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TANKA TAKE HOME - 15 January, 2025 poet of the month – Xenia Tran 

Writer's picture: Priti AisolaPriti Aisola

Updated: Jan 19

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


Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!


poet of the month: Xenia Tran


The Pier at Findochty

 

Most of the sailing boats are on the quayside, masts folded. Fresh paintwork glitters in the morning sun. There is still the odd ice patch, in the shadows of the harbour. A small dog slips as he scampers up the brae.

 

watching over us

a seated fisherman

full of stories

my eyes begin to wander

past the lighthouse, out to sea

 

Ribbons, Winter 2020: Volume 16, Number 1

 

We had the pleasure of asking Xenia a few questions, and she graciously took the time to answer them.

4.

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.

 

Xenia: Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu remain among my favourite tanka poets. The Diary of Izumi Shikibu contains beautiful prose too, sympathetically translated by Earl Miner. I also love Fujiwara Teika’s Superior Poems of Our Time, translated by Robert H Brouwer and Earl Miner, the works by Saigyo, the tanka sequences by Mokichi Saito and the works of Sanford Goldstein. From the living tanka poets, there are so many whose work I love to read, and I always look forward to seeing new voices appear too.

 

I continue to read Irish poetry, I love the way Irish poets use language. Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley, Sinead Morrissey and Gerald Dawe are among my favourites, as well as some beautiful newer voices like Catherine Cullen, Julie Morrissy, Tara Bergin and Gail McConnell. I also love the work of the late Scottish poet Norman McCaig, the lyrical poetry of Carole Coates and the refreshing style of Kim Moore.

 

Brief Bio:

 

Xenia Tran is a poet, artist and photographer who lives in the Scottish Highlands with her husband and their adopted senior border collie Bria. Originally from The Netherlands, she writes in Dutch and English, and her work regularly features in calendars, journals, and anthologies.

 

With an academic background in language and applied linguistics, she later undertook postgraduate studies in creative writing, where her interest in Japanese poetry forms was born.  

 

She loves combining her images and reflections in photo haiku and tanka art and enjoys writing haiku, haibun, tanka, tanka sequences (both solo and collaborative pieces) and tanka prose.

 

She blogs at www.tranature.com and has published two full-length collections: Sharing Our Horizon (2018), in aid of animal rehoming charities, and Between Heather and Grass (2019), in aid of Children with Cancer UK and animal rehoming charities.


Prompt for this week:


Notice the keen observation, the clear images, the economy of words in the very compact piece of tanka prose, which offers a view of the seashore and the sea and nudges us to be receptive to the stories they hold.


Make your tanka suggest a story or write tanka-prose that tells a story through sharply delineated images and language that is simple and lucid.


Give this idea 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 this theme too.


PLEASE NOTE:

1. Post only one poem at a time.

2. Only two 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 300 words) to be considered for inclusion in haikuKATHA monthly magazine.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

482 views223 comments

223 Comments


L. Potts
L. Potts
Jan 26

by Loretta Potts (USA)


eighty year grandma

jailed at abortion clinic

for arms link in prayer

pardoned by President Trump

goes home to hyug grandchildren


(feedback welcome)

Like

so many trees

and fences downed

by the storm

and yet in the brickweave

bright hawkweed flowers


Joy McCall

#2

Feedback, please.

Edited
Like
Replying to

I love the word 'brickweave' here. Beautifully worded.

Edited
Like

#2


raindrops

reflected by the sun's rays

rainbow appears

in a multi-colored world

take me in your blue boat


Fatma Zohra Habis/ Algeria


Feedback welcome 🌺

Like

Minnows


In the hill woods there's a clear rippling stream. I spend a long time on the bank watching the water.

On the far bank there are seven birds picking in the damp earth, getting worms.

I don't know this kind of bird - they are small and very dark.

I'm sitting under a tree. A school of silver minnows is swimming fast upstream.


the water

ripples

with light

and shade

and splashes


There are too many minnows to count, though I love counting.

I watch their hurry as they swim, sometimes darting around rocks and through reeds.

They come to a deeper slower part of the stream.


they rest there

a while, moving slowly

circling

as if they were…


Like
Replying to

Joy, never cares to maintain the two-level structure. Many of hers are sentence tanka.

Like

#2 1/20/2024 Revised: thanks, Rupa late afternoon

a bee circles the spool

on the sill

my mother's needles

threadless in the drawer **** in late afternoon

a bee circles the spool

on the windowsill—

my mother's needles

threadless in the drawer Sandip Chauhan, USA feedback welcome

Edited
Like
Replying to

Thank you, Priti! "threadless needles" suggests that with the mother's absence, the work she once did, mending lives and relationships has ended. The needles, which were once used to weave together broken pieces are now without thread. It reflects a sense of unfinished work and the loss of the care and connection she once provided.

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