ATLAS POETICA A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka Number 9 Summer, 2011 ATLAS POETICA A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka Number 9 Summer, 2011 M. Kei, editor Alex von Vaupel, technical director ISSN 1939-6465 Print ISSN 1945-8908 Digital 2011 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 9 - Summer 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Keibooks All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers and scholars who may quote brief passages. See our EDUCATIONAL USE NOTICE at the end of the journal. 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 Print Edition ISSN 1939-6465 Digital Edition ISSN 1945-8908 [PDF & HTML versions] AtlasPoetica.org TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial Blood Sisters, Claire EVerett ...................... 30 The Hospital , T. J. Edge ............................. 30 Dead Romans and Twitter Poetry Retreat , Dru Philippou ............................. 31 M. Kei .................................................... 7 Aoi, Genie Nakano .................................... 31 Trestle , Gary Lebel .................................... 32 Tanka in Sets and Sequences Japan, T. J. Edge ....................................... 32 Picasso, ‘Girl before a Mirror,’ 1932, Lawyer, Anne Benjamin ............................. 9 Mary Mageau ....................................... 33 on the fourth day, Rodney Williams ........... 10 Bookshop, Patricia Prime .......................... 33 for my nephew, M. Kei ................................ 11 Sight Line, Tish DaVis ............................... 34 The Love Affair Continues, Amelia Harbinger, Marilyn Humbert .................... 34 Fielden ............................................... 12 Full Moon, Marjorie Buettner .................... 13 Individual Tanka ...................................... 35 Tolling , Cynthia Rowe .............................. 13 Midwest III : Dark, Terry Ingram ............... 14 Articles The Best Part of New York : A Gogyohka Nisshi, Tim Geaghan ........................... 15 ReView: Snow Crystal * Star-shaped, Dead Beats, Terry Ingram .......................... 16 trilingual tanka by Konno Mari, Patricia Our Universe : A Gogyoshi Sequence Prime .................................................. 52 Taro Aizu ............................................ 17 The Topsy Turvy World of Micropoetry on Chaparral , Cherie Hunter Day ................. 20 Twitter, M. Kei ....................................... 56 Being-in-the-World, Chen-ou Liu ............. 20 Twitter Basics for Poets, Christina Nyugen .57 In the Surgical-Preparation Room , Tanka Tradition & Tanka Prose: An Interview Charles Tarlton ................................... 21 with Jeffrey Woodward, Claire EVerett .. 61 Brothers, Johannes S. H. Bjerg ................. 22 Last Stand Hill, Joanne Morcom ............... 23 Announcements ...................................... 75 Impressions , Autumn Noelle Hall .............. 24 A Sunday in Addis, Bob Lucky ................... 25 Biographies .............................................. 79 Driven , Belinda Broughton ...................... 26 Woodcroft South : Visitation ’57, Educational Use Notice ............................ 6 Geoffrey Winch .................................. 27 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 Poetic a, at [email protected]. We welcome innovative uses of our resources for tanka education. Atlas Poetica Keibooks P O Box 516 Perryville, MD 21903 <http://AtlasPoetica.org> Dead Romans and Twitter Poetry With this issue of Atlas Poetica we normally accept previously published offer an emphasis on prosimetrum, in poetry, we made an exception for this issue other words, tanka prose and its kin, such to draw attention to the work of many fine as gogyohka nisshi. Although haibun is poets rarely if ever seen in the print well known among haiku enthusiasts, media. Poets such as Polona Oblak, tanka prose is not as well known, even Johannes Bjerg, Costis Demos, Carol though it is as old as tanka itself. Indeed, Herzog Johnston, T. J. Edge, and others are the ancient poem-tale is the root of the gracing the pages of ATPO for the first Japanese novel. time. Atlas Poetica has been publishing In order to help poets get started on tanka prose in every issue since it was Twitter, we present an article by Christina founded, but this issue is packed with even Nguyen, ‘Twitter Basics for Poets’, that will more than usual. It accompanies our new explain what Twitter is, why it matters to Special Feature, ‘25 Tanka Prose’ edited by poets, how to get started, and whom to Bob Lucky, viewable for free at our follow. website: <http://AtlasPoetica.org>. We also As part of our commitment to the offer a lengthy and informative interview Japanese five line poetic forms, in the next with Jeffrey Woodward, the well-known issue, ATPO 10 will focus on gogyohka and expert on both haibun and tanka prose, gogyoshi with articles and poetry to conducted by Claire Everett. They discuss explain and illustrate these closely related the roots of tanka prose in the Man’yosh ū forms. and its developments in English today, illustrated with numerous examples. ~K~ In addition to this issue’s emphasis on tanka prose, we also have an emphasis M. Kei on Twitter. It has been two years since our Editor, Atlas Poetica last Twitter focus, and micropoetry, Von Karman Vortices. As air flows over and especially the five line forms, have been around objects in its path, spiraling eddies, known growing by leaps and bounds. Many poets as Von Karman vortices, may form. The vortices in are discovering five line forms such as this image were created when prevailing winds sweeping east across the northern Pacific Ocean tanka, kyoka, and gogyoshi via Twitter, and encountered Alaska's Aleutian Islands. are publishing, workshopping, learning, and networking through that medium. As a Cover Image courtesy of Our Earth As Art by NASA <http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov/ consquence, many fine poems are index.htm>. published in this most ephemeral of media. Although Atlas Poetica does not Atlas Poetica • Issue 9 • Page 7 Lawyer Anne Benjamin The lawyer’s office is in a narrow street operating. Through a doorway to the right, near the Port. I walk along the edge of the I see grey metal racks overflowing with road where bitumen drops down into similar paper stacks. dust. If there is a footpath it is hidden by merchandise overflowing from shops and how carelessly parked vehicles. A motorised rickshaw gets you fold away your files snagged on a parked bicycle. I feel the heat and tie them up of its engine and the close-up stare of its you forget that it is me passengers. For some minutes, nothing can you bind in your red tape move along the street except a scrawny scavenging cat. Finally, the senior advocate is ready to see me. He sits before a wall of posters lean-haunched depicting Hindu gods and goddesses. a tawny cat prowls Pious aphorisms exhort clients to forget across the pavement the evil men do and remember the good. a naked toddler hides My file has been lost when the lawyer’s an empty plastic bottle computer system crashed and the only back-up is a hard copy that he cannot I find the office in a corner up a flight of immediately locate. After