Thank 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 featured in 750 poems present every aspect of the human heart from the romantic to the desperate. Edited and with an introduction by the well-known poet and editor, M. Kei, Fire Pearls 2 is an essential acquisition for lovers of fine literature.
Print for sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Pearls-Short-Masterpieces-Passion/dp/1489595023/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371759885&sr=1-7&keywords=M.+Kei
Kindle for Sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DHM0PUS
Showing posts with label tanka anthology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tanka anthology. Show all posts
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Monday, January 25, 2010
Catzilla! Cat Tanka Call for Submissions
Call for Submissions
Catzilla!
Cat Tanka & Kyoka
Catzilla! Cat Tanka & Kyoka is an anthology on the theme of cats edited by M. Kei. It will be published in the fall of 2010. The anthology will feature tanka, waka, kyoka, tanka sequences, tanka prose, tanka acrostics, shaped tanka, extended tanka, and any other creative use of tanka, waka, and kyoka in homage and affection to the felines we have known.
READING PERIOD: April 1, 2010 - June 30, 2010.
SUBMISSION ADDRESS: Keibooks (at) gmail (dot) com
Please do not subscribe this email address to any list, forwards, invitations, or any other item.
TOPIC: They say a genre of poetry has arrived when it produces its first anthology of cat poems. While most cat poems have been long on cute and short on depth, Catzilla! (in spite of its humorous title) seeks works that have significant literary value as well as feline appeal. Cats have been objects of worship or fearful demons, lifelong companions or feral strays skirting the edge of human life for thousands of years. They endlessly fascinate, amuse, and frustrate their human friends (and enemies!), so it is only right that they should have a tanka anthology to call their own.
POETS: Poets are invited to submit up to thirty tanka, kyoka, or waka for consideration for Catzilla! Both new and previously published works are acceptable. Previously published works must show credits including title of the book or journal or other source, city and name of publisher, and the date. Appearing in Catzilla! must not violate any other previously existing rights and the poet’s submission will be taken as certification that they are the holder of the copyright or the lawful representative of the copyright holder.
No simultaneous submissions.
FORM: We are seeking tanka and tanka-variations, loosely defined. Tanka, kyoka and waka are short poems composed of five poetic phrases. Classic Japanese tanka were written in a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, but English-language tanka are less regular. We will accept any variation of tanka, waka, and kyoka. Each five line poem MUST stand on its own merits. When submitting longer works such as sequences or shaped tanka, each tanka must be autonomous; it must make a coherent statement on its own. We prefer untitled poems. Brief footnotes are acceptable when necessary to translate an unfamiliar term or concept.
INTERNATIONAL: We welcome international submissions that include English translations. Correspondence for the anthology will be in English, although we can read Spanish and French and some other languages for queries.
PAYMENT: We regret that the only payment for inclusion in this anthology is publication.
RIGHTS: We require digital and print world anthology rights. This gives us the right to publish a book and an electronic version of the book. It also grants us the right to use the accepted poems as part of promotional materials for the anthology. All other rights remain with the author.
EXCLUSIONARY CLAUSE: In the event of previously unpublished works, we acquire the right of first publication and the author agrees to not submit the works for consideration elsewhere or to publish the works until 90 days after Catzilla appears. After 90 days the author is free to submit or publish wherever they wish, provided subsequent publications credit Catzilla!
MANUSCRIPTS: We prefer to receive email submissions. Please use a large, plain font. NO ATTACHMENTS. All email submissions must be sent as plain text in the body of the email. Please set your spam filters/permission levels to allow our response. If we cannot contact you, your poems will automatically be rejected!
ANNOUNCEMENTS: We strongly recommend joining Keibooks-Announce (at) googlegroups (dot) com to receive updates about the project. This is an announcement-only list that generates no more than 0-4 emails per month.
CONTACT INFO: All submissions must include legal name, pen name (if any), postal address, telephone number and email address. Translators and agents must include a statement indicating that they are authorized to act on behalf of the author(s). In the event of multi-author submissions, the contacting author must include a statement that they are authorized to act on behalf of the other participating author(s). It will be the responsibility of the contacting party to keep the author(s) s/he represents up to date on relevant details of the submission and anthology.
AGE: All contributors must be sixteen years of age or older to comply with privacy laws in the United States.
BIOGRAPHY: No author biographies will be included. Authors should include their country of origin when submitting; this material may be included or omitted at the publishers' sole discretion.
RESPONSE TIME: Rejections will generally be within four weeks. Acceptances may take longer.
PURCHASE: Catzilla! will be available through Lulu.com and major online booksellers. It will be printed in the United States of America. Due to circumstances beyond our control, international buyers may receive better service through Amazon.com or other major online bookstores. Catzilla! will be available as an e-book as well as trade paperback.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Reviewed
The reviews and commentary for Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka are beginning. You can read the review by Johnye Strickland at Simply Haiku at: http://SimplyHaiku.com, in the Summer, 2009, issue.
An Xiao, one of the poets whose work was selected for the anthology has posted her own comments at: http://thatwaszen.blogspot.com/2009/04/take-five-best-contemporary-tanka.html
An extremely short blurb/review at Lilliput Review (of course it would be short, that's LR's raison d'etre!): http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2009/04/take-five-best-contemporary-tanka-2008.html
To keep abreast of developments with Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, please suscribe to Keibooks-Announce, at: http://groups.google.com/group/Keibooks-Announce/topics
If you are aware of any other reviews, blurbs, or comments on Take Five, please let me know!
~K~
An Xiao, one of the poets whose work was selected for the anthology has posted her own comments at: http://thatwaszen.blogspot.com/2009/04/take-five-best-contemporary-tanka.html
An extremely short blurb/review at Lilliput Review (of course it would be short, that's LR's raison d'etre!): http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2009/04/take-five-best-contemporary-tanka-2008.html
To keep abreast of developments with Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, please suscribe to Keibooks-Announce, at: http://groups.google.com/group/Keibooks-Announce/topics
If you are aware of any other reviews, blurbs, or comments on Take Five, please let me know!
