TANKA TAKE HOME — 29th October '25 Featuring poet: Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton
- Firdaus Parvez
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
hosts: Firdaus Parvez, Kala Ramesh, Priti Aisola & Suraja Menon Roychowdhury
Introducing a new perspective to our Wednesday Feature!
October 29th, 2025
poet of the month: Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton
overnight
the leafing returns
to this dying oak
beneath my hand
such desire for spring
tinywords Issue 11.2
Basho's crow
under an endless sky
from that bare branch
calls to the poet
look up! now! now!
International Tanka
Nov. 16 2024
Learning to Wait
On our last trip to Japan, my husband and I flew 6,700 miles to Narita International Airport. The next morning, we boarded the Shinkansen to Kyoto. An hour or so out of Tokyo, I stood between the train's cars near our seats and held my camera up to the window for what seemed a very long time. I was hoping for a photo of Mt. Fuji. Suddenly, the mountain rose above clouds in stunning contrast to power lines and high-rise buildings. And I clicked the shutter.
as if
from another era ~
with Fuji-san
overlooking the train
a child again, I looked back
The Tanka Journal, 2016 No. 49
Marilyn, we thank you warmly for sharing your poems and for your thoughtful responses to our questions.
About the poet:
Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton is a poet and essayist. Living in diverse parts of the United States as well as Thailand, Hong Kong, Spain and France has sharpened her sense of the need for poetry in this world. As a teaching artist, she approaches poetry as a path for empathy, understanding, and awareness. As a veteran of the War in Southeast Asia, survivor of an abusive first marriage, and a bereaved parent, she believes that creative acts can lift us from despair.
Currently, Marilyn lives and works in Allentown, Pennsylvania with her husband of fifty years and two cats. Until recently, she was the editor and publisher of red lights, an international tanka journal. Her writing has appeared in Haiku, moonbathing, Skylark, Bright Stars, Take Five (volumes 2,3 4), The Sacred in Contemporary Haiku, Beyond the Grave, The Tanka Journal and tinywords.
Your Challenge this Week:
We thank Marilyn for a wonderful month of inspiring poetry. This week there is no prompt, you can write whatever you want. Write. Read. Enjoy!
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.
#2 05/11
smoke streaks
across the autumn sky
in the end
he left
without goodbye
Fatma Zohra Habis/Algeria
Feedback welcome 🌹
Post #2
4.11.25
Revised thanks to Tejendera
war zone
hospital corridors resound
with screams
faraway temple bells ring
reaffirming my faith in god
Mona Bedi
India
Feedback appreciated:)
Original:
hospice corridors
resound with screams
sitting
alone in my doctor’s cabin
I mull over the existence of god
Mona Bedi
India
Feedback appreciated:)
#1.....3/11/25
Tidework
The fisherman squats in the wind, threading fine twine through the torn mesh. No word passes between us. The tide keeps its slow argument with the shore. A gull lifts, then drops from sight.
walking the beach
I scatter my questions
to the tide
and gather what’s left
to stitch myself whole
Nalini Shetty
India
feedback welcome
#2, 3/11
a snake-charmer
controls the snake with his pungi
my slithering mind
clouded with
me and mine
Lakshmi Iyer, India
feedback welcome
#2 Edited
(Gratefully with Joanna Ashwell and Kanjini Devi.)
First Win
I usually don't gamble. It's a Dashain* day here in Nepal. I go out for shopping in my town. My attention is drawn to a crowd of cheering people at a square. I walk closer. People are watching the dice games. The shooter rolls the dice in the bucket with loud crackling sound. The on-lookers' eyes follow it. He throws the dice up in the air. They really fly higher. He holds the bucket up waiting for them to fall. After few seconds, all the dices drop into the bucket. Then he overturns the bucket on a tarp. People start placing their bets. I'm fascinated by his style of rolling the dice.