TANKA TAKE HOME – 26 March, 2025 | poet of the month – Madhuri Pillai
- Priti Aisola
- Mar 26
- 2 min read
hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury
Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!
poet of the month: Madhuri Pillai
wetlands ...
two pacific black ducks
glide past the reeds
away from the madding crowd
the world as it should be
(Catchment - Poetry of Place Edition 1)
nodding off
to the rhythm of the train
swaying
giving into whatever
this journey holds
(red lights) Jan 2017
OM
the primordial hum
of the earth ...
fusing the past
to the present to the future
(Blithe Spirit, Vol 29,No.4 )
mesmerized
by the sway of conifers
I watch
through parted curtains
the day's trajectory
(the art of tanka, issue 3, fall/ winter 2024)
Madhuri Pillai bio:
Madhuri Pillai was born in India, but she has lived in Australia for a major portion of her life.
She is an English (Hons.) graduate and a journalist by profession.
Reading and writing have always been her passion, and she is also an animal activist.
Madhuri lives in Melbourne with her family which includes Rosie, her fur baby.
Prompt for this week:
On a train, 'nodding off to its rhythm', soporific and lulling, the poet allows herself to witness and receive whatever experience the journey brings with it. And, sitting by her window, she surrenders herself to whatever nature has to offer in terms of sights and sounds.
The train is often seen as a metaphor for life – a journey with different stops or rites of passage, a movement towards a destination or not; of staying on track or going off-track; of experiences with familiar fellow passengers or strangers; of going along with the varying rhythms of life, of hopping off at an unplanned station/stop to feel a sense of adventure, and so on.
As you read and re-read and enjoy Madhuri Pillai’s lovely tanka, write poems on any theme of your choice. Or, write about journeys, more specifically about trains or a train journey. Or, write about a moment when you were ‘mesmerized’ by something.
Give this idea some thought and share your tanka and tanka-prose with us here. Keep your senses open, observe things that happen around you and write.You can post tanka and tanka-prose outside this theme too.
PLEASE NOTE:
1. Post only one poem at a time.
2. Only two tanka and two tanka-prose per poet per prompt.
Tanka art of course if you want to.
3. Share your best-polished pieces.
4. Please do not post something in a hurry or something you have just written. Let it
simmer for a while.
5. Post your final edited version on top of your original verse.
6. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.
We are delighted to open the comment thread for you to share your unpublished tanka and tanka-prose (within 300 words) to be considered for inclusion in haikuKATHA monthly magazine.
#1
rising
with the blackbird
mother’s voice
a few octaves higher
her second call to us
Robert Kingston UK
tunnel’s end
the first rain of the season
thrums its gentle beats
i hum a melody to the
rhythm of the tracks
01/04/25 Tanka 1
Theme: Train Journey
night train
to an ashram
at Rishikesh
dark windows will soon
filter in the dawn —
Rupa Anand, New Delhi, India
Feedback is welcome
#2, 1/4/25
those station stops when dad
would get down for tea and snacks,
the whistle would blow
and the train start moving...
oh my beating heart
Baisali Chatterjee Dutt, Kolkata
Feedback always welcome
1/4/25 #2 tanka prose
Warmed Through
The first soft afternoon, and already the park is full—a young mother with a pushchair, an older man walking his cocker spaniel. I sit with a tub of brown bread ice cream from the farm shop, the taste both unfamiliar and oddly close. It recalls school packed lunches, and something older, almost ancestral: buttered crumbs after a funeral. Not sweet, not savoury. Spring leans in. Bark, bench, and bone loosen in the light.
on the sill
a pear left to soften
in sunlight
the house still smells
of yesterday’s toast
C.X. Turner, UK
(feedback welcome)