TANKA TAKE HOME — 19th November '25 Featuring poet: Reid Hepworth

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

Introducing a new perspective to our  Wednesday Feature!

19th November, 2025

poet of the month: Reid Hepworth

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

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. 

RH:

Oh my gosh, there are so many phenomenal tanka poets that inspire me. Some favourites: Debbie Strange, George Swede, Mary Kendall, Susan Burch, Tom Clausen, Jenny Ward Angyall, Sanford Goldstein…I could go on and on and hate leaving anyone out. I believe every poet brings something beautiful to the table…we can learn so much from each other and we should absolutely celebrate each other.

Writing and Reading: 

In regards to the different genres; I adore writing haibun and tanka-bun; split sequences are also good fun. I find haiku/senryu to be the most challenging for me and feel I have much to learn and improve upon. It’s like anything, practice makes perfect.

I read everything! My nightstand, coffee table and writing nook are covered with piles of haikai poetry. Reading is inspirational and brings my muse out of hiding. She tends to get a bit lazy when I don’t offer her new material to sink her teeth into…so I try my best to keep her happy! 

My favourite tanka book is: 

The Tanka Anthology by Michael McClintock. It is a treasure trove of wonderful work. It’s a must-have book for any tanka poet, as far as I’m concerned. I enjoy reading anthologies as they provide an array of poets and styles. I have a lot of books on the go right now, too lengthy a list to mention. 

More about the poet:

Background:

Reid Hepworth has been enamoured with words and storytelling since childhood. Even though being a writer was a lifelong goal, she didn’t start writing haikai poetry until late 2021. Once she started on the haikai path, she couldn’t stop. 

Since then Reid has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and the Touchstone Awards. She has published a book with Adisakrit Publishing - loss is a river (2024) and her second book again with Adisakrit Publication, the improbability of sea monkeys (is upcoming) 2025. Her work appears in journals and anthologies worldwide. Reid is the current associate editor at Drifting Sands Haibun and a past associate editor of The Haibun Gallery at Triveni Haiku India. 

Reid spent most of her life on the West Coast of British Columbia, Canada and now splits her time between Georgian Bay, Ontario and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. 

Now for Reid's tanka and tanka-prose for the 3rd week:

holding on

to dreams of an alternate

universe

this empty womb

these unfulfilled promises

Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2024, Volume 20, Number 1 

ship masts

in a windstorm

the way

we keep each other

at a distance

Cold Moon, January 2023

paper whites…

I burrow deeply

into memories

searching for anything 

you left behind

Moonbathing, Issue 28

Certain Realities

The roof of our new house is leaking. It starts at the chimney, runs down the walls and pools onto the hardwood floor. The drywall, a wet mess, falls in chunks. My wife and I run around like headless chickens, trying to find buckets that we don’t own.

When I go outside to see if I can find anything resembling a pail, I notice a man painting our new cedar fence. Apparently, the neighbours hired the painter without consulting us and decided day-glow yellow was suitable for the fence we paid for and installed. Sputtering, I can barely convey that we had been planning to let the fence grey out naturally over time. 

Later, I look out the kitchen window to see the painter driving like a bat of hell into our driveway. He neglects to notice our car is parked in the only parking spot and nails it head on, crumpling the rear end. At this point I lose it and run outside yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs.

This is when my wife shakes me awake.

a crow circles 

the robin’s nest

when the life we hold 

most dear 

is threatened, hang on

Failed Haiku, Volume 10, Issue 111

Your Challenge this Week!

We'd love to know your thoughts on Reid's beautiful poems.

I would like to refresh your memory on 'Yūgen': Mysterious Grace

‘Yugen is that feeling you get when you perceive that sense of almost being able to touch that profound reality that underlies existence.’ 

All the poems presented above are striking examples of this most beautiful aspect of Japanese aesthetics. Try your hand at introducing 'yugen' in your tanka and tanka-prose.

Kamo no Chōmei, the author of the well-known Hōjōki (An Account of my Hut, 1212), also wrote about poetry and considered yūgen to be a primary concern of the poetry of his time.

He offers the following as a characterisation of yūgen: “It is like an autumn evening under a colourless expanse of silent sky. Somehow, as if for some reason that we should be able to recall, tears well uncontrollably.”

Another characterisation helpfully mentions the importance of the imagination: “When looking at autumn mountains through mist, the view may be indistinct yet have great depth. Although few autumn leaves may be visible through the mist, the view is alluring. The limitless vista created in imagination far surpasses anything one can see more clearly”

(Hume, 253–54).

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.