream-like composition with assonance, alliteration, rhythm and accompanying artwork, such as “White refrain. Patricia Prime is a skilful Azaleas” (Haibun Today 5:4); a playlet for practitioner of this particular form and two speakers with full and half choruses works such as “White and Red” and (“Late Last Thursday”, Haibun Today 5:4), “Gloire de Dijon” are striking, not only for or an encounter with celestial tribes their lyricism and subtle shifts in mood (“Niskaya, Cup”, Haibun Today 6:4). Charles and tone, but also for their originality, in so Tarlton is no less experimental; his “Eleven much as they begin with the tanka Dialogues on Dying: Carmody and sequence and conclude with the prose Blight” (Haibun Today 6:2) intersperse element (9). An accomplished writer in the dramatic exchanges between the two English-language tradition blends tanka characters with eloquent, emotionally- and prose seamlessly, avoiding the charged recollections of Tarlton’s oldest declarative links and explanatory friend who is living out his last days in statements that were a hallmark of hospice. In his ambitious “Some Japanese tanka prose from the Man’yōshū Fragments of Lost Dialogue”(Haibun Today to modern times, e.g. “I was moved to write 6:1) which is based in the conceit of lost this tanka because. . .” (10) Thus, the reader dialogue-texts from important plays, is provided with ample dreaming room, Tarlton constructs his tanka prose around enough space to interpret the composition framed passages from the texts in from his/her own experience and question. At ﬁrst glance, the “scenes” perspective. might not immediately resemble tanka- It is clear that tanka prose is a diverse prose, but closer inspection reveals a strict genre, not only in the various methods of adherence to the form. In “The Siren composition open to its author, but also in Cup” (Haibun Today 5 : 1 ) L i n d a subject matter. It is my belief that such Papanicolaou introduces us to graphic diversity is only limited by the imagination tanka prose, in which she blends prose and skill of its practitioners. One only has verse and graphic novel style images in a to access the archives of Haibun Today and compelling whole. Some of the earliest Atlas Poetica to see how adventurous some forays into tanka prose were inspired by writers have become and it is encouraging works of art. Gary LeBel’s, “Rooftops” to see that journals such as A Hundred draws the reader into Cezanne’s Vue de Gourds and Contemporary Haibun Online are L’Estaque while sitting in the dentist’s regularly publishing tanka prose alongside chair; Patricia Prime invites us to stand haibun. Gary LeBel continues to push the with her at Matisse’s La Fenêtre Ouverte in

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 63 her tanka prose of the same name (12). hand at this ‘new’ ancient form. M. Kei More recently, my own “Drawing continues to be generous in his Hands” (Haibun Today 6:3) was a study in publication of such compositions within ekphrasis, inspired by the work of Escher. the pages of this journal and Haibun Today As the venues open to submissions of now has a section dedicated to tanka tanka prose increase, it is exciting to see prose. Since I became Tanka Prose Editor what new directions the genre might take. for Haibun Today in December 2011, the Readers familiar with the Irish Heritage submissions I receive have more than collaborative tanka sequences by myself doubled and while the exemplary and Autumn Noelle Hall, which have been submission is the exception rather than published in recent issues of Atlas Poetica, the rule, I am keen to avoid prescribing will also note that the largest of our rules and regulations as to what makes a projects, “Carrowkeel” (Atlas Poetica 13, ﬁne tanka prose and what doesn’t. By autumn 2012), was in fact a collaborative or studying the best works in detail, we will ‘response’ tanka prose piece. When all become better writers. In the words of Autumn and I came to research this Bob Lucky, editor for the Atlas Poetica ‘25 Neolithic site, it quickly became apparent Tanka Prose’ Special Feature: that there was far too much archaeological and mythological detail for the kind of It would be a shame if the English- tanka sequence we’d written before. language form were to die in its Autumn suggested we try it in tanka prose infancy, strangled in the strait jacket of format and we were pleased with the prescriptions. The idea is simple result. The challenge was to make each enough: combine prose and tanka, or piece successful in its own right, but also prose poetry and tanka, or free verse to weave the parts together into a whole and tanka, or images and prose and that was, by turns, contrasting and also tanka. There will always be quibbling resonant. Ours was not the ﬁrst about the relationship between the collaborative tanka prose composition, tanka and the other constituent parts; however; “Between Words”, a piece there will always be aesthetic questions authored by Patricia Prime, Jeffrey about what comprises a good tanka and Woodward, Jeffrey Harpeng and Bob what exactly the prose is supposed to Lucky, appeared in Modern English Tanka be doing. In the end, a tanka prose 11, spring 2009. piece that connects to readers, however Back in 2008, when Jeffrey Woodward it may do so, will be as a guide to other compiled The Tanka Prose Anthology, he writers. concluded his introduction with the question: What does the future hold for Every day I see the “new world” of tanka prose? In the ensuing four years we tanka prose that Jeffrey Woodward have seen more and more poets try their envisaged for the reader of the 2008