~K~
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Streetlights : Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka
Streetlights is a major new anthology by Modern English Tanka Press. Two years in the works, it is now in print. It features hundreds of poems by dozens of authors. Below are a few of my poems that have been accepted.
Streetlights is different from the usual tanka anthology in that it focusses on urban/suburban life, and includes kyoka as well as tanka.
the sweep of
the revolving door
brushes souls
in and out
spinning into nothingness
like pigeons
around your feet,
I too peck at
what you have dropped
and forgotten
they come
selling God, magazines,
and cable tv,
these well-dressed strangers
on my doorstep
the snowplow driver
with a little spot of rum
to keep him warm
as he buries parked cars
in the middle of the night
there’s a genie
in every bottle of
José Cuervo
who makes men witty
and women beautiful
my daughter
searches for an apartment
she can afford
where nobody
has been shot
riding the bus
after the fireworks display,
I eavesdrop on macho men
talking about movies
that make them cry
a vacant lot
full of weeds and
mourning doves . . .
today my heart
is just like that
a bit of green
in a sidewalk crack—
perhaps
i have already
been reincarnated
in retrospect,
it would have been wiser
if we had skipped the sex
and gone straight
to the tearful breakup
bitten to death
by a single flea!
that’s how
this new job
makes me feel
piñatas
hanging in the air
waiting for a sharp whack
to break them open
and spill their meaning
Streetlights is different from the usual tanka anthology in that it focusses on urban/suburban life, and includes kyoka as well as tanka.
the sweep of
the revolving door
brushes souls
in and out
spinning into nothingness
like pigeons
around your feet,
I too peck at
what you have dropped
and forgotten
they come
selling God, magazines,
and cable tv,
these well-dressed strangers
on my doorstep
the snowplow driver
with a little spot of rum
to keep him warm
as he buries parked cars
in the middle of the night
there’s a genie
in every bottle of
José Cuervo
who makes men witty
and women beautiful
my daughter
searches for an apartment
she can afford
where nobody
has been shot
riding the bus
after the fireworks display,
I eavesdrop on macho men
talking about movies
that make them cry
a vacant lot
full of weeds and
mourning doves . . .
today my heart
is just like that
a bit of green
in a sidewalk crack—
perhaps
i have already
been reincarnated
in retrospect,
it would have been wiser
if we had skipped the sex
and gone straight
to the tearful breakup
bitten to death
by a single flea!
that’s how
this new job
makes me feel
piñatas
hanging in the air
waiting for a sharp whack
to break them open
and spill their meaning
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press
TANKA NEWS & HAIKU HEADLINES published a new entry entitled "Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press" on 4/9/2009 3:07:30 PM, written by DMG.
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press
DATE: April 7, 2009 PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka is edited by M. Kei, Sanford Goldstein, Pamela A. Babusci, Patricia Prime, Bob Lucky, Kala Ramesh. This editorial team set out to read the entire field of tanka publication for a single year, regardless of source, without any dogma regarding definition, form or content. Over the course of fourteen months, they read over fourteen thousand poems. The results are gathered in one of the best new poetry anthologies.
Baltimore, Maryland – April 7, 2009 – Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, edited by M. Kei, Sanford Goldstein, Pamela A. Babusci, Patricia Prime, Bob Lucky, Kala Ramesh, has been published in trade paperback by Modern English Tanka Press. Original cover art by Pamela A. Babusci.
Tanka, the ancient Japanese poetic form, has been am important source for modernists for more than a hundred years, but never relegated itself to the position of dusty relic. It is alive and vital and producing some of the most eloquent and insightful poetry published in English today. Anthologies, contests, journals, and web sites publish thousands upon thousands of tanka poems every year—but which ones are the most rewarding for the readers?
The editorial team of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka set out to read the entire field of tanka publication for a single year, regardless of source, without any dogma regarding definition, form or content. Over the course of fourteen months, they read over fourteen thousand poems. The results are gathered in one of the best new poetry anthologies. Famous names and unknown poets from around the world appear side by side in 321 single poems and several tanka sequences and tanka prose pieces. A List of Venues consulted and complete publishing credits are included, along with an introduction that covers the history of tanka and the project itself.
The poets included are: Hortensia Anderson, Susan Antolin, Aurora Antonovic, An’ya, Harue Aoki, Megan Arkenberg, Pamela A. Babusci, Dave Bacharach, Marty Baird, Jon Baldwin, Collin Barber, John Barlow, Frederick Bassett, Roberta Beary, Janick Belleau, Cathy Drinkwater Better, Randy Brooks, Marjorie Buettner, Owen Bullock, David Caruso, James Chessing, Bell Gale Chevigny, Margaret Chula, Tom Clausen, ªerban Codrin, Norman Darlington, Janet Lynn Davis, Cherie Hunter Day, Andrew Detheridge, Melissa Dixon, Jim Doss, Curtis Dunlap, Jeanne Emrich, Margarita Engle, Michael Evans, Amelia Fielden, Trish Fong, Sylvia Forges-Ryan, Stanford M. Forrester, Bernard Gadd, Linda Galloway, Denis M. Garrison, Beverley George, Sanford Goldstein, Tom Gomes, M. L. Grace, Andrea Grillo, David Gross, William Hart, M. L. Harvey, C. W. Hawes, Peggy Heinrich, Lorne Henry, William J. Higginson, Ruth Holzer, Elizabeth Howard, Roger Jones, Jim Kacian, Kirsty Karkow, M. Kei, Susan Lee Kerr, Michael Ketchek, Larry Kimmel, Mariko Kitakubo, Kathy Kituai, Deborah P. Kolodji, Robert Kusch, Lynne Leach, Gary LeBel, Angela Leuck, Darrel Lindsey, Bob Lucky, Jeanne Lupton, Carole MacRury, Laura Maffei, Mary Mageau, A. A. Marcoff, Thelma Mariano, Francis Masat, Karen McClintock, Michael McClintock, Tyrone McDonald, Jo McInerney, Dorothy McLaughlin, Paul Mercken, Annette Mineo, Vasile Moldovan, Mike Montreuil, Jim Moore, June Moreau, Joan Murphy, H. Gene Murtha, Peter Newton, Linda Papanicolaou, Patrick M. Pilarski, Jack Prewitt, Patricia Prime, Carol Purington, John Quinnett, Claudia Coutu Radmore, David Rice, Andrew Riutta, Barbara Robidoux, James Rohrer, Alexis Rotella, Miriam Sagan, Fujiko Sato, Grant D. Savage, Philip Schofield, Billy Simms, Guy Simser, Paul Smith, John Soules, Art Stein, John Stevenson, Richard Stevenson, Maria Steyn, John Stone, André Surridge, George Swede, Noriko Tanaka, Frans Terryn, Carolyn Thomas, Marc Thompson, Tony A. Thompson, Michael Thorley, Julie Thorndyke, Kozue Uzawa, Geert Verbeke, Ella Wagemakers, Linda Jeannette Ward, Michael Dylan Welch, Liam Wilkinson, Robert D. Wilson, Jeffrey Woodward, An Xiao, Peter Yovu, and Aya Yuhki.
