TANKA TAKE HOME — 10th December '25 Featuring poet: Michele L. Harvey

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

Introducing a new perspective to our  Wednesday Feature!

10th December, 2025

poet of the month: Michele L. Harvey

I can hear them

crashing through the underbrush

and breaking branches

those imps of unbridled ire

who bide in my monkey mind

Red Lights, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2020

do not fret

over living a quiet life

silence

is what every note needs

to make music

Eucalypt Issue 34, 2023, Scribble Award win

Michele, we thank you warmly for sharing your poems and for your thoughtful responses to our questions.

Q3.

TTH: How do you develop a tanka? Please guide us through the stages of a poem.

Michele: As a visual artist I generally, start with an image or idea. It can come from anywhere: nature, an overheard remark, someone’s story, the news or my varied interests &

experience. Anything & all can be subject. That’s one of the true beauties of tanka. I

always carry a pad & pen, to jot down random ideas.

Q4.

TTH: Who are your favourite tanka poets? In addition to tanka what other genres of

poetry do you write or read? Tell us about some of the books you've enjoyed.

Michele: There’s too many inspiring poets to name, with always new ones to discover.

I appreciate poets for their differing gifts. Top contemporary favorites would be: Michael

McClintock, Claire Everett, An’ya, Tom Clausen, LeRoy Gorman, Kirsty Karkow, Kala

Ramesh, Andrew Riutta, George Swede, John Stevenson, Karma Tenzing Wangchuk,

Linda Jeanette Ward and many more.

More about the poet:

Michele's career has been as a professional landscape artist, painting in both oil & watercolor since 1976, in New York, USA. 

Your Challenge this Week!

The two tanka are talking about opposite things: noise — anger in one's head but then also the goodness of silence. Let us know your thoughts on them. The challenge for this week is 'sound'; it can be noise, it can be silence. Take it where your muse leads. Have fun!

And remember – tanka, because of those two extra lines, lends itself most beautifully when revealing a story. And tanka prose is storytelling.

Give these ideas some thought and share your tanka and tanka-prose with us here. Keep your senses open, observe things that happen around you and write. You can post tanka and tanka-prose outside of these themes as well.

PLEASE NOTE

1. Post only one poem at a time, only one per day.

2. Only 2 tanka and two tanka-prose per poet per prompt.

Tanka art, of course, if you want to.

3. Share your best-polished pieces.

4. Please do not post something in a hurry or something you have just written. Let it simmer for a while.

5. Post your final edited version on top of your original verse.

6. Don't forget to give feedback on others' poems.

We are delighted to open the comment thread for you to share your unpublished tanka and tanka-prose (within 250 words) to be considered for inclusion in the haikuKATHA monthly magazine.