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 64 Anthology, opening up to novice and Notes: experienced poets alike. Kath Abela Wilson, curator of “Tanka Poets on Site” The title is inspired by Masaoka Shiki’s and a regular contributor to short form tanka sequence (with preface), Songs from a poetry journals worldwide, hosts a Bamboo Village, translated by Sanford Facebook group for which she provides Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda, Charles E. daily prompts. Ms Wilson’s prompts are Tuttle Co., 1998, p 247, which was works of art in themselves, lyrical and discussed in Everett, Claire. “Tanka Prose, expansive, inviting the group members to Tanka Tradition: An Interview with Jeffrey respond. Not only do these members write Woodward”, Atlas Poetica 9 (Summer tanka, but they frequently include prose 2011), p. 63. details, describing the background to the poem’s composition, location, historical or cultural references, memories etc. Harking back to tanka’s Heian roots, poets also Citations: frequently write responses to the work of others. I have pointed out to many of these 1 Goldstein, Sanford: “Tanka Walk”, writers that they have the basis for a tanka Northeast,III:15(1983). prose in what they have written and two or 2 Everett, Claire. “Tanka Prose, Tanka three have already privately shared their Tradition: An Interview with Jeffrey ﬁrst attempts at the genre with me. One of Woodward”, Atlas Poetica 9 (Summer Kath Abela Wilson’s prompts was the 2011), p. 70. Translations of “Excursion to inspiration for her tanka prose “parallel the Matsura River” are available in Ian worlds”(Haibun Today 6:4, December 2012). Hideo Levy, The Ten Thousand Leaves: A And so, the journey continues . . . Translation of the Man’yōs h u , Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 371-375 and in I too would sit Edwin A. Cranston, A Waka Anthology: with the ancient ones Volume One, The Gem-Glistening Cup, for a time Stanford University Press, 1993, pp. in the delicate shade 552-554. of peach blossoms (13) 3 Levy, Ian Hideo. The Ten Thousand leaves: a translation of the Man’yoshu. Princeton University Press, 1981, pp.48-49. Claire Everett 4 Bowring, Richard. Murasaki Shikibu: England, November 2012 Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs. Princeton University Press, 1982. 5 Woodward, Jeffrey, Ed: The Tanka Prose Anthology, Modern English Tanka Press, 2008, p10.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 65 6 Ibid, back cover, Jeffrey Woodward. Select Bibliography: 7 “The Elements of Tanka Prose”, pp. 194-197, Modern English Tanka, V2 N4 Everett, Claire: “Tanka Prose, Tanka (Summer 2008). Tradition: An Interview with Jeffrey 8 Ibid. pp.197-198 Woodward”, Atlas Poetica 9, Summer 2011 9 Woodward, Jeffrey, Ed: The Tanka Lucky, Bob. “25 Tanka Prose”, Atlas Prose Anthology, Modern English Tanka Poetica Special Feature (online) 2011 Press. pp 103-104 & 108-109. Prime, Patricia. “Irresistible 10 Everett, Claire. “Tanka Prose, Tanka Constructions: a tanka prose essay”, Tradition: An Interview with Jeffrey Modern English Tanka V3 N1 (Autumn Woodward”, Atlas Poetica 9 (Summer 2008), pp. 214-224. 2011), pp. 62-63. Tarlton, Charles. “Toward a Theory and 11 Prime, Patricia: “A Game of Tag: Practice of Tanka Prose”, Haibun Today 5:4, Gary LeBel on Tanka Prose”, Haibun Today December 2011. 6:3, 2012. Woodward, Jeffrey (Editor). The Tanka 12 “Rooftops”: LeBel, Gary: Haibun Prose Anthology. Baltimore, MD: Modern Today, March 11 2008; “La fenêtre English Tanka Press, 2008. ouverte”, Prime, Patricia: Haibun Today, May 4 2008. 13 from Jeffrey Woodward’s “Peach Blossom Spring”, Modern English Tanka V2 N2, winter 2007.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 66 Wet and Dry : Lucille Nixon, Georgia O’Keefe, and Masaoka Shiki on Shasei

by M. Kei

When I wrote ‘The Labyrinth of break with the past. They infused a Tanka’ (Modern English Tanka, 2:3, Spring, moribund literature with new energy and 2008), I tackled the criticism that possibilities, and revived it in a form, contemporary tanka in English was devoid which although beholden to ancient roots, of Japanese aesthetics and therefore not was a decidedly new ﬂower. even tanka, but a sort of free verse The rule of literary decorum was mistakenly called tanka because it was dramatically broken by Yosano Akiko, who published on ﬁve lines. In the article I would turn out to be one of Japan’s outlined how several Japanese principles greatest poets. Defying expectations that a such as miyabi (courtly elegance, good Japanese woman should be doll-like, taste), aware (pathos, the awareness of the decorous, and submissive, she wrote perishability of beauty), and yūgen (mystery passionate tanka on any subject she and depth) manifested in contemporary pleased. She even dared to mention her Anglophone tanka. Not intended as an breasts! For the modern reader ‘breasts’ exhaustive listing, it demonstrated that elicit no particular embarrassment, but for even when the terms were unknown, poets the Japanese of the Meiji period, it was a had successfully digested Japanese scandal. Breasts had never been aesthetics and were manifesting them in mentioned in tanka before. (1) their work. Yet breasts were and are essential parts At the time I wrote ‘Labyrinth,’ I was of human life. Masaoka Shiki adopted the fully aware that I was ignoring a large body term shasei (‘copying life’) and introduced of tanka that did not embody these it to tanka. He had learned the term from classical principles, so I fully expected to Japanese artists who were studying and receive a rebuttal. Much to my surprise, it imitating Western art. (2) In 1898 he issued never happened. Therefore, I shall be my ten letters that sharply criticized own contrarian and discuss the concepts traditional tanka. Shasei was a major of ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ tanka and ‘shasei’ in technique to counter the staleness of the opposition to the classical poetics. old waka. Although Western poets often Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) and the assume that Zen is the source of this other tanka poets of the late nineteenth apparently artless objectivity, it was not. It and early twentieth centuries reformed the was exposure to Western art, especially old waka, renaming it ‘tanka’ to signify the realism and modernity, that gave Japan a

