TANKA TAKE HOME: 28th February, 2024 David Rice - poet of the month

hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury

Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!

February 28, 2024

poet of the month: David Rice

Bio note:

David Rice has been writing tanka for about thirty-five years and continues to write a tanka most days.

He was the editor of the Tanka Society of America's journal, Ribbons, from 2012-2019. His poems have appeared in many tanka journals and anthologies, and he has written seven tanka books, including three with other poets (Cheri Hunter Day, Autumn Noelle Hall, and Lynne Leach.) He is donating all the proceeds from his latest book, Sequelae (2023), tanka prose, to the Climate Emergency Fund.

TTH: Do you show your work in progress to anyone, or is it a solitary art that you keep close to your chest before letting it go for publishing?

I always show my work to my wife before sending it out. She is not a writer, but if she says a poem “isn't working,” she is almost always right. For manuscripts, I always show my work to a good friend, who is a poet. Her edits always improve the poems.

1.

the wild daffodils

abundant by the roadside

picked that woman

to put a bouquet

on her dashboard  

from The Grandfather Poems:tanka verse (2016)

2.

Long View/Short View

bay-oak woodland

trying to see

all the shades of green

time slows down

—we're born for this too

So many casualties in our three-hundred-year assault on the earth. Hard to be compassionate about what we've done and are still doing, but one day our planted-sapling peace offerings might shade more than an armistice.

juncos feeding

I veer off the trail

so they won't fly

research shows helping others

helps us, too

The first tanka is light hearted, a joyous reversal, where the daffodils have picked the person to enjoy their beauty. And who is to say that that doesn't happen? Why do we pick this flower and not that? Is it because there is a relationship with plants that we, as humans do not understand as yet? In this, too, I see the theme in David's writing- the interconnectedness of life and the earth. The tanka prose is explicitly about human callousness towards the environment, but with a suggestion, a lesson:

"research shows helping others

helps us, too"

We are deeply grateful to David for sharing his beautiful work and thoughts with us this month. Thank you for visiting and sharing your experience and insight!

Challenge for this week:

Write about an unexpected connection you feel with a nonhuman. Perhaps with a flower? A car? A breeze? Go for it...

Also, in a return to the classical tanka structure, try writing your tanka in the SLSLL format (you do NOT have to do the 5-7-5-7-7, and do stay under 31 syllables!!!)

Important: Since we're swamped with submissions, and our editors are only human, mistakes can happen. Please, please, remember to put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions. It really helps our editors; they won't have to type it in, saving them from potential typos. Thanks a ton!

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And remember – tanka, because of those two extra lines, lends itself most beautifully when revealing a story. And tanka prose is storytelling.

Give these ideas 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 these themes too.

An essay on how to write tanka: Tanka Flights here

PLEASE NOTE

1. Post only one poem at a time, only one per day.

2. Only 2 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 250 words) to be considered for inclusion in the haikuKATHA monthly magazine.

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