"Take Five is like Dave Brubeck’s famous long jazz piece of the same name: both simple and complex, with varied rhythms that can make fingers snap and hips sway. Beguiling for the beginner and expert alike." — George Swede
"It seems that with every turn—whether it be picking up the latest tanka journal, navigating your way to tanka sites across the web or checking out a new entry from one of the ever-growing number of tanka bloggers—that these small but perfectly formed poems continue to offer us some of the most breathtaking moments in contemporary poetry. It’s nothing short of spellbinding to behold a new tanka, its five-lines engraved in the granite of an ancient form of literature but with all the freshness of a green leaf showing. Today, writers are leaving their tanka ajar—in these brief moments of poetry, anything is possible and everything is welcome—and, as a result, tanka is able to thrive across the globe. As writers of tanka embrace the modern world, the modern world embraces tanka.
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka succeeds in providing a comprehensive illustration of the state of modern tanka. Here we have a veritable feast of the finest individual tanka, tanka sequences and tanka prose published over the last year, handpicked from every nook and cranny by an editorial board that consists of some of the most highly respected figures in the field. Take Five is, at once, a satisfying digest of quality tanka and an indispensable tanka handbook for new and experienced writers of the form. With an extensive and absorbing introduction from the chief editor of the anthology, M. Kei, the book is not only a literary treat but an essential addition to the poetry shelf of reader and writer alike." —Liam Wilkinson, Editor, 3 Lights Gallery
"Powerful short stories written in five lines—that’s what Take Five is all about. This anthology is not just your tanka wallpaper variety; nearly every piece is a jumpstart for the heart that tells the truth about that four-letter word called ‘Life.’ M. Kei and his team of editors are to be commended—when I was done reading Take Five, for a moment, I didn’t know if I was a woman, a monk or a pelican." —Alexis Rotella, Ed., Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu and Kyoka
About Editors:
M. Kei crews aboard a skipjack, a traditional wooden sailboat used to dredge for oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, the last vessel in North America to fish commercially under sail. Sadly, it is not a profitable way to make a living anymore. The vessel serves as a museum on the water and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Kei has published over 1100 tanka and 300 other short poems during the last few years. His first book was the anthology Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart (2006), which he edited. An instant classic, it was followed by Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake (2007) and Slow Motion: The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (2008), the log he kept in poetic form while making extended cruises aboard a skipjack. He is editor-in-chief of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka.
Sanford Goldstein writes: "As for my own work, I have been a tanka poet for about fifty years. I am called a co-translator of six collections of famous Japanese tanka poets. Even with years of study of Japanese, I could do nothing alone. Two books took five years each, though it was still enjoyable to do the translations. I know what it means to be rejected quite often these 65 years as a writer. So I join in sympathy with those whose tanka have not appeared in our edition."
Pamela A. Babusci is an award winning poet and artist. Some of her awards include: Museum of Haiku Literature Award, Tanka Splendor Awards, First Place Yellow Moon Tanka Competition, First Place Kokako Tanka Competition, Basho Festival Haiku Contest, and HM Suruga Baika Literary Festival. Pamela has illustrated several books, including: Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor Awards, Taboo Haiku, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka and the forthcoming haiku chapbook, Chasing The Sun. She was the logo artist for Haiku North America in NYC in 2003 and Haiku North America in Winston-Salem, NC in 2007. She says poetry & art have been an integral part of her existence since her early teenage years & will continue to be a driving force until she meets her creator.
Patricia Prime retired from teaching pre-school a couple of years ago, but is still involved in relief teaching and working with children at her local school with English as a second language. She is the co-editor of the NZ haiku magazine Kokako, reviews editor of Takahe and Stylus, and assistant editor of Haibun Today. Patricia’s tanka has been published in Modern English Tanka, Atlas Poetica, Eucalypt, Ribbons, moonset, Gusts, 3 Lights Gallery, Kokako, Time Haiku, Presence and Blithe Spirit. Her haiku have been published in several magazines and her haibun have been published in Contemporary Haibun Online and Haibun Today. She has been published, with three other poets, in the haibun collaboration Quartet and is currently working on a tanka prose collaboration with three other poets. Patricia also writes articles, mainstream poetry, annually judges a formal poetry contest, is one of the nominees for the tanka for Gusts, and is on the panel of judges for the Presence Seashell Game.