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 67 new way of seeing the world. While fans of poet was creating a subjective experience. tanka know how indebted Western tanka is However, he did not see this as a flaw. “It is to Japanese aesthetics, few realize how my basic principle to express as clearly as indebted modern Japanese tanka is to possible the poetic quality I myself feel to Western aesthetics. be beautiful.” (8) Shasei is popular in contemporary In the ideal sketch of life tanka, the Anglophone tanka, although not many surface is the thing; there is no difference poets are familiar with the term. Shasei is a between inner and outer, no veil between sort of snapshot, ‘a sketch from life,’ a the thing and what we perceive. It is a highly imagistic poem that makes no overt direct seeing. It is what it is. There is no emotional statement and into which the mystery to it. Unfortunately, this runs the persona of the poet does not obviously risk of being superficial and banal. We like intrude. Such seemingly objective tanka to adorn our walls with posters, calendars, are ‘dry’ and may be contrasted with the prints, and other images we find subjective and personal style of traditional appealing. There is no requisite that such tanka, which we may designate as ‘wet’ (3) images be ‘great art,’ we choose them from the abundance of tears (real or because they appeal to us, not because implied) shed in it. Emotionalism is an they have been approved by an artistic ancient aspect of tanka poetry. Writing in authority. the preface to the Kokinwakashū, Lord Ki Yet to characterize shasei in this way is no Tsurayuki (872?-945 AD) defined to be short-sighted. The starkest shasei do Japanese poetry as, “Our native poetry not need to intrude an overt subjectivity; springs from the heart of man as its seed, the image speaks for itself. Like a producing the countless leaves of photograph, a tanka can be a thing of language.” (4) Adopting shasei was stunning beauty, great whimsy, or even therefore a rebellion against classical pathos. poetics. Shiki and his colleagues deliberately Today at Pearl Harbor, embraced objectivity and realism. (5) One From the shore line, of his disciples, Nagatsuka Takashi, At highest tide, described writing tanka as “coming into A gossamer mist, direct contact with nature and depicting it With the deepest stillness. from life.” (6) On the other hand, another of Shiki’s disciples, Itō Sachio, insisted it ~Hagino Mastuoka (1963) (9) was impossible to achieve true objectivity because the personality of the poet was It is not necessary to ban the poet inevitably tied to the poem. (7) Even Shiki entirely from shasei; many sketches of life acknowledged that by choosing to write are snapshots of the author or other about one thing as opposed to another, a people. The difference is that human

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 68 beings are objects in the frame of the Autumn in Japan poem, rather than subjective actors. The presentation is dry; it is devoid of Mist, as delicate commentary by the poet. As a bridal veil, surrounds Mount Fujiyama. On a country road The high, snowy crest glistens An old woman walks; Against a blue autumn sky. The autumn sun casts her shadow ~Grace Cecilia Callahan (1975) (12) long and thin. In these two Orientalist tanka, we have ~Jun Fujita (1923) (10) visions of a Japan that exists only in the authors’ imaginations. They are titled and The surface may be the thing, but in conform to the sanjuichi pattern of spite of being laid out plainly, it defies easy 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Grubb intuits that this analysis. This makes sketches from life is too long and deviates with a five syllable some of the most complicated poems to final line. (Tanka in English more closely interpret. Their utter simplicity renders approximate the light and fragmentary them opaque; we cannot find clues from nature of the original when they have the poet to tell us what they mean. We fewer syllables. Kozue Uzawa, editor of must do the work of interpretation entirely Gusts, recommends twenty. (13)) Callahan by ourselves. managed a competent poem considering In the early years of tanka in North the limits within which she was working. America, shasei was rarely attempted by The rest of the poems in these two books non-Japanese poets and rarely successful. make use of Oriental images, archaic, and Consider the following: poetic diction. They personify. Their flowers “breathe” perfume; their winds Bamboo Temple “sigh.” They do not trust the thing-as-it-is to be poetry. Deep blue iris grows During the twentieth century, Around the bamboo temple American tanka poets tutored by Japanese- With mulberry trees American teachers fared better. They While actors in gay costumes strove for realism, sincerity, and Chant the tanka verse. artlessness. They eschewed Oriental images, but faithfully recorded details of ~Eleanor Chaney Grubb (1949) (11) various ethnic groups (including the Japanese) when they encountered them in real life.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 69 Coming down The image, in other words, the sensory Three little boys intake, must be clear, but there must be Swinging fishing poles enough space around it so that the In their baskets reader may delight himself with it by Three little rainbow trouts. using his own associations. The poet must not preach or editorialize about ~Lucille Nixon (14) the image. [. . .] The poem should be a statement of what IS. [emphasis in Lucille Nixon was the first American original] (16) not of Japanese ancestry to win the Imperial Poetry Contest (1957). Her Here we have an important point teacher, Tomoe Tana, was herself a previous regarding tanka in general and shasei in winner (1947). particular: the poem, plain and without Nixon and Tana edited and translated authorial commentary, lacking in Sounds from the Unknown, an anthology of ostentation and ornament, is the thing. The over one hundred Japanese Canadians and apparent simplicity of such works Americans, although only Nixon was sometimes led people to wonder if they credited. Nixon wrote the introduction and were poems at all. Nixon addressed that laid out the principles of tanka. Nixon did question, not mention shasei by name, but the concept is implicit in her writing. For Some Western critics argue that the example, she notes that most tanka poets traditional forms of Japanese poetry, in North America are Realists, as opposed the haiku and tanka, are not true to Symbolists or Romantics. poetry. Alas, they do not seem to fit into Lucille Nixon was mentored in tanka our Western forms and we have no by Tomoe Tana, a member of the tanka term which truly describes them. If circle run by respected tanka poet and poetry is “a cry from the human editor Yoshihiko Tomari. Tomari had been heart”; if it is “the rhythmical running a tanka circle in the USA since expression of deep feeling”; or if, as the 1920s, and was also active in Japanese another poet says, “Making a poem is a tanka circles. His connections enabled him way of trying to understand experience to run a tanka contest for North American and, therefore, the poet is creating a tanka poets that was judged by three major self as well as a poem,” why then we tanka poets in Japan, including Mokichi can say that the Japanese write the Saitō. (15) Nixon had the benefit of finest poetry of all. (17) training under the auspices of a classic sensei-student relationship. She describes Writing about her own process of tanka thusly: discovery, Nixon said,

