tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269789472024-03-07T04:10:43.591-05:00Kujaku Poetry & Shipstanka and tall ships with M. KeiM. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.comBlogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-59181243037902785882014-06-22T01:20:00.000-04:002014-06-22T01:21:02.874-04:00Old Tanka from 2006Here are some of my old tanka that were originally published in Modern English Tanka 1:1. MET is the journal that altered the orbit of the Planet Tanka.
These are some of my early signature tanka:
the dowager houses
stand primly in their ragged porches
looking embarrassed
as ladies do
in such circumstances
low grey hills
of barges loaded with gravel,
softened almost into beauty
by M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-51713513998587033372013-12-19T17:38:00.001-05:002013-12-19T17:41:13.299-05:00Does Santa Claus Have to Be White?A network that shall go unnamed provoked a furor when a (white) person said it's a historical fact that Jesus and Santa are both white, so get over it. Um, no. It's a historical fact that they've been portrayed as white. Jesus, although technically 'white' due to being Caucasian, was a Semite -- an Arab or Jew. His complexion was therefore most likely swarthy and his hair and eyes dark. He M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-89243331089659631112013-11-23T12:59:00.005-05:002013-11-23T12:59:58.593-05:00Tana's History of Japanese Tanka Poetry in Americahttp://atlaspoetica.org/?page_id=705
I have posted an introduction and the complete master's thesis by Tomoe Tana, one of the most important figures in North American tanka from the 20th century at the Resource section of AtlasPoetica.org. Tana's research covers the publication of tanka in Japanese and English in North and South America during the 20th century. Tana was an award-winning tanka M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-75835779426342766832013-11-17T21:25:00.000-05:002013-11-17T21:25:35.382-05:00Excerpts from Bathhouse by Ishii TatsuhikoThe following tanka are excerpted from Bathhouse by Ishii Tatsuhiko and appear in Partings at Dawn : An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. Translated by Hiroaki Sato.
Martyr's pomegranate like wounds you say and the bar also turns into a catacomb
Looking for father or for whom? Reflected upside down in a glass constellation
The young ones though male paint eyebrows dazzlingly green M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-64399977860518959982013-11-17T21:12:00.002-05:002013-11-17T21:12:57.704-05:00Keibooks Announces circling smoke, scattered bones by Joy McCall, edited by M. Kei
Keibooks Announces circling smoke, scattered bones by Joy McCall
Press Release – For Immediate Release – Please post to all appropriate venues
31 October 2013– Perryville, Maryland, USA
“There is a veil in this world, a mystery. Everyone knows it, or senses it; those who don’t, perhaps, sense it most of all. Maybe more a skeptic than a believer, Joy McCall knows all about spirits M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-58325142224411346042013-09-29T15:55:00.000-04:002013-09-29T19:51:25.804-04:00Keibooks Announces January, A Tanka Diary, by M. Kei
Keibooks Announces January, A Tanka Diary, by M. Kei
Press Release – For Immediate Release – Please post to all appropriate venues
28 September 2013– Perryville, Maryland, USA
"Step inside this book and meet a magician—a man who knows the secrets of the sea and the land and the sky; a man who can catch the vastness of oceans and the smallness of sparrows in the same few words in five A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tankahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14852132210248436980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-7541765310390840562013-08-25T22:27:00.000-04:002013-09-29T15:55:53.559-04:00Still More Twitter Tankathe first cold night
of August,
and the shirring of
crickets mourning
summer
I take
another bite
of the apple,
the gibbous moon
wanes a little
a morning
without sparrows
just the debris
of a long winter
tapping the window
the tips of
the leaves of
the chokecherry tree,
yellow in the
summer rain
it’s another night
spent waiting for
lightning
long M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-84380733074969991762013-08-20T19:53:00.001-04:002013-08-20T19:53:52.209-04:00More Recent Twitter Tankatwo eyes staring
out from the glass coffin
of my skull,
Snow White, I wish I could sleep
as peacefully as you
waking from a nap
to sunshine and
Frank Sinatra singing,
“The Sunny Side
of the Street”
dreams
stuck to the pavement
like melted ice cream
your words
a gathering of flies
M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-90158245872928299802013-08-20T14:14:00.000-04:002013-08-20T14:14:03.449-04:00Recent Twitter TankaI enjoy Twitter. It's so much simpler, but so ephemeral. Here then are some of my recently tweeted tanka. Some of them will appear in my forthcoming collection, January, A Tanka Diary, due out this fall.
