TANKA TAKE HOME — 29th October '25 Featuring poet: Marilyn Shoemaker Hazelton

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.