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 70 [F]or years each spring I had admired a Not as common as the wet style of certain wild ﬂower, the horse mint, for tanka, shasei are still a major subset of its lavender coloring, its fringed and tanka in English. The following examples delicate outline, so fragile though come from Take Five : Best Contemporary balanced on a stern and forbidding Tanka, Volume 3, but shasei can be found in stem, but I had never noticed its tiny all the tanka journals, including those that coral center. I couldn’t believe that it embrace the wet style. was there when ﬁrst I noticed it, and so I looked at the many blossoms to see if from the neon bridge all were sent up from this roseate a line of red lights center, and sure enough, they were all turning green the same, and had been for centuries, all the way no doubt! I just had not been able to to the church see. (emphasis in original) (18) ~Carlos Colón The emphasis on image in classical Japanese waka means that even the oldest next day poems partake to some extent of shasei, the old, blind gelding although the term was not invented until roams his pasture the Meiji era. The important thing about searching in darkness the ‘sketch of life’ is that it chucked out the for the mare I shot old aesthetics such as miyabi, broke the rule of good taste that excluded ‘vulgar’ ~Dave Bacharach subjects (the female breast, for example) and introduced modern language and evening mist subjects (e.g. tuberculosis and trains). It winters our city streets . . . disconnected from the classical past and in subways plugged into modern reality. lie bundle after bundle In English where contemporary life of human-grey cold has always been accepted in tanka, the magnitude of the break cannot really be ~Dawn Bruce comprehended. In spite of the reverence many Western tanka poets hold for the new Jerusalem classical Japanese poets, our method of railway station— writing using vernacular language, modern a soldier subjects, and direct experience are a asleep on the platform product of Shiki’s revolt against the very gun pointing at Heaven poets they hold dear. ~Gerry Jacobsen

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 71 the pills so light for each day it does not register separated on the hand of the scales into compartments a kitchen spider like tiny cofﬁns caked in ﬂour

~Jack Prewitt ~Matt Morden struggling she and he the old woman with a walker lights at each end crossing the icy road of the house her dog in a small bag turning on and off along with groceries at different times

~Johannes S. H. Bjerg ~Roary Williams in the silence at the Jewish deli after the guests have gone a bent man wearing a black hat from deep inside drinks his tea with a spoon— the heart of the dulcimer an old woman alone a cricket begins to sing talking to her scrambled eggs

~Karen Cesar ~Sanford Goldstein the last day of December Several of these poems edge away from a grasshopper a purely objective presentation. Pills are gets off separated into compartments “like tiny a green pepper from Chile coffins,” bundles of “human-grey cold” lie and surveys his new home in a subway, a soldier’s gun points at “Heaven,” while a winter storm “infiltrates ~M. Kei our neighborhood.” Such words are freighted with meaning that makes obvious a winter storm the human agency that created them, but infiltrates our neighbourhood in fact, all of them betray the same human silent, white intention by virtue of appearing in print. the handcuffed husband They are ‘dry,’ but none of them is head down on a squad car ‘objective.’ All poems—because they are poems— ~Marc Thompson intend to evoke a response in the reader.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 72 They manipulate their words to achieve Tanka is not just a short lyric originally that effect. Even the driest tanka are, in from Japan composed of five poetic parts; fact, highly subjective. In Carlos Colón’s it is a mode of perception, and the tools of poem about the traffic lights, the human tanka are all devoted to capturing and presence is implied. Who are they and communicating the perception to the what are they doing? Are they going to the reader. Both wet and dry styles of tanka church, or merely heading in that observe things and pass them through the direction? Is it a wedding or a funeral? A subjective medium of the human poet. social protest? Rush hour traffic? We have Poetry, by definition, is subjective; if it is no clue what is actually happening in this not subjective, it is not poetry. scene. Maybe nothing is; maybe the poet’s This extreme focus on perception is sole intention was to capture a visually not characteristic of Western literature. interesting scene, like a poster of city Certainly Western poetry is insightful with lights. Or perhaps a larger theme of urban flashes of brilliant observation, but the alienation is implied, as in the movie relentless pursuit of plain sight is not the Koyaanisqatsi : Life out of Balance. As a universal goal and practice of Western result, this poem, which on the surface literature. Tanka is devoted to this intense seems the most objective, is in fact the level of seeing and has exerted itself for most subjective. Its meaning depends fourteen hundred years to develop the entirely upon the reaction of the reader— tools necessary to transmit it in the alien and the poet deliberately composed it that environment of the written word. The way. result is a form of poetry that is compact Poets, like photographers, choose what and illusive to a degree that exceeds any they will depict, at what focus and other poetry in the world. Poetry that lacks distance, with emphasis on which this illusive compactness cannot particular details. They decide how to accomplish the goals of tanka and frame the image and how to present it. We therefore is not tanka. Novices rapidly find speak of a photographer ‘composing’ a out that this requires a tremendous photograph exactly as we speak of a poet amount of discipline. ‘composing’ a poem, and for the same The apparent artlessness of the best reasons. Choosing what to include and shasei requires an intense degree of what to omit is a subjective act by the artistry. The visual arts provide an example poet: those choices are precisely what the of the same principle at work: the art of reader perceives and reacts to. Their Georgia O’Keefe. Wanting to make people simplicity is deceptive; such artlessness is actually stop and look, she blew up extremely difficult to accomplish. That’s ordinary flowers, such as pansies, into why such poems are in the minority—but giant canvases, the sheer size of which not a minor part—of tanka today. stopped the viewer in their tracks. The images themselves are deceptively simple