I don’t seem
to have anything
profound to say,
limp leaves on the tree are
just another juxtaposition
graveyard of insects
every morning
the heap of the dead
who flung themselvesM. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-73450009672633749712013-07-26T23:48:00.001-04:002013-07-26T23:48:29.299-04:00Man in the Crescent Moon, a Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure, Available in paperback and ebook
Man in the Crescent Moon, a Pirates of the Narrow Seas Adventure, Available in paperback and ebook
26 July 2013 — Perryville, Maryland
Keibooks is pleased to announce that Man in the Crescent Moon, the latest installment in the Pirates of the Narrow Seas series by M. Kei, is now available in trade paperback and e-book. Man in the Crescent Moon opens a new story as we meet Captain Isam M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-5180753284468695962013-06-20T16:52:00.000-04:002013-06-20T16:52:02.108-04:00Fire Pearls 2 is #1 in Hot New Releases in Poetry Anthologies at AmazonThank you all! Fire Pearls 2 is rated #1 Hot New Releases in Poetry Anthologies at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/10250/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_bsnr
Fire Pearls 2 : Short Masterpieces of Love and Passion is a worthy successor to the classic of contemporary tanka poetry. Covering all aspects of love and passion from the delights of first love to the agony of abortion, over 90 poets M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-82115461561772270592013-06-16T05:15:00.002-04:002013-06-16T05:15:32.594-04:002013 Lyrical Passion for Poetry E-ZineI am adjudicating the 2013 World Tanka Contest at Lyrical Passion for Poetry E-Zine. First prize, $150 plus a copy of Fire Pearls 1. Second prize, $75 and a copy of Catzilla. Third prize, $50. Entry fee, $2 per tanka, or $5 for a set of 8. For guidelines and more information: http://lyricalpassionpoetry.yolasite.com/2013-world-tanka-competition.php
M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-63683626517116687482013-03-30T15:29:00.000-04:002013-03-30T15:29:22.326-04:00Ship's Cats of the Kalmar Nyckel.
I learned today that Timmynocky, the cover cat for Catzilla, died over the winter. I wondered why I didn't see him at the ship, but since he was a rover who was often gone on shore leave, I wasn't too surprised not to see him.
Meanwhile, Toolbox, the senior ship's cat, has retired. Toolbox is so named because she was born in a toolbox when the ship was under construction in 1997. She is M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-60091354639549381162013-01-01T12:42:00.001-05:002013-01-01T12:48:21.804-05:00More Twitter Tanka and Tall ShipsAhab had
his white whale,
but I,
I go chasing
after white sails
Cape Cod Bay—
just one schooner
on her way
to the races
and a looming hurricane
Hellsgate—
deceptively quiet
at midnight
and slack tide
as we ghost through
the sea
like rippled silk,
a blue
no dyer
will ever match
spray flying
and clouds gathering
ah well
it’s a problem
for M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-48701671394891705302013-01-01T12:39:00.006-05:002013-01-01T12:42:26.502-05:00Twitter TankaIt has been a long time since I have posted poetry or much of anything to my blog, so I thought I would catch up by posting some poems that have previously appeared only on Twitter.
a freighter at anchor
her bow turned to face
the onslaught;
sky and sea
and storm and wave
the tall ship’s captain
in a pirate bikini
a rhinestone
skull and crossed bones
over her left M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-44054932518656393302012-06-01T10:03:00.000-04:002012-06-01T10:03:29.942-04:00Margaret Dornaus reviews Take Five, V4Margaret Dornaus has reviewed Take Five, V4, on her blog, haikudoodle.