Bob Lucky holds degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of Washington. He is currently in the online MFA program through the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in various international journals. He has spent stretches of his adult life living and working throughout Asia. Currently, he lives with his wife and son in Hangzhou, China, where he teaches history and makes noise on an assortment of ukuleles.
Kala Ramesh is a musician and haiku poet. Her work, consisting of more than 200 haiku, tanka, senryu, haibun, renku and one-line haiku, have appeared in leading e-zines and anthologies. _kala heads the World Haiku Club in India. As director, she organised the World Haiku Club Meet in Pune in 2006. The four-day 9th World Haiku Festival she organized at Bangalore in February 2008 was sponsored jointly by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji and Sri Ratan Tata Trust. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The World Haiku Review, also she is an in-house editor of poetry in Katha, a leading publishing house in India. _kala is an exponent of both Carnatic and Hindustani Classical Music styles. She has performed professionally in major cities in India.
For media inquiries or to arrange an interview with the author, contact editor-in-chief M. Kei by e-mail at firepearls@verizon.net Publisher information at: www.modernenglishtankapress.com
This book is available from www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka and from the publisher. Complete information and mail/email order forms are available online at www.modernenglishtankapress.com Price: $16.95 USD. ISBN 978-1-935398-08-0. Trade paperback. 240 pages, 6.00" x 9.00", perfect binding, 60# cream interior paper, black and white interior ink, 100# exterior paper, full-color exterior ink.
About Modern English Tanka Press:
Modern English Tanka Press (MET Press) is an independent publishing house in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to producing books and periodicals of lasting literary value, especially poetry. A family business, we treat our customers and partners in publishing like family. We use modern print-on-demand production and distribution methods. Our special mission is to promote the tanka form of poetry and to educate newcomers about this most ancient poetic form.
Contact:
Denis M. Garrison, owner
Modern English Tanka Press
443-802-1249
Email to dmg@themetpress.com
www.themetpress.com www.modernenglishtankapress.com
###
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Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press
DATE: April 7, 2009 PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, 2008 Anthology, Published by Modern English Tanka Press
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka is edited by M. Kei, Sanford Goldstein, Pamela A. Babusci, Patricia Prime, Bob Lucky, Kala Ramesh. This editorial team set out to read the entire field of tanka publication for a single year, regardless of source, without any dogma regarding definition, form or content. Over the course of fourteen months, they read over fourteen thousand poems. The results are gathered in one of the best new poetry anthologies.
Baltimore, Maryland – April 7, 2009 – Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, edited by M. Kei, Sanford Goldstein, Pamela A. Babusci, Patricia Prime, Bob Lucky, Kala Ramesh, has been published in trade paperback by Modern English Tanka Press. Original cover art by Pamela A. Babusci.
Tanka, the ancient Japanese poetic form, has been am important source for modernists for more than a hundred years, but never relegated itself to the position of dusty relic. It is alive and vital and producing some of the most eloquent and insightful poetry published in English today. Anthologies, contests, journals, and web sites publish thousands upon thousands of tanka poems every year—but which ones are the most rewarding for the readers?
The editorial team of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka set out to read the entire field of tanka publication for a single year, regardless of source, without any dogma regarding definition, form or content. Over the course of fourteen months, they read over fourteen thousand poems. The results are gathered in one of the best new poetry anthologies. Famous names and unknown poets from around the world appear side by side in 321 single poems and several tanka sequences and tanka prose pieces. A List of Venues consulted and complete publishing credits are included, along with an introduction that covers the history of tanka and the project itself.
The poets included are: Hortensia Anderson, Susan Antolin, Aurora Antonovic, An’ya, Harue Aoki, Megan Arkenberg, Pamela A. Babusci, Dave Bacharach, Marty Baird, Jon Baldwin, Collin Barber, John Barlow, Frederick Bassett, Roberta Beary, Janick Belleau, Cathy Drinkwater Better, Randy Brooks, Marjorie Buettner, Owen Bullock, David Caruso, James Chessing, Bell Gale Chevigny, Margaret Chula, Tom Clausen, ªerban Codrin, Norman Darlington, Janet Lynn Davis, Cherie Hunter Day, Andrew Detheridge, Melissa Dixon, Jim Doss, Curtis Dunlap, Jeanne Emrich, Margarita Engle, Michael Evans, Amelia Fielden, Trish Fong, Sylvia Forges-Ryan, Stanford M. Forrester, Bernard Gadd, Linda Galloway, Denis M. Garrison, Beverley George, Sanford Goldstein, Tom Gomes, M. L. Grace, Andrea Grillo, David Gross, William Hart, M. L. Harvey, C. W. Hawes, Peggy Heinrich, Lorne Henry, William J. Higginson, Ruth Holzer, Elizabeth Howard, Roger Jones, Jim Kacian, Kirsty Karkow, M. Kei, Susan Lee Kerr, Michael Ketchek, Larry Kimmel, Mariko Kitakubo, Kathy Kituai, Deborah P. Kolodji, Robert Kusch, Lynne Leach, Gary LeBel, Angela Leuck, Darrel Lindsey, Bob Lucky, Jeanne Lupton, Carole MacRury, Laura Maffei, Mary Mageau, A. A. Marcoff, Thelma Mariano, Francis Masat, Karen McClintock, Michael McClintock, Tyrone McDonald, Jo McInerney, Dorothy McLaughlin, Paul Mercken, Annette Mineo, Vasile Moldovan, Mike Montreuil, Jim Moore, June Moreau, Joan Murphy, H. Gene Murtha, Peter Newton, Linda Papanicolaou, Patrick M. Pilarski, Jack Prewitt, Patricia Prime, Carol Purington, John Quinnett, Claudia Coutu Radmore, David Rice, Andrew Riutta, Barbara Robidoux, James Rohrer, Alexis Rotella, Miriam Sagan, Fujiko Sato, Grant D. Savage, Philip Schofield, Billy Simms, Guy Simser, Paul Smith, John Soules, Art Stein, John Stevenson, Richard Stevenson, Maria Steyn, John Stone, André Surridge, George Swede, Noriko Tanaka, Frans Terryn, Carolyn Thomas, Marc Thompson, Tony A. Thompson, Michael Thorley, Julie Thorndyke, Kozue Uzawa, Geert Verbeke, Ella Wagemakers, Linda Jeannette Ward, Michael Dylan Welch, Liam Wilkinson, Robert D. Wilson, Jeffrey Woodward, An Xiao, Peter Yovu, and Aya Yuhki.