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 73 —the structure of a pansy is not complex— collaborative tanka. Modern experiments yet as rendered by the artist it rewards with extended tanka and shaped tanka endless contemplation. O’Keefe has the show that tanka is an exceptionally fertile acute vision necessary to see what is right medium for all sorts of creative in front of all of us, and to bring it to our developments. Skeptics might claim that attention so that we marvel at its beauty. these constant attempts to enlarge the O’Keefe’s flower paintings are visual tanka. tanka are evidence that tanka itself is too It raises an interesting question: if a small to convey significant subjects, but I tanka, normally a miniature poem printed regard it as evidence of the opposite. Tanka on a small page, were blown up to the size is an exceptionally fertile seed from which of an O’Keefe canvas, would it have the many things can grow. If tanka were truly same impact? The 3Lights Gallery curated limited and limiting, it would have been by Liam Wilkinson presented tanka (and abandoned long ago. haiku) online in a virtual art gallery in Shasei, by presenting the thing-as-it- which the sidewise scroll was meant to is, depends upon the stark power of the create the sensation of poems as art image. This is something that translates objects hung on the gallery wall. The well, making tanka one of the most gallery presentation was successful and portable forms of poetry in the world. The had an impact not replicated when the ballade and limerick do not adapt well to same exhibits were reproduced as books or languages as varied as Chinese, Hebrew, PDFs. Romanian, and Luganda. When the poet In a similar vein, Giselle Maya’s inserts overt subjective expression, he runs handmade books, by virtue of their tactile the risk of being stopped at the cultural and visual sensations, create a frame that barrier. Will readers in countries as diverse enhances the experience of the poems. as Bhutan and Mexico understand the Tanka is increasingly being performed, poet’s message? By contrast, although the either as spoken word poetry, or as part of ‘sketch of life’ may be mysterious to the larger multi-media presentations of art, viewer, it is still viewable. The poem, by music, and dance, as in the case Poets on being utterly concrete, achieves the Site. Tanka is even incorporated into maximum of abstraction. choral and symphonic works by Critics who genuflect to the classical professionals in the field of classical Japanese poets have missed Shiki’s point music. Tanka poetry from the ancient days entirely. When they castigate contemporary has shown a powerful sense of accretion as tanka and claim that it is not really tanka, they become part of prosimetrum of what they really mean is that it is not various sorts combining poetry and prose, waka. The break between the two is real— appearing in tales, diaries, letters, and but the break was made by the Japanese public performances, growing into themselves. By adopting the Western sequences, renga, rensaku, and notion of the sketch of life, Shiki and

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 74 modern Japanese poets created a hybrid 5. Keene, p 55. literature that is as much Western as it is 6. Keene, p 56. Eastern. 7. Keene, p 56. Shasei is what makes contemporary 8. Keene, p 51. tanka contemporary. Shasei has its roots in 9. Nixon, Lucille, ed. Sounds from the the vision of the classical waka poets, but Unknown. Denver, CO: Alan Swallow, those classical poets deliberately chose to Publisher, 1963, p 43. avoid seeing subjects—like war and disease 10. Garrison, Denis M., ed. Jun Fujita : —that modern tanka accepts. The rule of Tanka Pioneer. Baltimore, MD: MET Press, good taste is broken; shasei sees the thing- 2007, p 59. as-it-is. It does not editorialize. Shasei is a 11. Grubb, Eleanor Chaney. Blue Is the modern aesthetic for a modern poetry. Iris. Baltimore, MD: n.p, 1949, unpaginated. 12. Tanka Chapter of the California Federation of Chaparral Poets. Tanka. Citations: Hollywood, CA: Richards Offset Printing, 1975, p. 11. 1. Goldstein, Sanford, and Seishi 13. Uzawa, Kozue. ‘From the Editor.’ Shinoda, eds. and trans. Akiko’s Yosano’s Gusts 4. Lethbridge, AB, CAN: Tanka Tangled Hair : Selected Tanka from Canada, p 1. Midaregami. Rutland, VT and Tokyo, 14. Tomoe Tana, ed. Tomoshibi : Lucille Japan: Charles E. Tuttle and Company, M. Nixon’s Japanese poem, tanka collection 1987, p 21. and biography with her study of Japanese 2. Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West : tanka poetry. Palo Alto, CA. 1978, p 127. Japanese Literature of the Modern Era. New 15. Kubota, Utsubo, Saito Mokichi & York: Columbia University Press, 1999, p Shaku Choukou, judges. Zaibei Dourou 50. Hyakunin Issue (One poem each from 100 of 3. Goldstein, Sanford, and Seishi our countrymen in America.) Tomoe Tana, Shinoda, eds. and trans. Red Lights : trans. JP: Nippon no mado, May, 1951 Selected Tanka Sequences from Shakkō by [Japanese]; 1985 [English translation Mokichi Saitō. Lafayete, IN: Purdue published Tana’s History of Japanese Tanka Research Foundation, 1989, p 38. in America] 4. Ki no Tsurayuki. ‘Preface.’ 16. Nixon, p xvii-xviii. Kokinwakashū. Adapted by Rex Pay, 2001, 17. Nixon, p xvii. from Primitive and Mediaeval Japanese 18 Nixon, p xvi. Texts Translated into English by F. V. Dickins. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906. pp 379-391, . Accessed 25 November 2012.

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 75 ANNOUNCEMENTS

Atlas Poetica will publish short announcements No subscription is required. The in any language up to 300 words in length on a space available basis. Announcements may be journal will be published via edited for brevity, clarity, grammar, or any other Createspace.com. When the winter issue is reason. Send announcements in the body of an published, the summer issue will be made email to: [email protected]—do not send attachments. available to read online. Claire Everett, Editor. UK

CALL FOR * * * SUBMISSIONS: Chen-ou Liu Launches Skylark Chinese-English Haiku An English-language tanka journal and Tanka Blog dedicated to tanka in all its forms. Details here: first day of the year of the snake, 2013: There will be two print issues of NeverEnding Story , the first English-Chinese bilingual haiku December and January and will close on and tanka blog, two of which sections are February 1st each year. open for submissions (If everything goes NOTE: For the inaugural (1:1, well with my poetry blog, I’ll publish Summer, 2013) the deadline has been Butterfly Dream 2013: Selected English- extended to February 15th. Chinese Bilingual Haiku and One Man¹s Submissions for the winter issue will Maple Moon 2013: Selected English- be read through June and July and will Chinese Bilingual Tanka in April, 2014; for close on August 1st each year. more information, please see the

