TANKA TAKE HOME — 21 May 2025 Poet of the Month: Lafcadio

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

Introducing a new perspective to our  Wednesday Feature!

poet of the month: Lafcadio

Instead of using her real name, Lafcadio  adopted a pen name when she started writing on social media. She was a special education teacher but now works at home writing, editing, and proofreading medical textbooks and journal articles.

Lafcadio has written poetry for many years. In the last few years she discovered Japanese micropoetry.  So now she spends her time writing haiku, senryu, tanka and haibun.  Her work has been published in journals and anthologies. Some of her poetry has been nominated for Touchstone and Best of the Net awards. Lafcadio grew up in Florida and now enjoys the mountains and seasonal changes of Tennessee. She is an avid pluviophile.

4.

TTH: Who are your favorite 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. 

Lafcadio: The first tanka book I read was Tangled by Akiko Yosano. I fell in love with her poems and her spirit. It was a life-changing experience. Some of the other tanka poets I enjoy are Michael McClintock, Tom Clausen, Sanford Goldstein, an'ya, Jane Reichhold, Debbie Strange and Masaoka Shiki.  I'm sure there are more. I write and read all kinds of poetry including haiku, senryu, tanka, surreal, and free verse. Some of the books I've enjoyed (Don't worry I won't list them all) are Tanka Left Behind by Sanford Goldstein, This Short Life by Sanford Goldstein, The Unworn Necklace by Roberta Beary, The Essential Rumi, Essential Bukowski, Questions About Angels by Billy Collins, Romaji Diary and Sad Toys by Takkuboku Ishikawa, Warp and Weft by Debbie Strange, Yanty's Butterfly: Haiku Nook: An Anthology, Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women, The Lunatic by Charles Simic, and January by M. Kei (and many more).

eventide...

a carousel of horses

stampede

into a dark meadow

lit by falling stars

ten thousand

cherry blossoms

floating

I wonder where

your ashes are now

Editor's Choice, Moonbathing 28, Spring/Summer 2023

Neverending Story Blog, September 10, 2023

Originally. L1 was one million but it was changed to ten thousand when Chen-ou suggested I follow this tradition:

'This allusive, symbolically rich phrase, "ten thousands," is often found in classical tanka; such as "The Man'yōshū (万葉集, literally Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves)," the oldest extant collection of Japanese waka/tanka.'

We thank you very warmly Lafcadio for sharing your lovely poems. We are enjoying your poems this month!

Challenge for this week:

Such evocative imagery in both tanka... The first one takes your breath away as you imagine a herd of horses in the semi darkness in a starlit meadow. A carousel of horses bring fairgrounds to mind, with light and cheer and laughter. The second tanka is bittersweet- the ephemeral beauty of cherry blossoms floating on a water body where perhaps the ashes of a loved one were immersed.

Both tanka have used words or phrases that feel classical. Eventide- not a word that is used outside of poetry, methinks. And as Chen-ou Liu has pointed out, 'ten thousands' is a phrase that was often used in classical waka/tanka.

This week we invite you to write tanka using a word or phrase that is not is common usage, and yet not too archaic that we are left scratching our heads. As an exercise in warming up, read some of the classical tanka from the Man’yōshū 万葉集 for inspiration . Here is a link: https://www.wakapoetry.net/poems/anthologies/manyoshu-%E4%B8%87%E8%91%89%E9%9B%86/

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.

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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A Disclaimer

Responsibility for the originality of the haikai rests solely with the submitting poet. 

Should anyone feel it is similar to another haikai, they are encouraged to directly reach out to the concerned poet.

Triveni Haikai India will take action, if any, on the recommendation of the submitting poet.

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