"Take Five is like Dave Brubeck’s famous long jazz piece of the same name: both simple and complex, with varied rhythms that can make fingers snap and hips sway. Beguiling for the beginner and expert alike." — George Swede
"It seems that with every turn—whether it be picking up the latest tanka journal, navigating your way to tanka sites across the web or checking out a new entry from one of the ever-growing number of tanka bloggers—that these small but perfectly formed poems continue to offer us some of the most breathtaking moments in contemporary poetry. It’s nothing short of spellbinding to behold a new tanka, its five-lines engraved in the granite of an ancient form of literature but with all the freshness of a green leaf showing. Today, writers are leaving their tanka ajar—in these brief moments of poetry, anything is possible and everything is welcome—and, as a result, tanka is able to thrive across the globe. As writers of tanka embrace the modern world, the modern world embraces tanka.
Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka succeeds in providing a comprehensive illustration of the state of modern tanka. Here we have a veritable feast of the finest individual tanka, tanka sequences and tanka prose published over the last year, handpicked from every nook and cranny by an editorial board that consists of some of the most highly respected figures in the field. Take Five is, at once, a satisfying digest of quality tanka and an indispensable tanka handbook for new and experienced writers of the form. With an extensive and absorbing introduction from the chief editor of the anthology, M. Kei, the book is not only a literary treat but an essential addition to the poetry shelf of reader and writer alike." —Liam Wilkinson, Editor, 3 Lights Gallery
"Powerful short stories written in five lines—that’s what Take Five is all about. This anthology is not just your tanka wallpaper variety; nearly every piece is a jumpstart for the heart that tells the truth about that four-letter word called ‘Life.’ M. Kei and his team of editors are to be commended—when I was done reading Take Five, for a moment, I didn’t know if I was a woman, a monk or a pelican." —Alexis Rotella, Ed., Prune Juice: Journal of Senryu and Kyoka
About Editors:
M. Kei crews aboard a skipjack, a traditional wooden sailboat used to dredge for oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, the last vessel in North America to fish commercially under sail. Sadly, it is not a profitable way to make a living anymore. The vessel serves as a museum on the water and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Kei has published over 1100 tanka and 300 other short poems during the last few years. His first book was the anthology Fire Pearls: Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart (2006), which he edited. An instant classic, it was followed by Heron Sea, Short Poems of the Chesapeake (2007) and Slow Motion: The Log of a Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (2008), the log he kept in poetic form while making extended cruises aboard a skipjack. He is editor-in-chief of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka.
Sanford Goldstein writes: "As for my own work, I have been a tanka poet for about fifty years. I am called a co-translator of six collections of famous Japanese tanka poets. Even with years of study of Japanese, I could do nothing alone. Two books took five years each, though it was still enjoyable to do the translations. I know what it means to be rejected quite often these 65 years as a writer. So I join in sympathy with those whose tanka have not appeared in our edition."
Pamela A. Babusci is an award winning poet and artist. Some of her awards include: Museum of Haiku Literature Award, Tanka Splendor Awards, First Place Yellow Moon Tanka Competition, First Place Kokako Tanka Competition, Basho Festival Haiku Contest, and HM Suruga Baika Literary Festival. Pamela has illustrated several books, including: Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor Awards, Taboo Haiku, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka and the forthcoming haiku chapbook, Chasing The Sun. She was the logo artist for Haiku North America in NYC in 2003 and Haiku North America in Winston-Salem, NC in 2007. She says poetry & art have been an integral part of her existence since her early teenage years & will continue to be a driving force until she meets her creator.
Patricia Prime retired from teaching pre-school a couple of years ago, but is still involved in relief teaching and working with children at her local school with English as a second language. She is the co-editor of the NZ haiku magazine Kokako, reviews editor of Takahe and Stylus, and assistant editor of Haibun Today. Patricia’s tanka has been published in Modern English Tanka, Atlas Poetica, Eucalypt, Ribbons, moonset, Gusts, 3 Lights Gallery, Kokako, Time Haiku, Presence and Blithe Spirit. Her haiku have been published in several magazines and her haibun have been published in Contemporary Haibun Online and Haibun Today. She has been published, with three other poets, in the haibun collaboration Quartet and is currently working on a tanka prose collaboration with three other poets. Patricia also writes articles, mainstream poetry, annually judges a formal poetry contest, is one of the nominees for the tanka for Gusts, and is on the panel of judges for the Presence Seashell Game.
Bob Lucky holds degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of Washington. He is currently in the online MFA program through the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in various international journals. He has spent stretches of his adult life living and working throughout Asia. Currently, he lives with his wife and son in Hangzhou, China, where he teaches history and makes noise on an assortment of ukuleles.
Kala Ramesh is a musician and haiku poet. Her work, consisting of more than 200 haiku, tanka, senryu, haibun, renku and one-line haiku, have appeared in leading e-zines and anthologies. _kala heads the World Haiku Club in India. As director, she organised the World Haiku Club Meet in Pune in 2006. The four-day 9th World Haiku Festival she organized at Bangalore in February 2008 was sponsored jointly by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji and Sri Ratan Tata Trust. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The World Haiku Review, also she is an in-house editor of poetry in Katha, a leading publishing house in India. _kala is an exponent of both Carnatic and Hindustani Classical Music styles. She has performed professionally in major cities in India.