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 76 Anthology Submissions webpage . graced the ads of many commercial clients Chen-ou Liu including Patagonia, UPS, REI plus Outside, National Geographic, Sierra and * * * many other magazines. Margaret Chula, President, Tanka Society of America: Now Available: Forward “Whimsical, humorous, poignant, and wise, Moving Shadows by Peggy the poems in Forward Moving Shadows span the full range of tanka expression. I admire the Heinrich honesty and courage of Peggy Heinrich’s poems—from the intimacy of in my teens / despite the fear / I used to pray / don’t let me clear winter day die / a virgin to the realization that she’s grown old in when did I cross / the border from dead ahead Alice / in Wonderland / into the world / of Miss my shadow moves forward Havisham? Peggy welcomes us into her much larger recollections of change, loss, and gratitude, and than I into her heart, filled with warmth and empathy. Like Japanese haiga, John Bolivar’s In this innovative memoir, photographs reflect the sentiments evoked by contemporary tanka are delicately linked her tanka with exquisite visual reverberations.” with striking black-and-white images. An impressive collaboration by an award- US $9.95 winning pair. Paperback perfect bound – 77 pages Forward Moving Shadows is Peggy Publisher iUniverse Heinrich’s seventh book of poetry. Peeling Ships in 3-5 business days an Orange, a collection of her haiku, also Copyright ©2012 with photographs by John Bolivar, was published in 2009 by Modern English Available from iUniverse or from the Tanka Press. Her mainstream poems have author. Please send name, address and $13 appeared in many small press journals, and (includes S&H) to: in her collection, A Minefield of Etceteras, published in 2006 by iUniverse. A long- Peggy Heinrich time East Coaster, she moved to Santa 3400 Paul Sweet Road, A317 Cruz six years ago to be closer to her two Santa Cruz, CA 95065 West Coast daughters. A runner-up in the Nikon International Photo Contest, John Bolivar has won many

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 77 BIOGRAPHIES

Alexander Jankiewicz was born and raised Bob Lucky teaches at the International in Chicago, IL, USA. He currently lives in Community School of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Wamego, Kansas, USA. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, and The Amelia Fielden is an award-winning, Prose-Poem Project. He is co-author of the internationally published poet and a chapbook my favorite thing. professional translator. A graduate of the Australian National University, she holds a Bruce England began writing haiku Master’s degree in Japanese Literature. Amelia seriously in 1984. Other related interests has had 6 volumes of original English tanka include haiku theory and haiku practice and published, the most recent being Light On the occasional tanka. A chapbook, Shorelines, Water (2010). In addition she has collaborated was published with Tony Mariano in 1998. with fellow Australian poet Kathy Kituai, and with Japanese poet Saeko Ogi, to produce 4 Carole Harrison is a photographer and collections of responsive tanka, including the long distance walker, especially of the camino bilingual Word Flowers (2011). Amelia has also (s) in Spain. Retired from teaching, still published 17 books of Japanese poetry in dabbling in ‘olde wares’, she lives at Jamberoo translation. on the south coast of NSW, Australia.

Autumn Noelle Hall lives in Green Carole Johnston lives in Lexington, Mountain Falls, Colorado, shadowed by black Kentucky, but her heart still wanders the Jersey bears, mountain lions, ravens and a predatory Shore. Recently retired from teaching creative urge to write. Stops along the path that writing in a high school arts program, she is brought her here include service as a Chinese free to pursue her passion for writing tanka Linguist in the USAF, Lead Coordinator for and haiku. She is now ‘cloud hidden’ alone all the Jane Goodall Roots & Shoots Youth day with my dog, working on a novel. Partnership at Quest Academy, and Curator for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Catherine Harnett is a poet and ﬁction Conﬂict/Resolution poetry exhibit. Her writer from Virginia. She has published two writings include Top Secret reports, campaign poetry books, Still Life and Evidence through brochures, preschool song lyrics, and various the Washington Writers Publishing Press. Her forms of poetry. recent work appears in a number of literary journals. She retired from a Senior Executive Beverly Acuff Momoi’s haiku and tanka position in the U.S. government, and attended have been widely published in journals such as Georgetown University where she obtained an American Tanka, Ribbons, Eucalypt, A Hundred M.A. degree. Currently, she lives in Fairfax with Gourds, Frogpond and Modern Haiku, and her daughter. included in anthologies such as your own Catzilla! Her chapbook of haibun, Lifting the Chen-ou Liu is the author of Ripples from a Towhee’s Song, was selected for a 2011 Splash: A Collection of Haiku Essays with Award- Snapshot Press Award. Winning Haiku and Following the Moon to the

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 78 Maple Land. His tanka and haiku have been Belgrade, School of Law, a journalist and poet, honored with 20 awards. with over two thousand newspaper articles. The author of several poetry books, translated into Christina Nyugen is a writer, poet, and English, Russian, German, Hungarian, mother living in Hugo, Minnesota, USA. She Slovenian and Macedonian languages. His plays with words and poetry on Twitter as tanka is dedicated to the sharp and bold @TinaNguyen. Her work has appeared in observation of the modern world, sometimes Ribbons, Gusts, red lights, American Tanka, surrealistically. Published in the literary Frogpond, Prune Juice, Moonbathing, tinywords, anthologies internationally. and other journals. Genie Nakano grew up in East Los Claire Everett’s haiku, tanka, and more Angeles barrios. An area where many Mexican recently, haibun and tanka prose, have immigrants migrated. Hence, many words are appeared in many of the short-form poetry of Chicano slang. Yes, the story is biographical journals worldwide. Claire’s interest in tanka and true. I lived within a vibrant community prose increased when she was invited by M. and have many memories. Kei to conduct an in-depth interview with Jeffrey Woodward for Atlas Poetica 9 (July, 2011) Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, discussing the history and practice of tanka Australia. He was a geologist in a past life and prose. She is now delighted to be the tanka wrote scientific papers. But nothing beats the prose editor for Haibun Today. Claire lives with thrill of having tanka published in Atlas her husband and five children in North Poetica. Gerry’s tanka and tanka prose also Yorkshire, England, and draws most of her appear currently in Ribbons, GUSTS and inspiration from walks on the Moors and Dales Haibun Today. and in the Lake District. Guy Simser, an “imagist and “humourist,” Dawn Apanius was born in Cleveland, has written in English and Japanese poetry Ohio in 1969. She inherited her love of nature, forms since 1980, including five years service in art, and literature from her parents. She has Japan. His poems have appeared in over 50 worked in florist shops, and loves to hike. She anthologies/journals in Japan, USA, Canada, has been writing poetry for a few years. England, and Australia. Awards include the Diane Brebner Poetry Prize (Canada); Tanka Dawn Bruce is an Australian poet, living in Splendor Prize (USA); the Special Prize, Sydney. She leads creative writing classes, has Hekinan International Haiku (Japan). three poetry collections, ‘Stinging the Silence’, ‘Tangible Shadows’ and ‘Sketching Light’ Jade Pandora from California, U.S.A., is published by Ginninderra Press, one of the the 2010 recipient of the Matthew Rocca Poetry editorial team for ‘raking stones’ an anthology Award (Deakin University, Melbourne, of Japanese genres, convenor of Ozku, haiku / Australia. She has studied and written tanka group, member of Red Dragonflies haiku Japanese short form poetry since 2007. A group and member of Bowerbirds tanka group. published poet, she can be found online at deviantART. Dushan Vidakovich, born in Valjevo, Serbia (1969), graduated from the University of

