TANKA TAKE HOME - 2nd October 2024 | Marjorie Buettner

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

Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!

poet of the month: Marjorie Buettner

2nd October

Here are two beautiful tanka for you this week.

this morning mist

rises up to meet the dawn

like a priestess robed

in liquid-light blessing

everything it settles on

a fabric of light

floats across the page

as I write

for the briefest of moments

I am seventeen again

(Ribbons, 2005)

We had the pleasure of asking Marjorie Buettner a few questions, and she graciously took the time to answer them.

TTH: Do you come from a literary background? What writers did you enjoy reading as a child? Did you write as a child?

Marjorie: Yes, I come from a literary background in that my aunt who lived with us had a huge library and she would let me read anything I wanted. I enjoyed science fiction as a child and, of course, poetry and Victorian literature. I wrote short stories and poems as a child.

More about Marjorie:

Marjorie Buettner, American Pushcart Prize–nominated, award-winning haiku, haibun, tanka, and sijo poet. Her work has been published throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. and won prizes in the James W. Hackett International Award for Haiku (2000 and 2003) the Harold G. Henderson Awards (2002, 2004, 2007, and 2011), the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Award (2003, 2004, 2005), the Robert Frost Poetry Festival (2008 and 2009), and the Kusamakura Haiku Competition (2006), among others. She has taught haiku and tanka at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and presented poetry workshops throughout Minnesota. She is a former editor for the online journal Contemporary Haibun Online and frequently writes book reviews for haiku and tanka journals. Seeing It Now, a collection of haiku and tanka, appeared in 2008; her collection of haibun, Some Measure of Existence (2014), won first place in the Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Awards and was also nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards. Buettner lives in Chisago City, Minnesota.

Are you inspired?

Challenge for this week:

Majorie has painted a surreal world with exquisite phrasing. Both tanka hold their own and work in tandem as well. We would love to hear your thoughts. Your word for the week is LIGHT. Interpret it as you like. Mostly, have fun!

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 this theme too.

An essay on how to write tanka: Tanka Flights

PLEASE NOTE 1. Post only one poem at a time.

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.