For media inquiries or to arrange an interview with the author, contact editor-in-chief M. Kei by e-mail at firepearls@verizon.net Publisher information at: www.modernenglishtankapress.com
This book is available from www.Lulu.com/modernenglishtanka and from the publisher. Complete information and mail/email order forms are available online at www.modernenglishtankapress.com Price: $16.95 USD. ISBN 978-1-935398-08-0. Trade paperback. 240 pages, 6.00" x 9.00", perfect binding, 60# cream interior paper, black and white interior ink, 100# exterior paper, full-color exterior ink.
About Modern English Tanka Press:
Modern English Tanka Press (MET Press) is an independent publishing house in Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to producing books and periodicals of lasting literary value, especially poetry. A family business, we treat our customers and partners in publishing like family. We use modern print-on-demand production and distribution methods. Our special mission is to promote the tanka form of poetry and to educate newcomers about this most ancient poetic form.
Contact:
Denis M. Garrison, owner
Modern English Tanka Press
443-802-1249
Email to dmg@themetpress.com
www.themetpress.com www.modernenglishtankapress.com
###
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
1000 Tanka
Today the publication of Modern English Tanka 9 marks an important milestone in my career: I have a thousand tanka in print, with several more to be coming out soon. It's a prodigious quantity of work, and made even more startling when the reader reflects that with a single exception, they were all published between spring of 2006 and now--a span of little more than two years. What is even more astonishing are the changes in the tanka world that have unfolded in that time.
In 2004 when I first attempted to publish (and had a single tanka published in the TSA's member anthology, to find the moon), tanka was wallowing in a straitjacket of japonisme and rule-bound demands regarding form. It must have a pivot, it must be bi-partite, it mustbe autobiographical, it must reek of the stale perfume of old Japan . . . Mine wasn't like that, and after the rejections and admonishments piled up, I decided, "Feh, I wrote for my own pleasure and that of my friends. I'll go back to doing that."
Two years later, the death of my mother and my nephew's suicide were hard blows to carry. I wrote a great deal of tanka. At the same time, I had been serving with the skipjack Martha Lewis for most of a year and found what I loved: the Chesapeake Bay, seen and worked from the deck of an old wooden sailboat. I kept writing, but what changed now was that the charms of Old Japan (that had captured me in my youth, indeed as they have captured many of us) fell away. Confronted with the realities of my own life, both beautiful and terrible, most of the Japanese verse grew brittle and cracked. It was too precious a medium to carry what my eyes saw and my heart felt. It became abundantly clear to me why the waka of Japan had grown increasingly irrelevant until it was the province of a few poetasters and dilettante.
Not all poets writing in English were ensnared this way, but it was hard to find the ones who weren't. I didn't even know the 'tanka world' existed. Joining some email lists again, I decided to try again. I still ran into much of what I had already run into, but this time somebody noticed: Michael McClintock. I recognized the name from having read (and abandoned) haiku, but McClintock, along with a handful of other poets, had stuck in my mind as somebody who wrote poetry that was worth reading, and that was categorically different from the herd. He encouraged me, and Robert Wilson at Simply Haiku published several of my tanka.
Along the way I also met Denis M. Garrison who was finishing the last issue of Haiku Harvest and moving on to a new project. At that time he called it 3 x 5 Poetry Review, but as we corresponded and met in person, the project evolved. While Denis' ideas and work is his own, I like to think our conversations helped to shape his views. The result was that 3 x 5 morphed and became Modern English Tanka, which two years later is hands down the premiere journal of tanka in English.
Feeling my education to be deficient, I had been cramming knowledge of tanka in Japanese and English. I quickly noticed that the average resident of Tankaville was even less knowledgeable than I, and considerably less motivated to rectify that ignorance. They wanted to write and read poetry. As much as I must endorse such a view, it must be coupled with discipline and knowledge to amount to anything that a larger circle of people might want to read. In short, the tanka world was much more of a 'tanka club' at the time.
Accordingly I hatched the notion of creating an anthology that might popularize tanka by presenting to people who were not members of the club, while at the same time, serving to demonstrate to the club just how broad tanka could be. The result was Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart . Denis and Michael supported the project, but when differences of opinion developed over how to manage it, withdrew financial support. I published it out of my own pocket. Denis continued to provide technical assistance, and Michael was instrumental in bringing the work to the attention of poets and readers.
Fire Pearls has sold over 300 copies, which constitutes a bestseller in Tankaland. It has entered the canon of tanka in English, appearing on recommended reading lists, and referenced in other articles. Many of the poets who appeared in it are proud of their participation. But aside from its own achievements, it spurred others. Garrison and McClintock, with proof that 'concept anthologies' worked, launched their own series of projects, published through Modern English Tanka Press. McClintock has dubbed this 'the Little Age of Anthologies,' but what is important to remember is that Denis Garrison is the foundation upon which the anthologies are built. He has been exceptionally generous in supporting worthy ideas, and so other editors, such as Alexis Rotella, have partnered with him to produced anthologies of great size and beauty. Denis' expertise has been tapped by the Tanka Society of America for help in publishing their last member anthology, Sixty Sunflowers .
Publishing a book, even with the benefits of economy offered by new models such as print on demand, is no easy task. It requires a suite of skills involving editing, book design, administration, cover design, layout, computer skills, marketing, distribution, and more. Few individuals possess the full suite; they are usually found in a team. Modern English Tanka Press has prospered, and by doing so, has changed the shape of tanka as we know it.