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 79 Joy McCall has written poetry, mostly rescued cats. She treasures the support and tanka, for 50 years, publishing occasionally perspective of her wonderful companion, Paul. here and there. She lives on the edge of the old walled city of Norwich, UK. She is a paraplegic Kath Abela Wilson is the creator and amputee following a motorcycle crash. She is leader of Poets on Site in Pasadena, California. married to Andy and has two grown daughters. Closely related to poetry of place, this group The poets she reads most often are Ryokan, performs on the sites of their common Langston Hughes, M. Kei, Frances Cornford, inspiration. She loves the vitality and TuFu, Sanford Goldstein, and Rumi. experimental micropoetic qualities of twitter (@kathabela) and publishes in many print and Janet Lynn Davis lives in a rustic area online journals, as well as anthologies by Poets north of Houston, Texas. She has written tanka on Site. and other poetry off and on for the past several years, and her work has been published in Keitha Keyes has spent most of her life in numerous online and print venues. Many of Sydney but her heart is still in the Australian her poems can be found at her blog, bush where she grew up. She is addicted to twigs&stones, . friendship and generosity of this writing community. Her work appears in Eucalypt, Jenny Ward Angyal lives on a small organic Kokako, Moonbathing, Simply Haiku, GUSTS, farm in Gibsonville, NC, USA, with her Ribbons, red lights, A Hundred Gourds, Take Five, husband and one Abyssinian cat. She has Atlas Poetica and several anthologies. written poetry since the age of ﬁve. Since retiring, she has given more time to poetry and Lisa Tibbs moved to Pasadena, Ca. in has become enchanted with tanka. Her poems February 2011 with her husband of 2 years for have appear in Lynx, Moonbathing, Ribbons, and his job at the California Institute of Tanka Splendor. Her poems may also be found Technology. With this move she joined the online at . Caltech Poetry group and the Afternoon Tanka group to expand her horizons. She is currently Joy McCall is 68 years old and has written the secretary and publicist for the Caltech poetry, mostly tanka, for 50 years, publishing Women’s Club and has met a lot of people with occasionally here and there. She lives on the this. edge of the old walled city of Norwich, UK. The poets she reads most often are Ryokan, Luminita Suse is a software developer that Langston Hughes, M. Kei, Frances Cornford, writes poems in her spare time. Her poetry TuFu, Sanford Goldstein, and Rumi. appeared in Bywords Quarterly Journal, Ditch Poetry, The New Stalgica Hymnal, The Broken Kate Franks is grateful every day for the City, Moonbathing: A Journal of Women’s Tanka, opportunity to teach middle school in Calgary, Gusts, Atlas Poetica, Magnapoets, Red Lights, Alberta, Canada. Conversations with her Ribbons, A Hundred Gourds, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Prune Juice, Notes from the students and the poetry of her mother, Joy Gean, and others. She was awarded a McCall, inspire her to write when she can. honourable mention in CAA-NCR National When she’s not planning lessons or marking, Capital Writing Contest, 2012, Canada. Kate attends to the daily demands of four

