TANKA TAKE HOME — 10th June, 2026 Featuring poet: Tracy Davidson

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

Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!

10 June, 2026

poet of the month: Tracy Davidson

bones sticking out 

at awkward angles 

yet she sees 

a fat girl in the mirror 

despite what the doctors say

Femku, Issue 28, January 2024 

comfort blanket 

the one well-chewed corner 

I return to 

being trapped 

in my shyness 

Take 5ive, Childhood Memories, 2023 

cold silence 

in the classroom 

the boy too bland 

for bullies to notice 

leaves an empty chair 

Honourable Mention, British Haiku Society Awards 2023 

breaching the wall 

of brotherhood 

one woman's word 

against a man's... 

when will it be enough 

Atlas Poetica, Borders without Boundaries, 2019

eyes closed 

against the glare 

of desert sun 

she waits 

for the first stone 

(Ribbons, Fall/Winter 2011) 

We thank Tracy warmly for sharing her poems and for her thoughtful responses to our questions.

Q2.

TTH: How did you get started as a poet? What was it about tanka that inspired you to embrace this ancient form of poetry? In short, why do you keep writing tanka?

TD: I don't remember writing much poetry at school. When I started work, I sometimes found myself writing silly little rhyming poems about people and things going on in the office. I sent a few more general ditties to women's magazines, some of which ran the occasional poetry competition. I was delighted when poet Pam Ayres once picked one of mine as a runner-up. 

It wasn't until my Mum got sick, and I ended up giving up work to help look after her, that I wrote poetry regularly. I stumbled across haiku almost accidentally, back when I still thought it was a set 5-7-5. Attending a haiku workshop run by Stanley Pelter opened my eyes to writing more freely. I read haiku journals, many of which included tanka, and became addicted to both. Short forms have always appealed to me more than longer ones. Even though shorter ones often take much longer to write! Being able to say a lot within a few words, sometimes leaving things open to interpretation by the reader, is a satisfying challenge. Sometimes, a frustrating one! 

More about the poet:

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet's Market, Mslexia, Modern Haiku, Femku, A Hundred Gourds, The Binnacle, Black Hare Press, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights. 

Your Challenge this Week:

I chose to pool these tanka together because they have a common thread: the way society is built around us and how it suffocates. What makes you angry or annoys you? Tell us about it.

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.