Denis' immense openness to form and idea has provided a forum that enriches the tanka world. It allows diversity of content and form, idea and counter-idea. The tanka club is no more: it has been replaced by the tanka world. It is a much larger, more inclusive, varied, and lively world than it was before. Truthfully, the tanka world has always been larger than the tanka club that thought itself the be-all and end-all of tanka. My own researches into tanka in English dug up evidence that tanka has been written and published in English since the tail end of the nineteenth century. My Bibliography of English-language Tanka is well over 700 books, chapbooks, journals, and other stand-alone media. (I do not record articles and other short works.) What has happened is that by providing an open forum, it has been possible to inform tanka readership of what has been out there all along, and to forge some connections that have yielded a great understanding and awareness. Tanka the island has become tanka the voyage.
Along the way, new journals have been founded and old journals have folded. New contests have been offered and prizes awarded. In remains to be seen whether the new arrivals will elevate and expand tanka as we know it, or merely provide a haven for the sponsor's particular pleasures. To a certain extent, new arrivals are reacting to the promiscuous publication of Modern English Tanka by staking out territories of their own, more tightly focussed on a narrower set of criteria. This is well and good--tanka thrives when more minds create more venues. The more there are, and the more they differ from each other, the more likely readers and poets are to find green pastures of their own delight.
Denis Garrison has often written about tanka's potential as the new lyric poetry in English. I myself am not so sure that English-speakers in general want a new lyric poetry; but at least some of us do. I do think the audience for tanka is growing and will continue to grow, but I doubt that lyric poetry has the capacity to capture the 21st century imagination that is saturated with videogames, reality television, and the looming disaster of an American economic meltdown. Lyric poetry does not admit works on economic collapse and the romance of the cell phone.
Lyric poetry is out of touch with modern life. Even as it focusses on micro details of that life, it provides an insulation between the reader and the reality. Modern Japanese tanka poets can write about being tear-gassed and arrested by the police, about menstruation and picking up young men half their age, but I have never seen those subjects in English-language poetry. Poets like Dave Bacharach and Andrew Riutta who can write about unpaid mortgages and prostitution do so through the lens of a gritty pastoralism remarkable both for speaking things rarely spoken in tanka and by speaking it through the lyric voice. They say ugly things with beautiful words.
I am as guilty as most and maybe more in my poetry. Lyricism suits my natural voice. I like the lyric world. I see beauty even in hardship. Yet I can't help feeling that I have accomplished a fundamental failure as a poet: I have soothed, instead of roused.
I have written works that are less lyric, more surreal, sharper, and darker. They don't get published. No, not even in Modern English Tanka, the most welcoming of them all. And so, after publishing one thousand tanka, instead of feeling successful, I feel disgruntled. I've felt this way before. More than a decade ago I wrote fiction. After working diligent and enjoying a certain amount of success in that field, I realized that editors were publishing certain sorts of things from me and declining others. The result was that a viewing of my published work gave a very biased view of who I was as a writer. I tried to break through, but couldn't. Editors publish what editors want to publish. I quit writing fiction rather than collude.
As the editor of Atlas Poetica , I have a bully pulpit from which to preach an alternate approach to tanka. It is bearing fruit. The first issue of tanka poetry of place provided an opportunity for poets to publish works which they loved and which readers also loved, but which lead in new directions. In the second issue, we covered new territory as poets began exploring and reporting on family and history, venturing to touch even larger topics, often through the means of tanka prose and tanka sequences that had few opportunities to be published elsewhere. Atlas Poetica was deliberately designed as a large format journal to accommodate such ventures.
Accordingly, I don't plan on going anywhere. Through the means at my disposal I will continue to advocate a larger, more complicated vision of tanka that expresses more of the myriad issues of our lives with innovation and skill. I encourage all poets to challenge themselves to go beyond the easy, the familiar, and the soothing, and I challenge all readers to open themselves to newness, change, and risk. Let tanka grow until it is more than lyric poetry, let it be the lyric of the real world.
~K~
In 2004 when I first attempted to publish (and had a single tanka published in the TSA's member anthology, to find the moon), tanka was wallowing in a straitjacket of japonisme and rule-bound demands regarding form. It must have a pivot, it must be bi-partite, it mustbe autobiographical, it must reek of the stale perfume of old Japan . . . Mine wasn't like that, and after the rejections and admonishments piled up, I decided, "Feh, I wrote for my own pleasure and that of my friends. I'll go back to doing that."
Two years later, the death of my mother and my nephew's suicide were hard blows to carry. I wrote a great deal of tanka. At the same time, I had been serving with the skipjack Martha Lewis for most of a year and found what I loved: the Chesapeake Bay, seen and worked from the deck of an old wooden sailboat. I kept writing, but what changed now was that the charms of Old Japan (that had captured me in my youth, indeed as they have captured many of us) fell away. Confronted with the realities of my own life, both beautiful and terrible, most of the Japanese verse grew brittle and cracked. It was too precious a medium to carry what my eyes saw and my heart felt. It became abundantly clear to me why the waka of Japan had grown increasingly irrelevant until it was the province of a few poetasters and dilettante.
Not all poets writing in English were ensnared this way, but it was hard to find the ones who weren't. I didn't even know the 'tanka world' existed. Joining some email lists again, I decided to try again. I still ran into much of what I had already run into, but this time somebody noticed: Michael McClintock. I recognized the name from having read (and abandoned) haiku, but McClintock, along with a handful of other poets, had stuck in my mind as somebody who wrote poetry that was worth reading, and that was categorically different from the herd. He encouraged me, and Robert Wilson at Simply Haiku published several of my tanka.
Along the way I also met Denis M. Garrison who was finishing the last issue of Haiku Harvest and moving on to a new project. At that time he called it 3 x 5 Poetry Review, but as we corresponded and met in person, the project evolved. While Denis' ideas and work is his own, I like to think our conversations helped to shape his views. The result was that 3 x 5 morphed and became Modern English Tanka, which two years later is hands down the premiere journal of tanka in English.
Feeling my education to be deficient, I had been cramming knowledge of tanka in Japanese and English. I quickly noticed that the average resident of Tankaville was even less knowledgeable than I, and considerably less motivated to rectify that ignorance. They wanted to write and read poetry. As much as I must endorse such a view, it must be coupled with discipline and knowledge to amount to anything that a larger circle of people might want to read. In short, the tanka world was much more of a 'tanka club' at the time.