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 80 M. Kei is the editor of Atlas Poetica and rule for ten years after Saigon fell. Now a editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary naturalized US citizen, she writes from her Tanka. He is a tall ship sailor in real life and background consisting of three cultures. Her also published an Asian science ﬁction/fantasy haiku, haibun, and tanka have been published novel featuring a gay protagonist, Fire Dragon. in Notes from the Gean, A Hundred Gourds, The Heron’s Nest, Haiku News, Multiverses, Marilyn Morgan is a retired English Moonbathing, Red Lights, Lynx. One of her haiku teacher. She has written for many years, both is included in Carving Darkness: The Red Moon with her students and for herself. Since Anthology of English-Language Haiku. She holds retiring, she has started submitting her writing an MFA in English and playwriting. for publication. She has had poems published in red lights. Patricia McClelland’s poetry appears in the 2012 edition of the Poetry and Cookies Marilyn Humbert lives in the outer Anthology. She has published several children’s Northern suburbs of Sydney surrounded by books; has taught creative writing workshops in bush. Her work appears in Eucalypt, Kokako, LA and “Writing for Healing” at the UC/San Moonbathing, Simply Haiku and Atlas Poetica. Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center; and is in the revision stage of a memoir, “The Masks Mirjana (Mira) N. Mataric, Ph.D. has 31 of Grief.” published books (bilingually) of poetry, prose and translations. With over 50 years of active Patricia Prime has spent her working life writing and translating, she has received more as an early childhood teacher and now works than twenty international awards. She taught part-time in this ﬁeld. She is co-editor of English, Russian, Special and Continuing Kokako, reviews/interviews editor of Haibun Education. She still teaches Creative writing Today and writes reviews for the NZ journal for adults; organizes, facilitates and participates Takahe and for Atlas Poetica. Several of her in public poetry readings; and is active in the poems and reviews have appeared in the World international book fairs and literary gatherings Poetry Almanac (Mongolia), 2006-2012. An on both continents. interview between herself and fellow poet, Catherine Mair, on their collaborative poetry is Neal Whitman splits his time between the to appear on Lynx and her essay “Poet and Japanese haiku & tanka and what some of his Tanka” is published in the current issue of other poet pals call “regular” poetry. Neal and Ribbons. Currently she is one of the guest his wife Elaine are docents at poet Robinson editors for the World Haiku Anthology, edited by Jeffers Tor House in Carmel, California, and Dr. Bruce Ross. collaborate on haiga: his haiku paired with her photography. Neal’s tanka has appeared in Paul Mercken, Belgian philosopher and several journals including Atlas Poetica. He medievalist (1934), Bunnik near Utrecht, the signs his letters amicus poeticae [friend of Netherlands, former treasurer and/or secretary poetry]. of the Haiku Kring Nederland. Likes participating in international renga by e-mail Nu Quang grew up in a predominantly and is learning Chinese. Just published poems ethnic Chinese society in Cholon, Vietnam, in Dutch, Bunnikse haiku’s & ander dichtspul during the war, she lived under the Communist (Bunnik Haiku’s & Other Poetry Stuff), part his

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 81 own work in a variety of styles and topics, part Dusk, in October of 2009. Ronin Press released translations of classical poetry from French, his second chapbook: topography of a desire, in Italian (including Petrarch), English and May of 2010. He is a three-time nominee for Chinese. the 2010 and 2011 Sundress Best of the Web Anthology and a 2010 Pushcart nominee. He Pravat Kumar Padhy born in Odisha, lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico. India, holds a Masters and a Ph.D in Applied Geology. Work referred in Spectrum History of Susan Diridoni is making trips to the UK Indian Literature in English, Alienation in for some interesting psych classes; getting Contemporary Indian English Poetry etc.. Short practiced in varied accents. Putting together poems appeared in The World Haiku Review, the newsletter for HPNC’s [Haiku Poets of Lynx, Kritya, Notes From the Gean, Ambrosia, Northern California’s] quarterly meetings; Sketchbook, Atlas Poetica, Simply Haiku, Haiku Autumn’s Meeting welcomed John Stevenson Reality, Red Lights, Shamrock, Magnapoets, Bottle Rockets, The Heron’s Nest, Haigaonline, The —long-time haiku poet, editor, actor—from Houston Literary Review, The Hundred Gourds, New York. Harvests of New Millennium, The Red River Review, Cyclamens and Swords, Wordgathering Taro Aizu has been writing Gogyoshi for etc. 10 years and published “いとしい地球よ” (The Lovely Earth) in September 2005, English Richard Cody is a native Californian and a translation January 2011. Mr. Aizu received writer of poetry and ﬁction. His work has First Prize in the The 28th All Japan Modern appeared in many print and virtual Haiku Competition (1991), and “Special Prize” Notes publications. He maintains the blogs in the 2nd Love Poems Competition (1991). From a Life in Progress (fresh haikuish almost Three of his gogyoshi were selected for The Blue Dog Journal daily) and , an open ended inclusion in Catzilla!: Tanka, Kyoka, and narrative about life on the border of California Gogyoshi About Cats (Keibooks, © 2010). and possibility. Tish Davis lives in Dublin, Ohio, USA. Her Robert Davey lives in Norfolk, England work has appeared in numerous journals with his family. He has had a long interest in including Modern Haibun and Tanka Prose, Atlas poetry and has more recently been writing Poetica, Haibun Today, red lights, Modern Haiku, haiku, tanka and haibun, which have been Frogpond, Presence, bottle rockets, Contemporary published in Blithe Spirit, Presence, Frog Pond, Haibun Online, and Simply Haiku. The Heron’s Nest, Ribbons, Gusts and Haibun Today. His website is at . Sanford Goldstein has been publishing tanka for more than forty years. He is co- translator of several collections of Japanese tanka poets.

Sergio Ortiz is a retired educator, poet, painter, and photographer. Flutter Press released his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of

Atlas Poetica • Issue 14 • Page 82 INDEX

Alexander Jankiewicz, 13 Kate Frank, 29 Amelia Fielden, 35, 57 Kath Abela Wilson, 15, 22, 25, 26, 29 Autumn Noelle Hall, 10 Keitha Keyes, 13 Beverly Acuff Momoi, 36 Lisa Tibbs, 47 Bob Lucky, 41 Luminita Suse, 34 Bruce England, 47 M. Kei, 7, 24, 67 Carole Harrison, 20 Marilyn Humbert, 24, 41 Carole Johnston, 40 Marilyn Morgan, 48 Catherine Harnett, 17 Mira N. Mataric, 11, 46 Chen-ou Liu, 47 Neal Whitman, 45 Christina Nguyen, 46 Nu Quang, 21 Claire Everett, 10, 59 Patricia McClelland, 43 Dawn Apanius, 48 Patricia Prime, 32, 53, 56 Dawn Bruce, 49 Paul Mercken, 38 Dushan Vidakovich, 42 Pravat Kumar Padhy, 27 Genie Nakano, 9 Richard Cody, 44 Gerry Jacobson, 14 Robert Davey, 39 Guy Simser, 44 Sanford Goldstein, 12, 30, 50 Jade Pandora, 44 Sergio Ortiz, 52 Janet Lynn Davis, 22, 37 Susan Diridoni, 43 Jenny Ward Angyal, 23, 31, 49 Taro Aizu, 28 Joy McCall, 8, 16, 20, 30 Tish Davis, 16

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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