hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury
Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!
featured editor: Suraja Menon Roychowdhury December 20, 2023
This month we decided to go with the theme "Know Your Editors": The people responsible for your poems being published. We hope you enjoy their poems and a little about them and their 'tanka journey'. This week we have Suraja Menon Roychowdhury. SMR is fun to be around. I enjoy her wit and humour immensely. Most of all she has a beautiful way with words as you'll witness when you read her tanka and tanka-prose. Here's her "Tanka Journey" in her own words followed by some of her poems she likes:
SMR: I was introduced to tanka about 12 years ago on allpoetry.com (AP), a site that has an active group of poets who are focused on Oriental poetic forms including haiku and tanka. Diane Hemingway, the dean of the poetry school at AP ran a tanka contest. I wrote my first tanka based on her directions, and after reading the articles on tankaonline.com, a wonderful site that unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. I then took the Introduction to Tanka course taught by Andrew Hide, an amazing tanka poet, and was hooked. Over the years I have interacted with many excellent and knowledgeable poets within that group, and was quite satisfied with sharing my poetry and getting some very helpful critiques there. I also started reading more widely, especially the translations of the Man'yōshū, and other classic poets such as Ono no Komachi, Izumi Shikibu and Ryokan. The tanka form, with the upper verse, the bridge, the lower verse, the inner and outer reflections constantly amazes me with the breadth and depth that it can evoke in 5 lines, under 31 syllables ...
I had never thought of submitting anything for publication, but a couple of poets on the site encouraged me to try. I think my first published tanka was in Blithe Spirits in 2018. I admire the poets who publish widely- I never seem to find the time to submit! Anyway, I slowly started sending in tanka and tanka prose and getting published in Oriental Poetry anthologies, CHO, Presence, Drifting Sands, Ribbons etc.
I think it was during the pandemic that I started interacting with Kala, and Triveni. My tanka journey took a leap in 2022 when Kala invited me to be a part of the editorial team on Tanka Take Home alongside her, Firdaus and Priti. I also placed 3rd in the Tanka Society of America's Sanford Goldstein contest, which was a huge honor. Here at TTH, I, as the rest of us, have had the pleasure and honor of interacting with wonderful and experienced tanka poets, as well as my wonderful co-editors. I look forward to continuing this journey, and want to thank Firdaus for creating this opportunity to share my tanka tales 🙂.
brushstrokes
in watercolor as I paint
a tree
breezes drawing fragrance
from the taproot of my family
Ribbons 2023 Dec
Om Shanti
I went to the temple this evening. Not because I was suddenly infused with the need for spirituality, but because I heard that the food in the canteen is pretty good. An authentic South Indian meal isn't that easy to come by in this town...
Hindu temples are like extensions of home. There are several deities, ensuring that everyone can find their dearest representation of the Almighty. People carry on conversations, kids run around, all while the priest chants the evening prayer and someone rings the bell continuously. The air is filled with the scents of incense and flowers - roses, jasmine, marigolds. Interspersed with the scents from the kitchen downstairs. My smile is automatic, instinctive. Several people smile back.
searching
for the meaning of life
I look up...
the stars fade in the glow
of a golden blue moon
Ribbons Dec 2023
too cold now
for the tomato to ripen
this autumn
I remember the stories
that never did come to be
Ribbons Dec 2023
he wraps me
in a paisley pashmina
caressing my smile
his words of admiration
for the fine embroidery
Presence vol 76, 2023
fifty ways
I tried to get rid of you
dandelion...
harder I blow you off
the more often we meet
Failed Haiku May 2023
In My Bones...
It is the one I never knew who fills my mind today. There is only one faded black and white photo of her and my grandfather, both looking stern and unremarkable. But I hear that she was a beauty. That they shared a deep love, and had many children... I haven't heard many stories about her. In fact, I wonder if there's anyone alive today who knew her- she died so long ago.
how strange
this notknowing of someone
within me
all the dreams I fulfilled
were they yours?
Drifting Sands 21, 2023
and finally
when it's her time
she finds
she cannot anymore...
autumn wind
Presence # 75, 2023
Invisible Threads
Fingerling potatoes in three different colors — golden, pale brown, and purple. I lug my bags of groceries to the car parked in the furthest spot possible in a vain attempt to atone for the lack of exercise all winter. It's April, and I'm shivering slightly in my sleeveless top. I'm hopeful, but who are we kidding; this is New England, and it's still chilly.
In my warm kitchen, the lull before dinner . . .
steamed beets
shedding their skin smoothly
in my hands
my grandma's recipe card
written in her hand
CHO
perennial garden -
this long line
of women that stops
at grandmother
in my memories
Ribbons Winter 2023
red lipstick
and bronze eye shadow
at the party
still stealing the show
a single dahlia
Moonbathing 27, 2022
looking through
old photos and letters
reading history
screaming louder than words
the silences
Ribbons Winter 2022
The Meaning of Things
Evening falls sooner now. The light is gentler, the harsh edge of sunlight softened by the stirring breezes. There is an air of completion. The flowers are done blooming. The trees are done being green, although they haven't started turning orange or yellow or red. The rhythm of life, that was suspended by the fierce gaiety and sun worshipping of the northern hemispheres, has resumed. School buses clog the streets in the mornings and afternoons. I slice the first of the pumpkins and make a stirfry. Adding spices, automatically almost, checking for the salt, and waiting. Waiting for something. The old restlessness. An emptiness that has no reason, no name, just a space.
come love
let's walk together
like strangers now
the green of spring
and the dried stalks of summer
CHO Aug 2020; first published. Oriental Prism 2, Yellow Moon Poets ( Publisher, City, State: 2018) Diane Hemingway, ed.
how rare...the miracle
of finding each other
in this vastness
even the blue moon hangs low
for all the world to see
Oriental Poetry 2019, Yellow Moon Poets; Diane Hemingway, ed.
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Important: Since we're swamped with submissions, and our editors are only human, mistakes can happen. Please, please, remember to put your name, followed by your country, below each poem, even after revisions. It really helps our editors; they won't have to type it in, saving them from potential typos. Thanks a ton!
Please also, in case of tanka-art, tell us if it's your own picture or someone else's. We will be unable to accept it otherwise.
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The challenge for this week:
Wow! What a feast of poetry. Suraja, when she gets a breather from being on the judging panel for film festivals, really has a flair with the pen. I'm a little mesmerised especially with "The Meaning of Things" and I invite you to write your poems while I quote SMR's tanka "come love, let's walk together like strangers now... the green of spring and the dried stalks of summer", what better invitation could there be. This week write about two seasons, bring them together as a contrast or comparison. Interpret it as you like. You can always write outside this challenge. Mostly have fun
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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 these themes too.
An essay on how to write tanka: Tanka Flights here
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.
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