Accordingly I hatched the notion of creating an anthology that might popularize tanka by presenting to people who were not members of the club, while at the same time, serving to demonstrate to the club just how broad tanka could be. The result was Fire Pearls : Short Masterpieces of the Human Heart . Denis and Michael supported the project, but when differences of opinion developed over how to manage it, withdrew financial support. I published it out of my own pocket. Denis continued to provide technical assistance, and Michael was instrumental in bringing the work to the attention of poets and readers.
Fire Pearls has sold over 300 copies, which constitutes a bestseller in Tankaland. It has entered the canon of tanka in English, appearing on recommended reading lists, and referenced in other articles. Many of the poets who appeared in it are proud of their participation. But aside from its own achievements, it spurred others. Garrison and McClintock, with proof that 'concept anthologies' worked, launched their own series of projects, published through Modern English Tanka Press. McClintock has dubbed this 'the Little Age of Anthologies,' but what is important to remember is that Denis Garrison is the foundation upon which the anthologies are built. He has been exceptionally generous in supporting worthy ideas, and so other editors, such as Alexis Rotella, have partnered with him to produced anthologies of great size and beauty. Denis' expertise has been tapped by the Tanka Society of America for help in publishing their last member anthology, Sixty Sunflowers .
Publishing a book, even with the benefits of economy offered by new models such as print on demand, is no easy task. It requires a suite of skills involving editing, book design, administration, cover design, layout, computer skills, marketing, distribution, and more. Few individuals possess the full suite; they are usually found in a team. Modern English Tanka Press has prospered, and by doing so, has changed the shape of tanka as we know it.
Denis' immense openness to form and idea has provided a forum that enriches the tanka world. It allows diversity of content and form, idea and counter-idea. The tanka club is no more: it has been replaced by the tanka world. It is a much larger, more inclusive, varied, and lively world than it was before. Truthfully, the tanka world has always been larger than the tanka club that thought itself the be-all and end-all of tanka. My own researches into tanka in English dug up evidence that tanka has been written and published in English since the tail end of the nineteenth century. My Bibliography of English-language Tanka is well over 700 books, chapbooks, journals, and other stand-alone media. (I do not record articles and other short works.) What has happened is that by providing an open forum, it has been possible to inform tanka readership of what has been out there all along, and to forge some connections that have yielded a great understanding and awareness. Tanka the island has become tanka the voyage.
Along the way, new journals have been founded and old journals have folded. New contests have been offered and prizes awarded. In remains to be seen whether the new arrivals will elevate and expand tanka as we know it, or merely provide a haven for the sponsor's particular pleasures. To a certain extent, new arrivals are reacting to the promiscuous publication of Modern English Tanka by staking out territories of their own, more tightly focussed on a narrower set of criteria. This is well and good--tanka thrives when more minds create more venues. The more there are, and the more they differ from each other, the more likely readers and poets are to find green pastures of their own delight.
Denis Garrison has often written about tanka's potential as the new lyric poetry in English. I myself am not so sure that English-speakers in general want a new lyric poetry; but at least some of us do. I do think the audience for tanka is growing and will continue to grow, but I doubt that lyric poetry has the capacity to capture the 21st century imagination that is saturated with videogames, reality television, and the looming disaster of an American economic meltdown. Lyric poetry does not admit works on economic collapse and the romance of the cell phone.
Lyric poetry is out of touch with modern life. Even as it focusses on micro details of that life, it provides an insulation between the reader and the reality. Modern Japanese tanka poets can write about being tear-gassed and arrested by the police, about menstruation and picking up young men half their age, but I have never seen those subjects in English-language poetry. Poets like Dave Bacharach and Andrew Riutta who can write about unpaid mortgages and prostitution do so through the lens of a gritty pastoralism remarkable both for speaking things rarely spoken in tanka and by speaking it through the lyric voice. They say ugly things with beautiful words.
I am as guilty as most and maybe more in my poetry. Lyricism suits my natural voice. I like the lyric world. I see beauty even in hardship. Yet I can't help feeling that I have accomplished a fundamental failure as a poet: I have soothed, instead of roused.
I have written works that are less lyric, more surreal, sharper, and darker. They don't get published. No, not even in Modern English Tanka, the most welcoming of them all. And so, after publishing one thousand tanka, instead of feeling successful, I feel disgruntled. I've felt this way before. More than a decade ago I wrote fiction. After working diligent and enjoying a certain amount of success in that field, I realized that editors were publishing certain sorts of things from me and declining others. The result was that a viewing of my published work gave a very biased view of who I was as a writer. I tried to break through, but couldn't. Editors publish what editors want to publish. I quit writing fiction rather than collude.
As the editor of Atlas Poetica , I have a bully pulpit from which to preach an alternate approach to tanka. It is bearing fruit. The first issue of tanka poetry of place provided an opportunity for poets to publish works which they loved and which readers also loved, but which lead in new directions. In the second issue, we covered new territory as poets began exploring and reporting on family and history, venturing to touch even larger topics, often through the means of tanka prose and tanka sequences that had few opportunities to be published elsewhere. Atlas Poetica was deliberately designed as a large format journal to accommodate such ventures.
Accordingly, I don't plan on going anywhere. Through the means at my disposal I will continue to advocate a larger, more complicated vision of tanka that expresses more of the myriad issues of our lives with innovation and skill. I encourage all poets to challenge themselves to go beyond the easy, the familiar, and the soothing, and I challenge all readers to open themselves to newness, change, and risk. Let tanka grow until it is more than lyric poetry, let it be the lyric of the real world.
~K~
Sunday, March 09, 2008
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.
~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.
Wednesday, February 13, 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.
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.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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~
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~
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