Ash Moon Anthology

I wrote the blurb for the dustcover of the hard copy edition of Ash Moon Anthology. I'd like to share it with folks because I think Ash Moon is the best anthology yet from Modern English Tanka Press, and at nearly 900 poems and nearly 100 authors, it is the largest tanka anthology published to date. I encourage you all to get your hands on a copy and read it. It is available through Lulu.com/ModernEnglishTanka.

~K




Age. It happens to us all. Advertisements inform us that we can be sexual athletes at ninety, if only we buy the magic cure and follow the exercise guru's advice. Yet the evidence of our own lives is decidedly more human, more problematic, and full of petty perfidies. Age is not simply the prolongation of our youth with the help of a little dye to hide the grey hair but a fundamental process of transformation. We change, and as we change, we are haunted or enlivened by the past we carry with us. Understanding all that we are and have experienced is difficult enough, but communicating it to others is even harder, especially when the gap is dramatic as the one separating today's youth from today's elders. This is the chasm which the poets of Ash Moon cross. Nearly a hundred in number, they are themselves aging or the caregivers and companions of elders. With unblinking honesty they record their age as it is lived—despair and dereliction along side grace and humor—and what emerges is a true portrait of age with all its awkward complexities.

Readers of Ash Moon will find all these poems written in a fitting form, namely, 'tanka,' the eldest of poetic forms. The oldest continuously anthologized poetry in the world (compared to which the venerable sonnet is a mere stripling), tanka poetry has been the vehicle by which poets ancient and modern have given voice to the myriad beauties and burdens of their lives. The result is a series of snapshots without commentary, allowing the readers to directly experience the poets' vision. They will find much that resonates with them, and much to reflect on. The ash moon hangs over all our heads.

M. Kei

M. Kei is the editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka and the author of Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake Bay. He is the editor-in-chief of Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka of 2008.

Take Five : The Best Contemporary Tanka of 2008

PRESS RELEASE

Modern English Tanka Press Announces Take Five : The Best Contemporary Tanka of 2008.

February 12, 2008 - Baltimore, MD

Modern English Tanka Press has announced a new anthology, Take Five : The Best Contemporary Tanka of 2008. This anthology, headed up by editor-in-chief, M. Kei, will review all tanka published in English during 2008 and make selections to showcase the breadth and quality of of English-language tanka poetry. The anthology will be published early in 2009 in both trade paperback and hardcover editions. It is expected to be an annual anthology showcasing each year's best tanka.

The anthology is the brainchild of M. Kei, well-known tanka poet and editor of Atlas Poetica : A Journal of Poetry of Place in Modern English Tanka. No stranger to anthology editing, M. Kei previously edited the ground-breaking and critically acclaimed anthology, Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart in 2006. M. Kei heads up a team of editors, including Prof. Sanford Goldstein, tanka poet and co-translator of Japanese tanka poets for more than forty years; Pamela A. Babusci, an award-winning poet/artist, whose awards include the Museum of Haiku Literature, Yellow Moon, and Kokako competitions; Liam Wilkinson, curator of the 3LIGHTS Online Gallery of Haiku and Tanka and co-editor of Modern Haiga; Patricia Prime, co-editor of Kokako and reviews editor of Stylus (AUS) and Takahe (NZ); and Bob Lucky, poet, writer, and teacher.

Kei explained that the project would be different from existing tanka competitions because it is an anthology with editors, not a contest with judges. "Our goal is to showcase not only the best tanka being written and published in English today, but also to present excellence in anthology-making. We will not be voting on which tanka to include, but nominating tanka which we will discuss and debate amongst ourselves. We will select work that exemplifies both the best individual tanka and the best anthology we can produce, with due respect to the diversity of tanka in English around the world."

Editors and authors who wish to assure that their works published in 2008 are reviewed by the editorial team may submit two copies of the work to:

Attn: Take Five
M. Kei, Editor-in-chief
P O Box 1118
Elkton, MD 21922-1118
Email: take5tanka [at] modernenglishtankapress [dot] com

Readers who wish to draw the board's attention to works they admire are also welcome to submit copies. All copies become the property of the Take Five editorial board and cannot be returned. Please note, parcels which require a signature cannot be received. If you wish to receive an acknowledgment of your submission, please include a self-addressed, stamped postcard with the package. International correspondents should send an IRC in lieu of stamps. Please inquire before making electronic submissions: unexpected attachments will be deleted.

(end)


Please forward to all interested persons.

Sounds from the Unknown

I have been working on a comprehensive article about the history of tanka publishing in English, which has caused me to revisit Sounds from the Unknown edited by Tomoe Tana and Lucille Nixon.

Nixon describes the elements that make up good tanka as:

"The most important requisite for a good poem is that it come from the heart, that the expression must be real and sincere. The image, in other words, the sensory intake, must be clear, but there must be enough space around it so that the reader may delight himself with it by using his own associations."

All the following are the English translations of the Japanese originals. Both are included in the book.

From the high cliff the boat
I see in the middle of the Hudson River
Looks so very small
As it pulls along its own trail
Through the pure blue water.

~Masa Nishi


As my son opened a bundle
Of his luggage
When he returned,
The room was filled
With the odor of soldiering.

~Keigetsu Fukunaga


At the mountain villa
Where my friend's mother
Has just died,
The magnolia fragrances embraced us,
And words were few, very few.

~Junko Iizuka


At Hallowe'en
The baby goblin
Looking so happy,
Whispered from under the mask,
"This is me."

~Totaro Matsui


The sun shone so brightly
Into the Gilroy mountain stream
That the bodies of the fish
Became transparencies
Of yellow intestines.

~Takako Iino


Today at Pearl Harbor,
From the shore line,
At highest tide,
A gossamer mist,
With the deepest stillness.

~Hagino Matsuoka


Going steadily to study English,
Even through the rain at night,
I thus attain,
Late in life,
American citizenship.

~Kiyoko Nieda


The first person's name
My baby spoke again and again
Was that of Donna—
The little colored girl
Who lives across the street.

~Tomoe Tana

Oh, how very cold!
And how bright the frost this morning
On the silent fields,
As the sharp voice of the pheasant
Passes through.

~Tomo Hasaka


I am possessed
By this metropolitan phantom,
And have become as familiar
With New York in twenty years
As with a well beloved elderly wife.

~Kisaburo Konoshima


I, too, add my rock
To the mound of stones
Piled up
By all those who
Have climbed to the top of this peak.

~Shizuko Murakami


How silently
That tower of forty-two towers
Reflects the dawn,
In the harbor
At Seattle!

~Yosei Nomura


Quite early in the day,
Going to their city jobs,
People sit in buses,
And, oh, the beauty of each face
Reflecting early morning sun.

~Fumiko Kiyotoki


Standing
On the wide desert,
Before the silent wind,
My body sank
Into nothingness.

~Fumiko Ogawa


At Redondo Beach
Where Mexican people dwell,
Ugly oil wells rise,
But on washdays,
Oh, the flaming reds
That flutter in the breeze!

~Masanori Toyofuku


Sounds from the Unknown was published in January of 1964 as a trade paperback. Copies of it are readily found at low cost through the various online used booksellers.

~K~