Excerpt:
Many of the tanka here, as Kei points out in the anthology’s introduction, express “sadness, loss and lament . . . . ” Last year–the year that the selected contributors’ poems were first published in numerous online and print journals–was marked by one of the worst natural (and nuclear) disasters mankind has M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-81814626652229673142012-05-28T09:51:00.000-04:002012-05-28T09:51:03.172-04:00Tanka in English at GoodreadsI have finished adding a number of tanka books to Goodreads and updating the covers and other details of listings that existed. You can view the list of Tanka in English at: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5279.Tanka_Poetry_in_English
You can add your own favorite Tanka books in English (note there's a separate list for translations from the Japanese), and vote for your favorites.M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-41027978249644482632012-05-05T21:50:00.002-04:002012-05-06T19:06:36.388-04:00Christina's Worldhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/arts/design/17deba.html
I first encountered Andrew Wyeth's work as a teenager and had never heard of the man, never heard of Christina's World, and knew absolutely nothing about him. I continued to know absolutely nothing about him until about 2003, when I attended the Brandywine Museum as part of an art class and came face to face with his work. After that, I M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-12310341624742313772012-04-23T18:06:00.003-04:002012-04-23T18:40:17.121-04:00Our STory GLBTQ Historical Fiction email list launchesOur Story: GLBTQ Historical Fiction is part of the GLBT Bookshelf, a wiki where GLBTQ authors, publishers and artists can share their work, and where those who love to read GLBTQ historical novels can find information and reviews and leave their observations. Learn more about Our Story at .
To make this easy for you to follow and keep up with, subscribe to this group to hear about the latest M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-41537868798442980902012-03-08T21:12:00.003-05:002012-03-08T21:14:18.243-05:00Pirate, Caesar, and a Mouse Named TomYears ago I had a feline companion named Pirate. He was a stray I took in. He was an excellent hunter who would mouse on command. Very intelligent cat; understand English, sometimes complied with instructions like, "Get your tail out of the way" and, "Go to the foot of the bed" when I didn't want him sleeping wrapped around my face. I named him 'Pirate' when the first night he lived with me he M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-11615630903490023842012-03-04T14:02:00.000-05:002015-03-21T16:06:25.553-04:00A Few Remarks on Tanka, Gogyoyhka, Gogyoshi, and 5LinesFor the last two years, interest in gogyohka and gogyoshi has been increasing among tanka poets and writers of micropoetry. I've attempt to measure this interest with Topsy.com, but failed.
#Gogyohka on Twitter, with 15,000 uses, exceeds #tanka with 13,000 uses. #Gogyoshi is hardly used, with just 19 uses, according to Topsy.com. Strangely, these figures are way down from last year when I did M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-89379576231713347072012-02-23T23:01:00.000-05:002012-02-23T23:02:24.657-05:00Our Story at GLBT BookshelfOur Story, a review feature for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer historical fiction has just been launched at the GLBT Bookshelf. Nan Hawthorne, an experienced book reviewer, is running the feature, and I am contributing supporting bits. As you know, I am interested in historical fiction (especially nautical), with gay characters, so I'm delighted the GLBT Bookshelf is willing hostM. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-55626216294007412342012-02-07T23:51:00.000-05:002012-02-07T23:51:02.089-05:00Gay Marriage and MiscegenationLoving vs. Virginia, 1967.
I and more than two hundred years of my family became unequivocally legal in 1967. That was the year that the United States Supreme Court struck down Virginia's 1924 anti-miscengenation law. The couple that challenged it with the interracial couple of Mildren and Richard Loving. When they married in Washington, DC, then returned to Virginia, they were arrested, and M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-9042104320703768612012-01-28T10:12:00.002-05:002012-01-28T10:15:24.834-05:00Google search now uselessWow. Google search just destroyed itself. I'd been reading about the new 'personalization', wondering what it would mean to me -- it means Google search is now completely useless. I just did one of my usual searches and it returned eight hits. 8! Six of which are pages I posted myself. Yeah, when I'm 'searching' for info, I just want to talk to myself and not learn from anybody else.I switched M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05737409897885399643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26978947.post-74319869757751231302012-01-02T09:59:00.000-05:002012-01-02T09:59:26.157-05:00Five Levels of the WatershedVery excited to be part of this! Composer Erik Spangler contacted me in 2010 because he was searching for poetry of the Chesapeake Bay to be part of his new composition. It has come to fruition. It's an orchestral sound poem that includes music, environmental sounds, and tanka poetry. You can also listen to it free online at: http://soundcloud.com/dubble8/five-levels-of-the-watershed-1
You can M. Keihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02732533797439904583noreply@blogger.com0