TANKA TAKE HOME - 30th 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

30th October

Once again, here are two beautiful tanka for you this week!

how is it

that I have fallen in love

with your loneliness

the moon this wintry midnight

mirrors the color of snow

(The Tanka Calendar, 2nd place, 2005)

remembering

that part of you I carry

deep inside

I see the way the sun

belongs to the summer grass

(Tanka Splendor Award, 2004)

We had the pleasure of asking Marjorie Buettner a few questions, and she graciously took the time to answer them. We thank her for her time and beautiful poetry. It has been a wonderful treat this entire month.

TTH: Can you give any advice to someone wanting to write and publish tanka? As an editor what are you looking for in a tanka that makes it most likely to get published?

Marjorie: Advice to poets: be honest, pay attention, keep a journal, write outside the box. As an editor I look for that spark which sends shivers down my spine.

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?

Marjorie: I write alone but I love to share my poetry when I think it is ready.

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:

I love the perfect comparisons in both the tanka, and Marjorie's beautiful phrases never cease to enchant. We would love to hear your thoughts on them. For this week's challenge, dig deep within and find something in nature that reflects a similar feeling. Your word is MIRROR for reference. I hope you 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.