TANKA TAKE HOME — 27th May, 2026 Featuring poet: Stacey Dye
- Firdaus Parvez
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury
Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!
27th May, 2026
poet of the month: Stacey Dye
false spring
tricks the larkspur to bloom…
you tease me
with the warmth
of your words
Moonbathing, Spring/Summer 2021
never again
will your name
cross these lips—
some bridges once burned
forever remain ashes
the art of tanka, fall/winter 2023
to you
I am invisible
but surely
you feel me—
I am the wind
Eye to Eye, Tanka Society of America Anthology 2023
loneliness…
it gnaws at my gut
riddling me
with hole after hole
until I am hollow
tanka origins, republished Ribbons, Winter 2021
It's been a wonderful month of beautiful tanka. We thank Stacey warmly for sharing her poems and for her thoughtful responses to our questions.
Q.5
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?
SD: My thoughts on this will probably not be the norm. To anyone wanting to write tanka and to have it published, I’d say, be imaginative. Color outside the lines. Editors are more and more accepting of poetry that is not strictly written in the traditional format. A casual adherence to the original format is what I most often see. It looks like original formatting on the page but the syllable count on each line in not restrictive. I’d suggest minimizing lines to seven syllables though. Occasionally I run into a situation where nothing will do but eight syllables. I just hold my breath and go for it! It’s important to stay true to yourself and your work. The tanka should have some sort of impact. I think it should make the reader “feel” something. An emotional component is always nice. Just be creative. Be you.
As far as functioning as an editor, I’ve never served in that capacity. If I were to, the suggestions above would catch my eye.
Q.6
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?
SD: I like to workshop some of my poetry on Inkstone. There are many exceptional poets there and it’s always good to have other eyes on my work. I’m always open to the opinions of others on my tanka.
About the poet in her own words:
I’ve loved words forever. I collect them on rocks, jewelry and tokens. I began to write poetry over ten years ago. I started with free verse and ultimately found I loved tanka. It is a wonderful release for my feelings and emotions. I live in South Georgia, USA with my husband Dennis, my cat Frankie and dog Happy.
Your Challenge this Week:
Each tanka takes you through a different emotion: there's love, then anger, a dare, then despair. Where will your muse lead you this week?
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.
TP#1 - 28/05/26
Gone Too Soon
I wept at his funeral, a man I hardly knew. He was in the midst of leaving the city for a more harmonious existence on the land and was keen to attend my yoga classes. He had been thrilled he could have that opportunity in a place that is off the beaten track. We often spoke about the importance of being present, that yoga is so much more than asana practice. Having lived a fulfilling life as husband and father, he now yearned for santosha. I learned from his family he had a black belt in jiujitsu, and was both an avid sailor and bike enthusiast.
in which direction
do the winds of change blow
canning applesauce
memories return
at room temperature
we work side-by-side
steaming the windows
Marilyn Ashbaugh , USA
image/tanka
#1
Fault-Lines
The ocean bed holds a seam ready to burst. Bubbles so deep they go unnoticed. The untrained eye skims the tide with that sway of rolling blue. The earth too is riddled with cracks, like an old teacup patched together with mis-matched roses. A lip rises to the rim, with no clue of what swirls in the leaves. Now turn to the sky, a turnstile of clouds and starlight. Farther still, through the darkness, above all the visibility – comets trail, whole galaxies within a child’s wonder-scope. Then here we sit, without this imagination. Two souls in silence, eyes averted back to the ground. No room here for a bridge in a river of lost hearts.
It's been lovely to see Stacey's poems on here.
#1
The Leftovers
I told myself I wouldn’t look. Around midnight, the screen glows with pictures from the party I skipped. Everyone is there, laughing in blurry, neon-lit rooms. My phone lies silent on the kitchen table beside a half-eaten pizza and a cold cup of tea.
typing a comment
then deleting it again...
the muted television
casts long blue shadows
across my empty room
Jacek Margolak, Poland