TANKA TAKE HOME — 22nd April 2026 Featuring poet: Pravat Kumar Padhy

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

Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!

22nd April 2026

poet of the month: Pravat Kumar Padhy

Crown Shyness

I came across the phrase ‘Crown shyness’ recently while reading a journal for children narrating the environment and Mother Earth. As such the tree remains one of my literary pearls. I often use a tree as a metaphor  –  Like a monk, it is determined/In its root of meditation /Like a river, it adheres/To its mission of union.…So deep is its root/Like depth of love and truth …So calm its heart/ Like mid ocean’s water…. When it smiles/ Spring arrives.

Scientist says that canopy shyness is related to photosensitivity and 

it could be attributed to avoiding any abrasion or lateral damage due to wind and thus creating a space in between.

I discover the play of hide and seek under the soothing blue sky along with the refreshing green.

in the dense forest

I walk on the narrow trail 

and gasp the fragrance

komorebi

the splendor of crown shyness

Contemporary Haibun Online 20.2 August 2024 (Ed Tish Davis)

Floating Time

Long gone are the days. Early dawn in the village starts with the morning prayer march, chanting aloud and making the air soothingly vibrant. My grandma sprinkles cow-dung water on the narrow path in front of our house to make it clean.

She takes a handful of chalk powder and draws floor art (Jhoti Chita)  designs that closely resemble the modern nuclear logo marker and other geometrical outlines, so pristine and perfect. Indeed it is a great artistic display like an embroidery! I patiently observe, afterwards, she holds my hand and takes me back to the house. We used to have early baths in the village pond and she worships the morning sun offering water from the copper container.

In the breakfast, she offers me sweet potatoes roasted overnight in the burnt remnant ashes of the mud chulha (clay stove). Later she sits with me for lessons and listens to how I read loudly, and often she corrects in between. When I ask out of fun, she smiles and says she has never attended school.

floating clouds

with no support

the sky holding 

carefully in her womb

the tiny drops of tender rains

Contemporary Haibun Online 21.1 April 2025 (Ed. Tish Davis)

We thank Pravat Kumar Padhy warmly for sharing his poems and for his thoughtful responses to our questions.

Q5. 

TTH: Can you give any advice to someone wanting to write and publish tanka? As an editor what are you looking for in a tanka that makes it most likely to get published? 

PKP: Dennis M. Garrison writes, “Definition of English tanka is that it is “five phrases on five lines.” It is essential that the five phrases be cohesive, not just a list. The five lines must be integrated into a unified poem. The fifth line should be a strong line; the strongest.” One should be honest in writing and carefully cultivate the essential elements of different genres. Newcomers should familiarize themselves with the rich history of Japanese short-form poetry. The art of image building in the two strophes (upper and lower parts of a tanka) and the interrelationship with a twist make a tanka different from the conventional five-line free verse. The serenity of the juxtaposition of the outer world and human aspects needs to blend, in its brevity of expression, language, simplicity, and resonance. Tanka spreads its fragrance through its resonance, the myriad of beauty and sensibility, and the unique art of ‘link and shift’ within the short poetic framework of 5 lines. The renowned poet an’ya opines, “In Japanese waka/tanka, what's important is not only what is said, but also what is left unsaid…” The poet needs to facilitate the reader to visualize the growth of a blooming tree out of the seed of brevity of poetry.

Q6.

TTH: Do you show your work in progress to anyone, or is it a solitary art that you keep close to your chest before letting it go for publishing?

PKP: I occasionally share poems and essays with my friends, Ce Rosenow, Pamela Garry , Neena Singh and Colleen M. Farrelly.

About the poet:

Pravat Kumar Padhy, based in Bhubaneswar, India, obtained his Master of Science and a Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, ISM Dhanbad. He is a mainstream poet and a writer of Japanese short forms of poetry. His poem “How Beautiful” is included in the university-level undergraduate curriculum. He served as a panel judge of “The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems” and haibun and haiga editor, ‘Under the Bashō. ’ His tanka appeared in the “Kudo Resource Guide” at the University of California, Berkeley, and was put to rendition in the Musical Drama Performance, “Coming Home,” at the International Opera through Art Songs in Toronto, Canada. He introduced new forms of poetry: Hainka: a fusion of haiku and tanka,  Braided Haiku and  Micro-Haiga (One-word Haiku). His essays on haiku and tanka are featured in Indian Literature, Frogpond, Presence, Drifting SandS Haibun, The Wise Owl and Juxtapositions (forthcoming).

He is one of the jury members of “Wind on the Cherry Blossoms Haiku Project,  “Associazione Culturale” Rami d'Oro, Italy ( 2026).

Your Challenge this Week:

What a lovely thing the poet introduces to us to. If you don't know already, you should go look up "crown shyness", it's a very interesting phenomenon. Your challenge for the week is to go outside and observe a tree and write about it. Let's see where that leads you...

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.